On September 6, 2019, 14-year-old Jermaine “J.J.” Wallace, Jr. was killed by a speeding driver as he waited for the school bus on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.

“His mother rushed to the scene to find her son in critical condition laying in the street. Paramedics rushed the Douglas High freshman to Grady Memorial Hospital, but he did not survive. Dorothy Porter, who is a mother of four, fought back tears as she talked to FOX 5 Aungelique Proctor about the unexpected loss. ‘My son was the life of this house. My son was everywhere. Everybody loved Jermaine Jr. Everybody. My son was an honor roll student. He never missed school,’ Ms. Porter recalled."

In Atlanta, some 8% of Atlanta’s streets account for 88% of fatalities and 52% of severe injuries, and just 10 streets account for one-third of traffic fatalities. Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway, named after the prominent Atlanta civil rights attorney, is among the ten most dangerous corridors forming Atlanta’s High-Injury Network. 

High-Injury Network streets are not evenly distributed across the city — in fact, roughly two­-thirds of the network is located west of Northside Drive or south of I-­20. On the whole, neighborhoods with more miles of the High­-Injury Network had lower median incomes, a larger share of Black residents, higher rates of walking, biking, and taking transit to work, and lower rates of vehicle ownership.

The Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Pedestrian Safety Action Plan says Donald Lee Hollowell is one of the “top corridors in Georgia with clear patterns of pedestrian crashes that resulted in serious or fatal injuries,” and in 2019 its Atlanta Intown Multimodal Safety Analysis Study found that Hollowell was among the corridors with high rates of people being hit by speeding drivers.

For decades, residents have decried the lives lost and advocated for safety improvements for Donald Lee Hollowell. Tragically, their efforts were ignored — until recently. 

In 2018, the City of Atlanta asked the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) to make a section of Hollowell near the Bankhead MARTA station safer with a lane reduction to reduce speed. GDOT’s District 7 denied the request at the time, but the pressure to prioritize safety over speed on state routes continued to grow. Community activism combined with attention from the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition, PEDS, other organizations, elected officials, and City staff, along with GDOT’s own safety goals finally led to concrete results.

In 2019, following J.J.’s death, neighborhood leaders and elected officials organized a series of town hall meetings called “One Corridor.” Alongside public agencies and state elected officials, community members discussed the challenges facing people trying to use or cross Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway.

Around this time, GDOT initiated an analysis of state routes in Atlanta. The study, released in 2020, found that redesigning the most dangerous corridors could save lives through safer street designs (find out why some roads are more dangerous than others).

One year after J.J.’s passing, in 2020, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) responded to community calls for safety with the announcement that it would install three signalized crossings on the corridor. GDOT installed one pedestrian crossing, outside the Johnnie B. Moore Towers senior center, in January 2021. As of May 7, 2021, the power company had not turned on electricity to the signal. The timeline for the remaining two signalized crosswalks, planned for Woods Drive and Eugenia Place, remained to be determined. 

But better news was on the horizon. 

In the summer of 2020, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition gathered community members to form the Donald Lee Hollowell Safe Streets Committee with support from the Energy Foundation. Following six weeks of training on the basics of safe street design and advocacy, the committee got to work.

Now, there's a major milestone for a safer Hollowell — the announcement that GDOT will convert 2.8 miles of the corridor to three lanes with a center turn lane. The safety project is intended to meet community demands to reduce the dangerous speeds, add a buffer between the roadway and the sidewalk, and make crossing the street on foot, bike/scooter, or wheelchair safer and easier.

This safety project, shown here on GDOT’s website, "proposes a 4-to-3-lane road diet between SR 280 / Hamilton E. Holmes Dr / James Jackson Pkwy and Stiff St. The project would reduce total crashes by as much 47% and create space within existing right-of-way to install short strategic medians for pedestrian refuge/prohibiting unsafe conflict points, turn lanes, and pedestrian crossings along the corridor." 

At one end of this project, the intersection with Hamilton E. Holmes Drive / James Jackson Parkway, Hollowell transitions to two lanes. At the other end is Stiff Street, just past the Bankhead MARTA station. At this intersection, Hollowell has been widened to fluctuate between four and five lanes with a median.

A representative of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms stated that her support for reducing the number of lanes on Hollowell, saying “she has made it clear that the safety improvements on Donald Lee Hollowell are a priority.” 

The Donald Lee Hollowell Safe Streets Committee noted,

“We are honored to advocate for a corridor with such an inspirational namesake. Donald Lee Hollowell’s work should be further honored by improving the street to prioritize safety and inclusion.” 

Resources

• High-Injury Network
• Georgia Department of Transportation Pedestrian Safety Action Plan
• Georgia Department of Transportation Board member Stacey Key celebrating the long road to a safer Donald Lee Hollowell in the AJC
• GDOT Project Information: 0017926 SR 8/US 278 FROM SR 280 TO CS 6701/STIFF STREET

Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway in the news

• "Microsoft's planned Grove Park campus, other projects, spur urgency for pedestrian safety" (Atlanta Business Chronicle, July 2021)
• "Opinion: Improving safety on Donald Lee Hollowell Parkway Corridor" (AJC, April 2021)
• "False text message enraged Atlanta residents over road project" (AJC, Feb 2021)
• "Atlanta council may override of mayor's veto on road deal" (AJC, Feb 2021)
• "'Relief' comes to Hollowell Parkway as crosswalk installed on deadly stretch of road" (AJC, Jan 2021)
• "Pedestrian unfriendly: after deaths on Hollowell Parkway, residents await fixes" (AJC, Oct 2020)
• "Police say pedestrian killed by hit-and-run driver" (AJC, Sep 2020)
• "GDOT to add crosswalk where 14-year-old was hit, killed while waiting for school bus" (AJC, Jan 2020)
• "Mother of teen killed in hit and run speaks" (Fox 5 Atlanta, Sep 2019)
• "Teen hit by car walking to school remembered for his kindness: He was a 'one-of-a-kind child'" (King5, Sep 2019)