In November 2016, more than seven in ten Atlanta voters approved the More MARTA referendum, a half-cent sales tax that set aside roughly $235 million to put light rail on the BeltLine.2016-MMNine years later, the corridor's first transit vehicle is not a streetcar. It is a driverless shuttle, built by a Florida company called Beep.
The path between those two facts runs through a procurement process, a consulting contract, and a chain of emails obtained through open-records requests. Read in sequence, the documents describe how Atlanta BeltLine Inc. commissioned a study of its transit options, hired a consultant named TYLin, and then announced that the consultant's preferred option was autonomous buses from Beep.TYLIN-RECWhat the public announcement did not say is that, months before the contract was signed, Beep's chief executive had personally introduced the BeltLine's president to that same consultant.TYLIN-101024 Each of these facts is a document you can open below. This story lays out the sequence; what it adds up to is for the reader, and for auditors, to weigh.
01A promise, then a pivot
Mayor Andre Dickenscampaigned in 2021 as a “transit mayor,” promising to complete BeltLine rail by 2030. As late as February 2025, he signaled the city should keep moving forward with Eastside rail.AJC-EDIT
Three weeks later, on March 13, 2025, Dickens stood at a MARTA board meeting and withdrew his support for Eastside BeltLine rail.REVERSAL-031325The reversal was not on the published agenda, and the alternatives study underpinning it was not made available to the public beforehand, which open-government advocates say runs afoul of Georgia's Open Meetings Act.
02The introduction
On October 10, 2024, two months before the BeltLine even issued its request for proposals, Beep CEO Joe Moye emailed BeltLine president Clyde Higgs to make a connection. “I wanted to introduce you to our partners at TYLin / Sam Schwartz,” Moye wrote, adding that Joe Iacobucci, the TYLin executive copied on the note, had already spoken with him “about the possible opportunity you mentioned regarding the various inputs to consider with light rail.”TYLIN-101024
The next day, a Beep senior vice president coordinated a Zoom meeting with BeltLine staff, copying Iacobucci.TYLIN-101124On December 11, 2024, the BeltLine issued the RFP for a Transit Improvement Plan.RFQ-121124TYLin won the contract, fully executed on April 25, 2025.TYLIN-CONTRACT Weeks later, TYLin named Beep (and Beep's partner Holon) as its preferred transit solution for the BeltLine.TYLIN-REC
03The relationship, in writing
After the contract was signed, the relationship did not stay at arm's length. On May 5, 2025, TYLin floated “a side trip to Lake Nona,” Beep's headquarters, to see a vehicle in person.TYLIN-050525 In April, Iacobucci had offered to use his professional network to help the BeltLine fill a staff position tied to the very study he was running.TYLIN-042125 By summer he was arranging podcast and panel appearances to promote the BeltLine and its AV pilot at the ITS World Congress.AV-PROMO-070825
Meanwhile, a 501(c)(4) called Better Atlanta Transit, formed in 2023 with undisclosed funding to oppose BeltLine rail, moved in lockstep with the mayor's reversal.BAT-FORMWithin two hours of Dickens's March 13 announcement, BAT president Walter Brown issued a statement praising it; that evening he emailed the mayor directly: “what you did today took courage… BAT stands behind you.”WB-031325
The full chronology, each dated event tied to a source, is below, followed by the money.