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It's time for Atlanta's leaders to elevate safe, equitable, sustainable mobility solutions to the top of the agenda.
Join the movement by signing on to our equity & mobility policy agenda today.
Thank you to the partner organizations who helped develop and support this agenda!
Explore our 2021-2025 Policy Agenda Recommendations for City of Atlanta and Atlanta Board of Education:
City of Atlanta: Safety
Make streets measurably safer for people biking, walking, and using scooters or wheelchairs.
City of Atlanta: Transit & Affordability
Increase access to transit and affordability of housing.
City of Atlanta: Funding
Comprehensively fund Atlanta's sustainable transportation infrastructure.
Atlanta Board of Education
Make it possible for kids to safely get to and from school on foot, bike, transit, and other modes.
We urgently need Atlanta's leaders to adopt and implement equitable mobility recommendations.
Transportation is an essential part of everyone’s life. When it doesn’t work well, we miss out on job opportunities, have limited access to housing options, are exposed to unsafe streets or polluted air, or have our freedom of movement restricted due to the lack of reasonable options. When transportation is good, it is essential — even enjoyable, because it just works. We might notice kids biking to school, experience the ease of crossing the street safely, or relax while listening to music as we look out the window from a bus in a dedicated lane.
Yet as the pandemic continues, people face greater risks and barriers while in transit. Despite fewer miles driven, more people died on Georgia roads in 2020, likely due to an increase in speeding. And, people riding public transportation experienced dramatic cutbacks to bus routes, leading to longer walks to the nearest bus stop, often on streets that lack sidewalks.
This policy agenda is about creating viable transportation options that are safe, easy, accessible, and enjoyable for everyone.Equitable transportation policies and projects provide physical and social mobility, as well as access to living-wage jobs, affordable housing, healthcare, and quality education. Affordable mobility options give people economic and social opportunities, especially in communities racially profiled for disinvestment that continue to suffer disproportionately from traffic fatalities. Green options reduce the transportation sector’s impact on climate change, an existential threat to communities.
Working with our partners and stakeholders, we created three policy recommendation categories: Safety, Transit and Affordability, and Funding. In addition, we have a policy agenda for the Atlanta Board of Education. Please join us in sharing these recommendations with our leaders as we work to create a more equitable city through mobility.
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DeKalb Avenue is fast, dangerous, and out of control. In 2015, Atlanta voters overwhelming approved the Renew Atlanta Infrastructure Bond to update and improve our streets, including a Complete Street for DeKalb Avenue.
Yet in 2019, after three years of public meetings, funding for the Complete Street on DeKalb Avenue was cut, leaving only resurfacing and replacing the reversible lane with a center turn lane and design for a future Complete Street in the budget. It's not clear where funding would come from to actually build it.
The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, along with community members and neighborhoods along DeKalb, is continuing the fight for a DeKalb that serves more than high-speed traffic speeding through our communities. DeKalb Ave connects 11 neighborhoods -- all but 1 wrote letters of support for a Complete Street.
We are calling for any project, including repaving, that affects this key, flat corridor to make the road safer -- for everyone. The resurfacing project should include a buffer between people walking on the sidewalk and cars, and a place for people to bike.
The City of Atlanta retained Arcadis as the design firm for the striping design for the first phase of resurfacing on this project. They are pursuing short-term safety improvements that can be accomplished within the resurfacing project, with an eye toward long-term improvements that can be built in a future second phase.
The design team intends to begin meeting again with various local stakeholders in January and February 2020 to be followed by a public meeting. It's not yet clear when the design will be finalized and when the resurfacing project will go to construction.
Atlanta Bicycle Coalition remains an advocate for both long and short term solution to the dangerous conditions on DeKalb Avenue. The improvements should address the glaring gap in bike facilities stretching from the Stone Mountain PATH trail to the Inman Park-Reynoldstown MARTA station.
Click here for more background on our campaign for a safe and complete DeKalb Ave.