Stop Eastside Beltline rail in its tracks. It no longer makes sense.

Let’s start with what is irrefutable. Modes of public transit are simply means to an end.

The end objective is enabling people to get from point A to point B as expeditiously and economically as possible.

The existing and near-future options for doing so are plentiful. They include buses, shuttles, Uber and Lyft.

Moreover, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the busiest airport in the world, is in the beginning stages of deploying driverless pods, whereas the Cumberland District is implementing driverless shuttles near Truist Park.

Not to be outdone, driverless shuttles are even coming to connect southwest Atlanta to the Beltline itself.

Cost and disruptions are reasons enough to go in another direction

Credit: Handout

Credit: Handout

Any one of these options would be far less expensive and intrusive than rail, not to mention more reliable. For the second time in a little more than two years, the existing downtown trolley has been pulled from service while it undergoes repairs. During the interim, the city is using shuttles as a replacement. Does anyone see the irony here?

Even when it was functioning, the trolley chugged along with hardly any passengers and hemorrhaged money.

Speaking of a money dump, the proposed 2.3-mile Eastside Beltline rail, which is supposed to link up with the now shutdown trolley, originally carried a price tag of $230 million and has likely ballooned to more than $300 million now. (Rail for the whole Beltline is estimated to cost between $3 billion and $4 billion.)

Beyond that, its operating costs would far exceed that of other transportation options.

Yet the rail folks seem to want rail because it is, well, rail. That is, to them rail is not a means to an end; it’s an end in itself.

Moreover, their argument that it was part of an original plan from decades ago from which no deviation is permitted lacks logic. What ought to matter is whether the plan makes sense today. It doesn’t — if for no other reason than because it ignores the transformative changes that have occurred there in the interim.

Dickens, who paused Eastside project, was overwhelmingly reelected

Credit: Riley Bunch/AJC

Credit: Riley Bunch/AJC

You don’t need to be an engineer to know that plotting rail under existing bridges and around standing commercial properties makes solving some abstruse mathematical theorem seem like child’s play by comparison.

We also hear the complaint that several millions have already been spent in planning for the eastside rail and that abandoning it now would be money wasted.

While that’s unfortunate, it’s not nearly as unfortunate as would be the case if hundreds of millions were spent on a white elephant.

Finally, back to the hue and cry. One might be tempted to think that the noisy crowd in favor of rail represents a majority of Atlantans. Really?

Consider that Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens faced strong opposition and vitriolic comments on social media last year for pausing work on the Eastside Beltline rail. The consequences? He won reelection in November with 85% of the vote.

Let’s stop the “rail now” nonsense in its tracks and allow common sense to intervene.

Jay Miller is a semiretired attorney and a supporter of Better Atlanta Transit, a group of citizens working toward equitable and sustainable mobility for all Atlantans.