Atlanta City Council wants say in More MARTA projects moving forward

That decision, on a More MARTA priority project, was first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January, after examining public documents that revealed the vote that was taken by a little-known committee that does not hold meetings open to the public.

Council members raised those complaints again this week in committee meetings where they grilled executives from both MARTA and the Atlanta Beltline about the halted Eastside project and the agencies’ transit plans going forward.

Alex Wan, chairman of the council’s Transportation Committee, said during Wednesday’s meeting that he would like to amend the intergovernmental agreement to require the council to sign off on any changes to the More MARTA project priority list. Currently, that authority is held solely by the MARTA board of directors.

“There is definitely appetite on our side to do that,” Wan said.

Other council members made similar requests, including Thomas Worthy, a new council member who served on the MARTA board until last August. Worthy said the governing document “needs to be improved drastically.”

City, MARTA and Beltline officials have said the May 2025 committee vote to “stop all current Streetcar East Extension project activity/spending” was actually just a pause that did not require the MARTA board’s approval.

They have also argued that stopping work was prudent, given conversations around reprioritizing projects that began when Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens announced a desire to start light rail construction on the Southside trail instead of the Eastside.

Clyde Higgs, the Beltline CEO, told council members on Tuesday that “the spirit” of the May 2025 vote was to redirect energy to Southside light rail plans. Higgs serves on the joint committee and made the motion to stop the work.

“That’s the bottom line of it,” he said.

Council members and the public have expressed frustration over the decision, saying it betrays the will of voters who approved the More MARTA sales tax with the expectation that the first round of light rail construction would extend the existing Atlanta Streetcar to the Beltline and then along it to Ponce City Market.

MARTA interim CEO Jonathan Hunt acknowledged the desire for more public updates on the joint group’s work and told council members what he told MARTA board members earlier this month — that he will begin giving monthly public updates.

Hunt, who was not in the top job at the time of the vote, said there wasn’t public disclosure to the MARTA board at the time because MARTA was in a period of “turmoil and turnover.” Shortly after the vote took place, the transit agency’s CEO at the time stepped away from the job before ultimately resigning.

Hunt, who has said restoring trust in MARTA is one of his top goals as interim CEO, told council members he will operate differently and more transparently. He said project delivery is important to him and that since taking the reins as interim, he’s “lit a fire” under the capital programs department.

Many of the public comments to council and the MARTA board have taken aim at the pace of project delivery. Not a single More MARTA project has been delivered in the nearly 10 years since voters approved the half-penny sales tax for transit expansion. The first project to come online will be the Summerhill rapid bus line later this year.

“We’re about to see the fourth resequencing of the More MARTA program without a single transit project being delivered,” Beltline Rail Now Chair Matthew Rao told council members. In public comments Wednesday, Rao also urged the body to push for greater control in a new intergovernmental agreement.

“When the intergovernmental agreement between MARTA and the city was written, there were many who said that the City Council should have a role and have a voice,” he said. “What we’re finding out today is that could never be more true.

“It is you who are accountable. It is you who do things in public and not private, and that is the ingredient that is missing right now.”

Lauren Welsh, co-founder of the urban advocacy group ThreadATL, told council members the decision has eroded public trust. She said there’s a harmful pattern of decision-making behind closed doors.

“It seems like we’ve just got constant chaos and miscommunication and misunderstanding and finger-pointing,” Welsh said in public comments Wednesday.

Many council members’ questions centered on what’s next, to both Hunt on Wednesday and Higgs on Tuesday.

Council members pressed for a timeline to complete the project reprioritization that officials have said prompted the stop-work vote. They also asked what’s been done to advance Southside plans.

But neither Hunt nor Higgs could give a timeline for when to expect a new list.

Notes from meetings of the governance committee throughout last year show multiple requests by MARTA to the city for a list of priorities. In a copy of draft notes from the December meeting received by the AJC through an open records request, city officials said they would be prepared to share that information in February or early March. The committee has not met this month.

Hunt told council members that MARTA is working with the mayor’s office.

Higgs, when asked Tuesday by Councilmember Kelsea Bond to identify who was holding up the process, said the decision on how to move forward was up to the MARTA board.

“Ultimately, it’s MARTA’s responsibility to advance the prioritization of our project,” Higgs said. “It is on MARTA. Beltline is going to be the city’s implementation agent at the end of the day, but ultimately it’s going to require MARTA to vote on this.”