BeltLine Economic Development Factoid

30,000 new jobs are expected to be created in the BeltLine area in the next 20-25 years. This job increase is 50 percent greater than what would be created without the BeltLine. In addition, during the development of the BeltLine, 48,000 construction jobs will be created.

"I have a favorite saying about transportation: 'If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.' It sounds obvious, but when I make this point to audiences around the country, it's a real eye-opener. They love it. The power of this simple idea is that it reflects basic truths that are rarely acknowledged. One such truth is that more traffic and road capacity are not the inevitable result of growth. They are in fact the product of very deliberate choices that have been made (for us, not by us) to shape our communities around the private automobile. We as a society have the ability to make different choices--starting with the decision to design our streets as comfortable places for people..."

--Fred Kent, Project for Public Spaces

"When you look at the Beltline, the construction of a streetcar would be so simple. I think transit will be an integral part of it, and I think it's going to come a lot quicker than people anticipate. You can't have density without transit."

- Developer Wayne Mason, who owns and plans to redevelop a key swath of land from I-85 to DeKalb Avenue along the rail line formerly owned by Norfolk-Southern and known as the Beltline