Atlanta Beltline, Inc. selected H&L (A BCC Company) to provide design engineering and consulting services, construction bidding services, and construction administration services for the Atlanta Beltline Northeast Trail. This new trail starts at Monroe Drive and end at the Lindbergh Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) Station. From its birth as an idea in 1999 to today, the Atlanta Beltline has made giant strides in improving mobility, providing connectivity, and creating urban revitalization. It is impossible to hold a conversation about the rebirth of Atlanta’s downtown communities without a discussion of the impact of the Beltline. The Northeast Corridor Trail promises to build on the success by developing an important sector of the whole trail and creating connectivity to the intersecting trails of PATH400, North Fork Peachtree Creek (via the Cheshire Farm Trail), and South Fork Peachtree Creek.

The trail consists of a concrete multi-use path, and the typical corridor section includes adjacent and parallel double-track light rail transit, plantings, lighting, retaining walls, vertical connection to adjoining streets, green infrastructure storm drainage design, stream bank restoration/mitigation, signage, and wayfinding. Multiple bridges and retaining walls were necessary and involved heavy coordination with the City of Atlanta, MARTA, Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), CSX Transportation, and Norfolk Southern Railroad, as the trail crosses the railroad right-of-way in three separate locations.

H&L’s services included public outreach/public involvement, extensive stakeholder coordination, environmental documentation and special studies, trail planning, trail design, structural design, hydraulic design, survey, landscape architecture, geotechnical, materials testing, and hazardous waste/Georgia Voluntary Brownfield Program.

This project received federal funding with a local let and required full compliance with the GDOT Plan Development Process (PDP). Although the project is following the GDOT PDP and complies with the State of Georgia’s MS4 Permit, the City of Atlanta and Atlanta Beltline, Inc. (ABI) required more stringent criteria in line with the City’s Stormwater Ordinance. The first inch of rainfall may never leave the project site and is collected, treated, and infiltrated through a variety of green infrastructure practices that are both cost effective and require minimal maintenance.