As talk of Atlanta Beltline rail prospects has heated back up, following the final Beltline presentation and show of unanimous city council support last month, we’ve heard from longtime official boosters and neighbors who believe permanent, light-rail transportation looping around and through the city is the right path forward.  

But still, not everyone’s convinced. To say the least. 

Rail naysayers Better Atlanta Transit are sticking to their guns in calling Atlanta City Council’s transit-supporting resolution “performative” and the $3.5-billion project a “fantasy” with “astronomical” costs that “will never be built and… wasn’t designed to solve an actual transportation problem.“

A new voice with transit software experience entered the fray this week, by way of an AJC editorial, calling out Beltline rail as unfeasibly expensive and illogical, as he sees it. 

Potential look and functionality of light-rail transit under the Berne Street bridge, next to the Beltline's new Southeast Trail.Kimley-Horn; via ABI

Entrepreneur Bahman Irvani moved from London to Atlanta four decades ago, founded software management company Routematch in 2000, and then sold the company in 2020. Prior to the pivotal transit vote last month, Irvani spoke at the Atlanta City Council meeting in question and presented what he calls math that illustrates how limited transit funding would be misspent. (Irvani notes that he’s not an engineer and has no political ambitions.) 

Irvani pulls stats from the Beltline Transit Study unveiled Sept. 3—along with cost data from MARTA’s annual Federal Transit Administration filings—to conclude the capital cost for Beltline rail would work out to $86 per ride. 

That doesn’t factor in what it would cost to operate the system, per Irvani’s calculations. 

Breakdown of segment costs totaling $3.5 billion, excluding costs of installing train stops. Atlanta Beltline Inc.

Extrapolating MARTA’s Streetcar data in federal filings, Irvani posits that operating costs for Beltline rail would be another $35—per ride. 

That’s a grand total, in the writer’s estimation, of $121 for every trip along the Beltline rail loop or its connecting routes. 

Traveling a similar distance on one of Atlanta’s new electric buses (not EV shuttles) would land around $11, once operating and capital costs are factored in, per Irvani’s math.  

“This means that for every one ride provided on the rail,” Irvani writes, “10 other transit rides would have been effectively defunded, assuming there is always more demand for transit than budgets.”

Irvani’s backstory is fascinating and his interests widespread. Launching a new EV bus or shuttle system in Atlanta, for what it’s worth, doesn’t appear to be one of them. 

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• Letter to Editor: Time for Beltline rail talk is over—let's start building (Urbanize Atlanta)