Several dozen activists and city officials gathered in sweltering midday heat outside the Five Points MARTA station in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday to decry the transit authority’s plan to close access to the station for renovations.
“If we continue down the current design path, it will be a huge detriment to all those who work in this area,” said Rebecca Serna, the executive director of Propel ATL, a transportation advocacy group that is part of a coalition of 14 organizations opposed to the renovation plan. Also present were Atlanta City Council president Doug Shipman and Councilmember Jason Dozier.
The Five Points station is the central hub for MARTA’s north-south and east-west rail lines and connects to over 10 bus lines. It has been damaged by years of water leaks and poor maintenance, prompting MARTA’s four-year renovation project to both rehabilitate and transform of the station.
The rehabilitation portion is already underway, and for the next phase, which starts in July, MARTA will close pedestrian access to the station. Buses will be re-routed starting July 6. Passengers can still transfer train lines at the station, but starting July 29, they won’t be able to catch or get off the train there.
An estimated 17,000 people board or transfer transit at the MARTA station each day, according to Propel ATL.
MARTA has said the station would temporarily re-open to pedestrians for the 2026 FIFA World Cup soccer tournament. Atlanta is hosting eight matches at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, about seven blocks from the Five Points MARTA station for the World Cup, which is scheduled to run from June 11 to July 29, 2026.
The closure of Five Points and the re-opening just for the soccer tournament, is “an insult to the disability community and to the Black and brown community,” said Deborah Scott, the CEO of Georgia Stand-Up, a community activist group. “If we have to have protests every week, we will,” she said, to cheers and applause.
But MARTA, in a statement after the midday rally, gave no sign they intend to change their plans. Decades of water leaks have “weakened the concrete canopy and continues to damage the inside of the station and create hazards for customers,” the agency said, adding that renovating the concrete canopy over the train concourses is scheduled to take 18 months – not four years.
“Street-level access will not be impacted that long,” MARTA said, later clarifying in a follow up email to Atlanta Civic Circle that pedestrian access will in fact only be impacted during the 18 months of the canopy reconstruction.
“There was concern the station would look like a construction site during the games. It will not!” a MARTA spokesperson said, explaining that earlier discussions that pedestrian access would only be temporarily re-opened for the World Cup were before a firm constriction timeline had been established.
“The canopy deconstruction requires a complex support system on the concourse level and temporarily closing the street level is the only way to do the work safely and efficiently,” MARTA said.
“We are full steam ahead to revitalize Five Points and deliver an enhanced experience for our riders with as limited disruption as possible. Delaying this work is irresponsible and does nothing to alleviate the service impacts necessary for such complex deconstruction work,” the transit authority said.
Mayor Andre Dickens last week called for the project to be paused, due to the accessibility issues that activists have raised. A city-wide sales tax approved by voters in 2016 has raised $2.7 billion for transit, and a portion of that is going towards the Five Points renovation.
Atlanta CIty Council President Shipman, speaking to Atlanta Civic Circle, said the city council and the mayor are pressuring MARTA to agree to an audit of the $230-million Five Points hub renovation. Besides the More MARTA Atlanta sales tax, $25 million is coming from a federal grant and about $13.8 million from the state.
“I am asking today that the MARTA board follow the mayor’s request as the biggest funder of this project, take a pause, let the final audit come to fruition, and let’s together get a plan forward that will spend our money well, that will keep this station open, and that will fundamentally improve the transit of this city,” Shipman said.
This story was updated to include MARTA’s clarification that pedestrian access to the Five Points station would only be impacted for 18 months.