Mayor Andre Dickens now has company in his push to slow down MARTA's $230 million overhaul of Five Points Station. A.J. Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress and the Downtown Atlanta Improvement District, has added his voice to the mayor's call for a pause, describing the renovation plan as "deeply flawed." Robinson said the agency's unwillingness to halt the plan was another example of what he called its "lack of accountability to taxpayers and riders."
The mayor moved first. Axios was the first to report that Dickens wrote to MARTA CEO Collie Greenwood on June 6, asking for more information after reviewing preliminary findings from an ongoing audit of More MARTA, the sales tax that funds the Five Points makeover along with the agency's other future projects. Dickens asked that the work wait "until we are in receipt of the final report and engage in subsequent discussions together to determine the best possible path forward for MARTA and the City of Atlanta."
He also pointed to calculation errors turned up by the audit. Those errors, Dickens said, could require MARTA to pay $59.9 million covering 2017 through 2021 back into its expansion program, and possibly more. The complete audit is expected in July.
MARTA's response
Greenwood answered the mayor in a letter, which the Atlanta Journal-Constitution obtained on Monday, saying the renovation would go forward. The project had been scheduled to begin in July. In the letter, Greenwood wrote that MARTA had "worked through all necessary agreements with our partners at the Federal Transit Administration/USDOT" and had "signed contractual obligations with multiple contractors." He added that public construction requires planning, public engagement and the "fortitude to advance the project to completion." According to the AJC, a Dickens spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Robinson's objections to the design
The plan has drawn criticism from riders and city officials, who objected to having the central station closed during the 2026 World Cup matches. MARTA has said the work would bring "major service impacts," among them closing the station to pedestrians and moving bus routes. Robinson's concerns go to the design itself. Removing the concrete canopy in favor of a transparent top, keeping the bus bays as they are, and leaving the large plaza without a programming plan would, in his view, invite the same problems the station has today.
His alternative is a "refresh" above the fare gates before World Cup crowds arrive. "A refresh could include artistic lighting, murals, landscaping, safe pedestrian crossings on adjacent streets and active programming in the existing public spaces," Robinson said. He suggested other downtown stations could be refreshed ahead of 2026 as well, naming Garnett, Vine City, and the station that serves the Georgia World Congress Center and Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Robinson also raised the region's first bus rapid transit line, which will run from Summerhill to downtown and end on Broad Street between the Five Points and Garnett stations. Changing between bus and rail at that point, he said, should be "pleasant and seamless." "Downtown is deserving of world-class transit stations, and significant investment is needed to make them clean, safe, and inviting," he said.
A longer view of Five Points
Asked by Rough Draft what he would do with the station, Robinson said Five Points has been neglected since it was completed in the mid-1970s. "Five Points is the most visible station in the system and needs to be treated as such," he said. Over the long term, he wants buses to move into the station efficiently instead of sitting on nearby streets as they do now, and he said the plaza and the entrances on every side should be treated as part of the station, with a complete plan for maintenance and operations.
Original reporting by Collin Kelley for Rough Draft Atlanta.
