The Atlanta BeltLine officially opened the final piece of its Southeast Trail on Thursday at Glenwood Park, and for the first time you can walk or roll from Piedmont Park to Grant Park on a single paved path. Mayor Andre Dickens framed the milestone in his usual way at the tent-packed ribbon-cutting. "This is drawing circles, not lines."
The newly opened Segments 4 and 5 complete the 2.5-mile Southeast Trail running from the Krog Street Tunnel to Boulevard Southeast, with branches into Grant Park, Ormewood Park, Boulevard Heights, and Glenwood Park. That pushes the BeltLine to 14.8 of its eventual 22-mile loop, with the project still tracking for full completion by 2030. Dickens also said another segment will open by early June, putting roughly 18 miles of connected trail online in time for the FIFA World Cup.
The new stretch runs adjacent to Parkside Elementary and Maynard Jackson High School, which becomes the second Atlanta Public Schools campus directly on the BeltLine. Park Pride President Michael Halicki, a longtime Southeast side resident, said he was mostly looking forward to walking his own neighborhood on a real path. Southeast Atlanta has been watching construction fences for years. Today the fences came down.
