Here's what we accomplished in 2017 with your support:
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Made biking and safe streets a key issue in Atlanta City elections.
We led a city election initiative to make sure candidates for Mayor and City Council knew where we stood on the issues that affect people who bike in Atlanta. We held a mayoral forum, a rolling town hall, candidate rows at each Atlanta Streets Alive, and we published and distributed policy briefs and the mayoral questionnaires. These events not only showed you the candidates’ positions on the issues but they also established common ground with the electeds who will eventually vote on these issues inside City Hall.
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Advocate for bikeways on DeKalb, Monroe/Boulevard, and Ralph David Abernathy/Georgia, as well as other streets through our Connecting the City campaign.
We promoted civic engagement for DeKalb, Monroe, Boulevard. On DeKalb alone, resulted in over 1,000 public comments about the Complete Streets project. On Ralph David Abernathy, we kept a close eye on a Renew Atlanta project coordinated by BeltLine with GDOT to resurface the section in the Westview neighborhood. When GDOT's contractor got it wrong, we met with GDOT key staff and the board member to set things right. -
Empower communities to organize for better biking and safer streets, by providing resources and trainings.
We wrapped up our first cohort of Bike Champions from Westside neighborhoods and launched a second cohort in NPU V.
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Create Atlanta Streets Alive routes that connect neighborhoods in all parts of city, including a new route.
The new route, Westside, on Marietta and Howell Mill, was a big success, breaking our attendance record and connecting new neighborhoods, stakeholders, and businesses while laying the groundwork for community support of the Marietta Street resurfacing project. -
Provide free bicycle safety education through classes, rides, school initiatives, and a ticket diversion program with traffic court.
We held more classes than ever, established a regular schedule and mix of classes (Bike Share, True Beginners, Urban Confidence, and Hack Your Commute) and launched a pilot Atlanta Public Schools bike education program with 4 schools. We started work on a ticket diversion program, making some headway with city administrators before hitting a wall with the state bureaucracy. -
Advocate policies to increase the availability of affordable housing on bikeways and prevent displacement.
We advocated for the zoning update underway to remove parking minimum requirements for multi-family developments. We joined the TransFormation Alliance, a partnership of organizations working for a more equitable Atlanta by connecting housing with transportation access and opportunity. -
Collect better data using permanent bike counters in partnership with the City of Atlanta.
We partnered with the city to install four bike counters, bringing the city total to 9. Next fall, we'll have a full year's worth of data at these nine locations to use in making the case to keep expanding and improving our bike network.