Transportation in Atlanta

Atlanta's transportation system is a complex multimodal system serving the city of Atlanta, Georgia, and widely recognized as a key regional and global hub for passenger and freight transportation. The system facilitates inter- and intra-city travel, and includes the world's busiest airport, several major freight rail classification yards, a comprehensive network of freeways, heavy rail, light rail, local buses, and multi-use trails.

Atlanta began as a railroad town, and transportation remains an important part of its economy. Several major transportation and logistics firms are headquartered in Atlanta, including Delta Air Lines, Norfolk Southern Railroad, and United Parcel Service.

Public transit, including the eighth-busiest rapid transit system in the United States, is operated primarily by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA). The transit network also includes light rail and local bus routes. Despite these services, most Atlanta commuters chose to commute by car, with only 4.5% choosing to use transit in 2022. Emphasis on cars has resulted in heavy traffic and has led to significant pollution and congestion. Limited efforts are underway to reduce Atlanta's dependence on cars in order to improve system performance and reduce its impact on climate change, but several automobile capacity increases are also in the works.

In 1836, the state of Georgia decided to build a railroad to the Midwest and chose as the terminus a location that is now Downtown Atlanta. Between 1845 and 1854, rail lines arrived from four different directions and Atlanta quickly became a commercial center and transportation hub for the south. In 1871, horsecars began operation in the city, and Electric Streetcars arrived in 1889. by 1926, passenger service peaked at 96,794,273 people per year. The introduction of trolleybuses in 1937 led to the gradual decline and eventual end of electric streetcar service in 1949. At its height, the trolleybus system carried 80% of all transit riders. By the end of 1949, Atlanta had 453 trolleybuses, the largest fleet in the United States, but Georgia Power had been losing money on the system since the 1920s. During the five-week-long transit strike of 1950 the company began looking for buyers. Four local businessmen formed the Atlanta Transit Company (ATC) and purchased the transportation properties on June 23, 1950.

In late 1962 ATC operated 273 trolleybuses on 39 routes, but they decided to phase them out to avoid the expense and difficulty of replacing the extensive fleet and stringing overhead wires in new service areas. The entire system was converted to diesel buses over a period of less than one month in September 1963. ATC continued operating bus services until it was bought by the newly-formed Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) in 1971.

Meanwhile, national trends towards freeway expansion were taking hold in Atlanta. In the 1950s and 1960s, several new freeways, including I-20 and the Downtown Connector, were introduced. These freeways cut directly through many established communities, often intentionally targeting black neighborhoods like Sweet Auburn. Like other urban renewal projects, these decisions reinforced a pattern of displacement and disinvestment in minority communities, and further entrenched de facto segregation in Atlanta that can still be seen today.

State transportation planners continued to undertake frequent freeway expansion projects in the following decades. These included the completion of new interstates like the I-285 loop in 1969, I-575 in 1985, I-675 in 1987; the Freeing the Freeways interstate widening program, which doubled Atlanta's freeway lane miles between 1976 and 1988; and the introduction of HOV lanes in 1997. Additional in-town freeway routes were proposed in the early 1960s but cancelled after significant public backlash lasting over 30 years. While these projects were widely viewed at the time as necessary and impressive feats of engineering, modern transportation advocates feel that this overemphasis on car infrastructure has contributed to air and noise pollution, urban sprawl, and congestion.

In 2015, MARTA proposed extending the Red Line from its terminus at North Springs station five stops north towards Alpharetta. The project would have cost $8 billion. That year, MARTA also started studying creating a commuter rail line extending from East Point station to Clayton County. The line was in the works since the 1990s, but was delayed due to funding issues and negotiations with Norfolk Southern. However, the preferred alternative from the project was later changed to bus rapid transit in 2022.