Beneath your feet runs a 22-mile loop of old railroad corridors, once abandoned freight tracks now reborn as the most transformative infrastructure project in Atlanta's history. The BeltLine follows a 22-mile loop of former railroad corridors that encircled Atlanta's urban core — tracks that had been abandoned as freight patterns changed and that sat as underused industrial edges for decades. In 2001, Georgia Tech urban planning graduate student Ryan Gravel wrote a master's thesis proposing that the rail loop be converted into a multi-use trail with streetcar connections and transit service.
The idea eventually attracted political and philanthropic support, and construction began in 2012. Today the trail is largely complete and carries tens of thousands of walkers, runners, and cyclists through 45 neighborhoods that were previously disconnected from each other by the rail corridors. The BeltLine has also generated billions of dollars in private development, dramatically increased property values in adjacent neighborhoods, and sparked intense debate about gentrification and displacement.
The trail you are standing on connects communities that never met before; it has also driven up rents in neighborhoods where longtime residents can no longer afford to live. Atlanta is working through both truths simultaneously.