Lee Street in Southwest Atlanta represents both a tremendous challenge to area residents - and an opportunity for a safe connection for people outside of cars.
Currently a five- to six-lane arterial with speeding cars and unsafe crossings for people, Lee is flat, a plus for biking, walking, and rolling. More importantly, it connects many neighborhoods with Downtown Atlanta and the Atlanta BeltLine's Westside Trail, as well as five MARTA stations and Fort McPherson.
Community members and the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition want to transform this dangerous barrier into a community-centered street with safe and connected bikeways and improved crossings.
Currently, this project is in the engineering phase of the transportation project implementation process.
Updates:
- In 2017, the TransFormation Alliance – a diverse group of organizations representing government agencies, business partners, metro Atlanta’s transit agency, and the nonprofit community – was awarded $1 million in direct grant and technical assistance funds over the next three years. Collectively, the SPARCC sites will have access to an estimated pool of $70 million in financing capital, as well as $14 million in additional programmatic support.
- TransFormation Alliance wants to demonstrate the potential for a new development style that focuses on equity, health, and environmental outcomes. The demonstration focus area is the Lee Street corridor, from the West End MARTA station to the Oakland City MARTA station in southwest Atlanta. Read more here.
- In 2016, the Atlanta Regional Commission included funding for Preliminary Engineering (first phase of any project) in the draft Transportation Improvement Plan update so the City of Atlanta could begin to design the trail facility along Lee Street. Fact Sheet.
- In 2015, hosted a "Tweet and Greet" along with People for a Livable Lee Street and WeCycle Atlanta on February 14, 2015 to get the community's input on what biking and walking on Lee Street is really like. We also petitioned the state transportation agency to restripe the Lee Street (and Peters Street, which connects via Castleberry Hill) in a way that would make it easier for the City of Atlanta to install a multi-use trail or protected bikeway on Lee Street. The request was granted but the contractor did not receive a change order in time to make the change. This will not prevent the city from installing the trail or bikeway, however. Finally, we requested that city planners and elected officials invest in transforming Lee Street into a street safe for biking and walking.
- In 2014, we received a grant from PeopleForBikes through the Green Lanes project to create visuals illustrating the street's potential (see above - thanks to our wonderful volunteers Matt and Marco) and spur community engagement on Lee Street. We identified a community leader who organized a series of listening sessions in 2015 to gather neighbor feedback and spark ideas - thanks Brent Brewer for your hard work on this effort!