Mayor Andre Dickens withdrew his support for beginning phase one of the Beltline light rail project on the eastside, instead pushing for streetcar expansion to the southside.

City officials have changed their plans for a proposed MARTA streetcar extension to the BeltLine. The original design draft connected the streetcar in downtown Atlanta to the Eastside Trail. But in a MARTA Board of Directors meeting on Thursday,

Mayor Andre Dickens appeared at the MARTA Board of Directors meeting on March 13 to reject the findings of a new spending audit and to announce he was pulling his support for the streetcar extension to the Atlanta Beltline Eastside Trail.

The mayor is opposed to starting the build-out of a Beltline rail network with the proposed streetcar extension that would run along the Eastside Trail.