MARTA Approves $1.16 Billion Clifton Corridor Light Rail Project

MARTA's board of directors approved Monday a $1.16 billion plan to lay .

The ambitious plan, which could take an additional eight years of planning and testing before construction begins, could dramatically change transportation in the neighborhoods north of Decatur.

Those areas are already choked with traffic during morning and evening rush hour. One stop on the line would be .

The Clifton Corridor Transit Initiative Facebook page provides this route for the rail line, which would run through tunnels and elevated sections: From Lindbergh Center Station it would extend southeast along the CSX rail line through the CDC/Emory University area to Clairmont Road at North Decatur Road. The line would extend south to Scott Boulevard, where it would run north, then east along North Decatur Road to DeKalb Industrial Way. There it would extend south then west onto East College Avenue and end at the Avondale Station.

Details from the approved plan include 8.8 miles of light rail double track, including tunnels and elevated sections and 10 platforms at the following stops:

• Lindbergh Center (transfer to Red or Gold lines)
• Cheshire Bridge
• Sage Hill
• CDC/Emory Point
• Emory-Rollins
• Emory-Clairmont
• North Decatur
• Suburban Plaza
• DeKalb Medical Center
• Avondale Station (transfer to the Blue Line)

The plan would also consider a Piedmont stop for transfer to the BeltLine and two other stops at DeKalb Industrial and North Arcadia. 

MARTA is looking for federal grants and other money, but they're hoping taxpayers will provide the majority of the funding.

The project could get $700 million on July 31 if voters approve a one-cent, regional sales tax that would pay for the line's first phase from Lindbergh Station to the CDC/Emory area. The remainder would likely come from grants.

Monday's vote was significant, MARTA officials said. But many more approvals await the project as MARTA faces its own bugetary pressures and is planning service cutbacks.

"[The vote] was significant from the point that now we can move to the next step," said Cheryl King, MARTA's assistant general manager for planning.

Even though the transportation authority is facing an austere budgetary situation, King said it was important for MARTA – due to the extraordinary amount of time it takes to get these projects built – to plan as far as a decade ahead even if that means approving highly priced projects now.

"We gotta plan now for the future," she said. "A lot of our planning work is paid for with federal grants, and it can only be used for that purpose."