Last week the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) held an open house about a project that would add raised bike lanes and safer crossing to a key segment of Moreland Ave in Little Five Points!

In case you missed it, you can still weigh by email - send a public comment by Wednesday, June 19th. Here's more info about the project, how to share your comments with GDOT, and some suggestions on what to say. 

We are excited to see this good and necessary project making progress. It's been in the works for several years, sparked in part by a tragic - and fatal - bike crash in which a person entering Moreland on a bike was killed several years ago. High speeds, heavy truck traffic, narrow sidewalks, no bike lanes, and many, many driveways contributed to dangerous conditions throughout this corridor. Fortunately, neighborhood advocates and safety personnel at GDOT agreed on the need for changes. 

While this project won't fix all of Moreland, it will make this especially hazardous part safer. And while this is a short segment, it's a key connection for the bike network, connecting DeKalb Avenue (which could get its own high quality bikeway) to Little Five Points, a popular destination, as well as to the BeltLine via the Freedom Trail path.

We do think a few tweaks to the design could make the project - already good - even better.

Here's what we told GDOT - feel free to include this in your comment supporting the project: 

1. We support high quality, raised bike lanes and pedestrian crossings for SR 42/Moreland Avenue from Dekalb Avenue to Mansfield Avenue. 

2. To make the project even better, we would like to see a barrier between the raised bike lane and the general travel lane, so that people on bikes are separated from motor vehicles. While the idea of separating people on foot from those on bikes is a good one, it's all relative. Cars and trucks can do more damage to a person biking in a crash, so we think it's more important to separate those two modes from each other.

3. Add a crossing near the DeKalb Avenue interchange, and make the exit ramp from DeKalb form a "T" intersection, to encourage drivers entering Moreland to make a full stop first.

4. We like the diagonal crossing at Euclid as a way to make that crossing safer and easier for people on bikes, and it helps make up for the lack of bike lanes north of Euclid. Consider making this a "scramble" signal where people can cross from all angles

5. Remove the right turn lane from Moreland onto Euclid heading west, to reduce speeds in the section without a dedicated bike lane. 

More background on this project available here. 

To comment, email [email protected] by June 19. Please make sure to include in your comments that you support project SR 42/Moreland Avenue from DeKalb Avenue to Mansfield Avenue.