By Ann Hoevel, Georgia Tech College of Architecture

In 1991, as a college freshman, Ryan Gravel was an Atlantan in need of a BeltLine.

Gravel was raised in Chamblee, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta. “We grew up on I-285, basically driving everywhere,” he recalls. By the time he took the highway that led to Atlanta and Georgia Tech, Gravel says, he was pretty much a loner.

BeltLine founder, Ryan Gravel. Photo credit: Rob Felt/Georgia Tech Institute Communications.

He chose Tech’s School of Architecture not only because it was a great program in a great university, but also because he thought Tech was a big school where he could "kind of disappear.”

“I wanted to be a number and get lost and figure out who I was,” he says.

At the same time, Gravel was fascinated with architecture and cities — subjects that have a lot to do with people and community. A study abroad program to Paris, France, brought all his disparate ideas into focus.

“It changed the way I saw the world,” he remembers of his senior year semester in Europe.

“The way to school, for example, was a 45-minute trip for me and my roommate. We walked on the street and would see people from our community. We saw the same people working in the restaurants and getting prepared for the day, the women in the ticket booth in the Metro, the people on the train. Transit and walking like that is very social, it’s a community. You see people you know.”

Within a month of arriving in Paris, Gravel lost 15 pounds and was in the best shape of his life.

But coming back to Atlanta meant getting back in his car, all by himself.

“When I got home from Paris, I took a job at an architecture firm, and I was back on I-285, all day,” Gravel says. “It was also a 45-minute commute, but I didn’t see anybody. You get in your car, you face forward, hundreds of thousands of people are around you but there’s no social interaction.”

Cue the “ah-hah!” moment: As Gravel drove to and from work, he thought about how different his life was in Atlanta than it had been in Paris.

It dawned on him that while transit and walking are very social commutes, highways create an isolated way of life that doesn’t allow for diverse, personal interaction.

“Infrastructure is more than just moving people from point A to point B or conveying water to a sewer. It’s literally the foundation for our economy, our culture, our social life. It enables things to happen or precludes things from happening,” Gravel explains.

His interest turned to obsession. He went back to Georgia Tech for his dual Master of Architecture and Master of City and Regional Planning degrees (M.ARCH and MCRP).

For his thesis, he proposed a repurposing of land and physical assets in Atlanta that could also change the cultural perspectives of its inhabitants. It was the beginning of the BeltLine.

“Architecture education teaches you to think creatively about problems and solve them in a different kind of way,” he says. “Tech was great. Obviously, I wouldn’t be here today without that experience.”

Gravel says School of Architecture professor Richard Dagenhart was his true mentor, and his thesis advisors, Randy Rourke and Chris Nelson, left indelible marks on his work.

Nelson, a leading voice in demographics and planning, is a huge fan of the BeltLine, Gravel says.

“Who would have thought we would actually do it,” he says. “That’s the most amazing thing about (the BeltLine). It’s doing what we always said it would do and I guess that’s kind of surprising in itself. The scary thing is that we’re not done yet and we have a long way to go. It can still go wrong.”

Gravel says his biggest fear is that the people and communities whose grassroots efforts made the whole thing possible won’t be able to stay to enjoy the BeltLine’s benefits.

Moving forward, policies concerning investment incentives, affordability, and equality will be critical, he adds. “Otherwise we can’t call it a success.”

Gravel founded his own design firm, Sixpitch, and wrote the book, "Where We Want to Live," which he published in 2016.

“It tells the story of the BeltLine, but it connects it to all these other projects happening around the country and the future of cities and all this,” he says. “It’s fun.”

By Fletcher Moore, Institute Communications

Certain feats are so devoid of appeal that only a select few will suffer through them. Such is the case, in this year of 2015, as regards traversing the entirety of the incomplete Atlanta BeltLine.

Nevertheless, I joined the fraternity of belters in early July, piloting my commuter bike along its spotty length, and though I’m proud I did, future circumnavigations will await further construction.

Watch this video to get an overview of his trek.

Originally proposed in 1999 in the master’s thesis of Georgia Tech student Ryan Gravel, the BeltLine project is one of the great municipal ambitions of the early 21st century. It’s Atlanta’s version of the Big Dig of Boston fame, but without the massive cost overrun or the jokes.

Conceived as 22-mile-long band of pedestrian and bicycle paths, flanked by light rail, the BeltLine ultimately aims to improve the human landscape of a city known for its knots of multilane highways jammed with epic clots of steel, glass and rubber, shrouded in gasoline exhaust fumes.

But the BeltLine ain’t done yet, unfortunately. Not even close. So for the time being, doing the whole route means a whole lot of pain. The current course takes the would-be BeltLine daredevil down some fearful paths.

For example, the Westside trail is currently under construction, forcing me to brave the perils of Northside Drive, stretches of which not only lack sidewalks but are packed with maniacal drivers. I’ve biked in Atlanta regularly for many years, and I’m proud of the carapace I’ve built up when it comes to contending with cars. But even so, there are plenty of roads in the city I won’t risk, and Northside above 17th Street is one of them. I walked in the ditch, pushing my bike for a good half mile.

Marietta Boulevard between Blandtown and Bankhead is another sort of pain. Five lanes (three southbound and two northbound) with no sidewalks or walkable shoulders, this daunting highway serves pedestrians by sheer default.

Left with no other option (like the BeltLine), non-driving residents in the area simply lay claim to the outer lanes, like moving squatters.

The most heartbreaking pain lies south of that point, however. It’s no secret that the English Avenue region — The Bluff — is among the most blighted in Atlanta. To see it firsthand from the saddle of a bicycle is shocking, and more than a little discomforting. 

I won’t dwell on the empty houses and rotting apartment buildings, many clearly inhabited in spite of the plywood nailed over the doors and windows.

The misery of this place cannot be carried by words alone — it would be educational for everyone to take a spin through the area and come to grips with its staggering poverty and the realization that this is our city, not some faraway third-world slum.

But I have good news. What you see when you ride the BeltLine today is not just the catastrophic choices Atlanta has made in years past.

The embryonic BeltLine is a study in contrasts: the devastated Atlanta of the past and the Atlanta of the future.

The Eastside trail — the longest finished section of the path — is everything anyone could want out of a city: beautiful, filled with happy people, and lined with flourishing businesses.

The Southwest trail, while not quite a jewel of the same order, is nonetheless a peaceful island in a roiling sea, and it will only improve as it is connected to more parts of the city.

And those connections are coming.

When the Westside trail is finished, it will not only enrich the lives of those in the community, but given the spur to Bellwood Quarry, it will draw people from all over the city into the Westside and, yes, even into the Bluff.

Like a profusion of antibodies fighting off an infection, all that human activity will bring new life to dead and dying neighborhoods. And when it comes, I’ll suffer the remaining gaps to get there. The pain of my recent venture serves only as a reminder of what Atlanta stands to gain.

Writers: Karina Timmel Antenucci, Ann Hoevel, Fletcher Moore, Margaret Tate, Jennifer Tomasino