If you don't understand why projects must compete for funding, you need to get up to speed on how transportation planning is done. The metropolitan planning organization, which is the ARC in Atlanta, must develop a long-range plan that is fiscally balanced, meaning they can only program projects that are expected to have funding available.
A list of ARC's long-range projects can be found here:
http://www.atlantaregional.com/documents/tp_rtplist_073109.pdf
The BeltLine transit projects are on pages 61 and 62 of the pdf. The first two projects slated for implementation (NE and SE quadrants) are listed with a 50 percent federal match. For some reason the other two quadrants are entirely funded using local funds (if they just use BeltLine TAD bonds, that'd probably be okay). If there isn't dedicated funding for a particular project, like through a TAD or an earmark, all the remaining projects must "compete" to get an allocation out of a pool of potential local and federal funds. I'm sure there will be some new C3 projects trying to get into the next plan update and they'll have to "compete" against other projects, like the BeltLine, to get in.
Regarding the Ponce Streetcar, my understanding from the Connect Atlanta meetings was that the North Avenue streetcar labeled on the C3 map would shift over to Ponce at Juniper/Piedmont and continue east to Briarcliff.
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