After a summer of friction between transit leaders and city officials that produced a four-and-a-half-month pause, MARTA's overhaul of its largest and busiest station is moving again. CEO and general manager Collie Greenwood was expected to announce at the agency's board work session that the original $230 million Five Points remake is advancing, and MARTA filed paperwork with the city Tuesday to proceed with commercial demolition.
The plans themselves have not changed, MARTA spokesperson Stephany Fisher said — the process for executing them has, under what she called a slight modification following an agreement with Mayor Andre Dickens and other city officials. The change is the one thing opponents pushed hardest for: one station entrance, on the Forsyth Street side, will stay open during construction, preserving street-level and elevator access plus bus pick-up and drop-off for most of the work. Walling off access to the train platforms had been the central sticking point between MARTA, City Hall, and downtown groups.
That concession carries a cost for riders. Keeping the entrance open means a longer construction schedule and early nightly closures, because cranes are not permitted to move materials over active station entrances. A revised timeline had not been finalized.
The underlying project is unchanged: remaking the station's plazas and peeling off its huge concrete canopy, replacing it with a modernized, brighter covering. MARTA has said decades of water intrusion through the existing canopy have damaged the station, including crucial electric train control equipment. The agency's stated goal is to turn the bunker-like 1970s hub into a more open, centralized city center with smoother connections between trains and buses.
Getting here took most of a year. Opponents, including several city councilmembers, argued the redesign would work against a town-square feel and restrict pedestrian and cycling access in favor of infrastructure for the 10 bus routes that connect at the station. A rally in June pressed MARTA to reconsider, and by early July the agency had paused the rollout.
“A win-win for MARTA, the City of Atlanta, and our customers as we move forward together to improve transit across our region,” Greenwood said of the agreement in a prepared statement. MARTA has stressed that the full renovation is estimated at four years, but that street-level access will not be affected for that entire span.
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published November 2024.