On August 20, 2020 we hosted our first-ever quarterly stakeholder meeting. Many thanks to everyone who spent the evening with us--what a great turn out! 

No worries if you weren’t able to make it--we’ve shared a few highlights below, plus you can watch the full briefing and/or review the slides at your convenience:

Recap

Our August briefing was packed with important organizational and strategic updates. We dove into some excellent discussions sparked by your questions and comments, shared new avenues for involvement, and heard important feedback. Our new strategic plan designates three key outcomes to progress toward our strategic goals with lots of opportunities for you to get involved--in 2020 and beyond we endeavor to build our organizational capacity, propel behavioral & culture shift, and achieve safe & complete streets for Atlanta. 

Build Organizational Capacity: our new strategic goals sparked a determination to grow inclusively and sustainably by aligning our name, brand, staff, and board with our updated vision, mission, & strategy. We’re committed to strengthening and expanding our network of supporters in a way that prioritizes equitable and sustainable mobility outcomes for Atlantans and values every voice on that journey--whether you’re new to this community or you’ve been here a long time. Some immediate steps we’re taking in this area include:

• Working toward finalizing a new name to reflect our new strategic direction: an Atlanta where everyone moves safely, easily, and sustainably throughout the city. We shared a survey so you could weigh in and received over 350 responses.
• Recently hired a new Senior Development Manager to advance our fundraising bandwidth--announcement coming soon!
• Looking for more people to join our small but mighty team. Learn more about our open staff positions here.
• Elevating and sustaining an effective coalition of transportation advocacy organizations.

Spark Behavioral & Culture Shift: Our vision for Atlanta calls for widespread sustainable transportation use over single-occupant car use. A few programs we’re implementing and policies we’re championing that we believe will help make any mode of sustainable mobility convenient, accessible, and safe for Atlantans include:

• Our Fall 2020 Bike Family program, which has already been a huge success! We have reached our current enrollment cap, so if you missed this round be sure to keep an eye out for future cohorts. 
• More free and convenient virtual bicycle safety and skills classes including City Cycling, True Beginners, Kids Bike, and Hack Your Essential Trip. Visit our virtual classes page to sign up today! 
• Once in-person gatherings can safely resume, we’re planning on activating our Atlanta Streets Alive weekly pilot program as a frequent demonstration of every possibility our streets offer beyond a car-centric framework. 
• Working with the City, Atlanta Public Schools and school organizations, workplaces and business organizations, and state partners to implement policies and programs that result in Atlantans choosing sustainable transportation. 
• It’s high on our priority list to hold MARTA and City of Atlanta accountable to implement technology and service improvements that enhance the public transit experience and promote riding transit. 

Achieve Safe & Complete Streets: Our decision to expand our strategic direction beyond biking only to include public transit users, pedestrians, wheelchair users, and scooter users affords us more dexterity to successfully advocate for safe and sustainable mobility across the board. We’ve shared a few updates on how we’re advancing Vision Zero, plus exciting new ways to get involved:

• Organizing safe street committees--do you live near Hollowell Parkway or Moreland Avenue and have an interest in advocating for a safer corridor? Join a street committee today. Enrollment ends October 12th.
• If you don’t live near Hollowell or Moreland, another vital avenue to get involved with transportation advocacy in your community is to join the Community Advocates Network. No deadline, but please join today!
• Join us for the NPU University Planning and Mobility around the City on September 29th at 6:30PM. RSVP here.
• Tactical Urbanism Permits are coming to Atlanta soon--start exploring projects for your neighborhood today.
• Traffic stops make our streets less safe for Black, Brown, Immigrant, and Indigenous communities. We can’t advocate for Vision Zero without acknowledging that safety in our streets goes beyond infrastructure improvements and reduced speed limits--we also have to address the issue of racial police violence that accompany traffic stops in order to achieve a vision of zero traffic deaths. In partnership with PEDs, Georgia STAND-UP, and TransFormation Alliance, we wrote a letter to the mayor calling for the removal of police enforcement as one of the traffic safety “Es” from Vision Zero.
• We’re proud to be chosen as TransFormation Alliance’s Mobility Champion this year. Through our continued transit partnerships, we’ll keep advocating for the City to prioritize essential transportation.
• We’re still focused on the DeKalb Avenue & Cascade Avenue street campaigns. We’ll continue to keep you updated on our advocacy efforts for these streets. 

Your infrastructure questions, addressed:

We've reached out to the City of Atlanta with your infrastructure questions about Monroe Drive and DeKalb Ave and will report back when we get a reply. We're also looking into ways to add more project tracking capacity on our own team.

Save the date for November 19th!

Missed the first briefing? Join us next quarter. Save the date for Thursday, November 19th. We will start at 7:00PM next time to give everyone more time to get settled and transition to time with us. 

Like what we’re doing? Help us build an Atlanta where everyone moves safely, easily, and sustainably by donating now.