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Phase 1 · Monroe Drive to Memorial Drive

The Plan

What the Overline is, where it runs, what it costs, and when it could open.

The Overline is a gondola line running above the Beltline. Enclosed cabins carry ten people each, hanging from a cable strung between slender towers. There is no schedule, because there is nothing to schedule. The line simply runs, from early morning until late, the way an escalator runs.

It is not a new idea and it is not an exotic one. Cities with harder terrain and tighter budgets than ours have been running lines like this in daily commuter service for twenty years.

Rendering of a tree-lined section of the Beltline in bright sunlight, with gondola cabins passing overhead and people walking, cycling and sitting at cafe tables below.
Rendering: the Eastside with a line running over it.

Where it runs

Phase 1 covers 2.9 miles of the Eastside, from Monroe Drive to Memorial Drive, with six stations.

Eastside · Phase 1

Virginia AvenueVirginia-Highland
Ponce de LeonThe market crossing
Freedom ParkwayFreedom Park
Krog StreetInman Park and Cabbagetown
DeKalb AvenueMARTA interchange
Memorial DriveReynoldstown
Phase 1, north to south. The Northeast, Westside and Southwest corridors would continue around the loop and are not engineered.

Every station sits on land the Beltline already owns, and two attach to buildings that are already standing. The alignment stays inside the Beltline for its entire length. It crosses no private property, requires no land to be purchased, and does not narrow a single street.

Later phases would close the loop. Only Phase 1 has been engineered, so the rest is a line on a map for now.

What it is like to ride

Rendering of people stepping into a gondola cabin from a low platform, one with a bicycle, under a steel canopy in warm morning light.
Rendering: boarding at a Phase 1 station.

A cabin arrives every thirty seconds, so there is nothing to check and nothing to miss. The platform is level with the cabin floor, which means no steps, no gap, and no waiting for a lift. You walk up and go.

Thirteen minutes from one end to the other. Bicycles ride free. Fares are the standard fare with free transfers, and there is no premium fare in any version of this plan.

What it costs to build

Eighty-six million dollars for Phase 1, in 2025 dollars, or about thirty million a mile. Published figures for urban ropeways elsewhere run lower than that. Our estimate carries US labor rates, six stations, and a contingency.

The full twenty-two mile loop, if it is ever built, comes to roughly $410 million on the same basis.

What it costs to run

There is no driver in any of the cabins and no vehicle sitting idle between the peaks. Operating cost barely moves whether the line carries two thousand people a day or twenty thousand.

When

Construction runs about thirty-four months once it starts, and it does not require closing the trail. Towers go up a few at a time. If funding is committed in the next two years, the line opens in 2029.

If you want the detail

Everything above is drawn from work we have published in full.

Requests for the underlying survey data should be made in writing.

What would help

The number of people who have signed the Letter of Support is the first thing we are asked for in every room we walk into. If you have read this far, you are exactly the person that number is meant to represent.

Add your name, and if you have a question we have not answered, the FAQ is where we put them.