Reeeelax, you guys — there's no new construction on the Beltline happening just yet. City workers digging up rail lines on "the other side" of Irwin Street stoked the imaginations of more than a few curious passersby Thursday, but, alas, Curbed has been assured that it wasn't quite what it looked like. Thursday's work was not ahead-of-schedule digging on the current trail's next leg, which is slated to begin after the Edgewood Avenue bridge is completed sometime early next year. "We are doing routine maintenance to the roadway in response to a community request," said Valerie Smith-Bell, the city's public works spokeswoman. "The area is just outside of the actual Beltline project."
When construction does resume on the Beltline, the next stretch (which is reportedly fully funded) will extend from the aforementioned Irwin Street down to DeKalb Avenue. After that, the logistics get hairier. Officials are thinking the best way to proceed south would be through the Krog Street Tunnel, then along Wylie Street and, just before Flat Shoals Avenue, back into the railroad corridor and down to Memorial Drive.
While the work hasn't begun on any of that quite yet, Smith-Bell did say Thursday's city work did have at least a small connection to the Beltline: "We are preserving the old rails and giving them to the Beltline group for storage."
— By Curbed Atlanta contributor Tyler Estep
Loading comments...