Provide access to healthy last-mile transportation options by prioritizing installation of bike share stations in low income, disinvested and disconnected neighborhood.

Transportation accounts for 31% of City of Atlanta’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The City of Atlanta has committed to reduce GHG produced by transportation 20% from 2009 baseline by 2020 and 40% by 2030. Driving down the amount of Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) by enticing people to get out of their cars is a critical to reducing GHG emissions.

Image Credit: Atlanta’s Transportation Plan

Drive-alone commutes comprise 69% of the City of Atlanta’s mode share. Meanwhile, Atlanta’s transit only mode share accounts for 10% compared to 37%, 20%, and 28% in Washington, DC, Seattle, and Chicago, respectively.

Atlanta’s bike share system presents a safe and clean solution to replace car trips and connect people to MARTA bus and rail. Bike share makes one-way bike trips possible and eliminates some barriers to riding, such as ownership and storage. In order for bike share to succeed, the system needs a uniformly high station density across all types of neighborhoods.

Launched in 2016, the City of Atlanta’s bike share system has expanded relatively quickly, from 22 stations to 65 stations in one year. A high proportion of bike share stations are located in neighborhoods that have been designated Equitable Target Areas (ETA), a powerful tool created by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) to “better identify and understand communities with large minority or low-income populations.”

Figure 1. Bike share station locations and Equitable Target Areas. Source: The Atlanta Region’s Plan.

While the proportion of stations are greater in ETAs, station density tends to be greater on the east side of the city. Station density in “high” ETAs concentrated in the west and southside is roughly zero.

People use bike share when it is easy to access. NACTO recommends 28 stations per sq. mile to effectively provide convenient travel options. Atlanta’s bike share stations have the highest density in Downtown and parts of Midtown, up to approximately 17 stations per square mile. By evaluating the percent of area that is within a convenient walking distance (1,000 feet), we can identify areas where station infills would have the greatest impact and increase the number of stations per square mile in ETAs.

Figure 2. Bike share station density per sq. mile. Source: Atlanta Bicycle Coalition.

Figure 3. Convenience Analysis of bike share in Atlanta. Source: Atlanta Bicycle Coalition.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Provide access to healthy and meaningful last mile transportation options by expanding the bike share system to reach low income, disinvested, and disconnected neighborhoods in Equitable Target Areas.

2. Prioritize installation of bike stations in ETAs to reach 28 stations/sq. miles by adding infill stations throughout coverage area.

3. Ensure there are evenly spread walkable stations (a station every 1,000 feet) to make bike share accessible. The station spacing should remain consistent in all types of neighborhoods, including low income neighborhoods.

Add a $2.5 million line item to the City’s General Fund annually to connect gaps in the bikeway network and enhance safety of existing projects

The City of Atlanta should add a line item for building and maintaining bicycle infrastructure in the City’s General Fund. Building bicycle infrastructure requires a variety of funding sources. Access to capital through the City’s General Fund would improve the efficiency of moving projects forward and potentially create ways to extend projects through matching funds from federal, state, and private grants. The City of Chicago used local funds to successfully improve bike infrastructure in order to meet its ambitious goal to install 100 miles of protected bike lanes. Chicago provided funding for the first few miles of projects while waiting for subsequent funding mechanisms (e.g. federal funds) to become available. The City of Chicago now mainly uses local funds for spot improvements.

Image Credit: Chicago Bicycle Program

In addition to funding incremental improvements to connect gaps in the bicycle network where bike lanes end abruptly, the fund should be directed to maintaining and cleaning bike lanes and cycle tracks. It needs to be done much more often and better.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Add $2.5 million line item to the City’s General Fund annually for bikeway network improvement. This funding could build 24 miles of simple bike lanes projects -- with the estimate of $200,000 per mile for bike lanes that don’t require street resurfacing -- in two years.

2. Use the funds for bikeway maintenance as needed, ensuring existing bike lanes and trails are functioning well to safely accommodate riders.

Hire transportation engineers with training and experience designing bicycle projects

For the past sixty years, U.S. transportation planning and engineering prioritized automobile speed and throughput -- often at the expense of streets designed for people. The most influential U.S. transportation engineering organization, AASHTO (American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials), only recently started the process to add protected bike lanes to its popular standards and design guide. In practice, we frequently find bike facilities that are confusing and unsafe.

Photo credit: @ATLBikeLane

High-quality bicycle facilities -- and the wise use of public dollars -- depend on transportation engineers experienced in planning, implementing, and evaluating bicycle projects. Cities, of course, often hire consultants with experience designing bicycle projects. However, qualified "in-house” city staff who oversee ongoing bicycle projects and maintenance of existing facilities are also needed. In 2011-2012, San Francisco had the greatest number of full-time city staff working on bicycle and pedestrian projects at 33; Portland had the second highest with 23; Atlanta only had 4 city staff working.

In addition to an adequate number of well-trained personnel, we need a Chief Engineer with the training, expertise, and experience to guide implementation of the City’s bicycle and active transportation network.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Selectively hire transportation engineers with training and experience designing bicycle projects.

2. Create a Chief Engineer position in the new Atlanta Department of Transportation and hire with a focus on multi-modal experience and priorities.

Build 100 new miles of high-quality bike lanes and trails (the city currently has 104 miles) to connect the city, including 20 new miles of protected bike lanes (currently have 4 miles)

As of January 2017, there were 104 miles of bike lanes and trails in the City of Atlanta; protected bike lanes made up 4 miles. It is important to note that these bike lanes are mostly scattered. In order to make Atlanta’s streets more liveable and bikeable, it is critical that we double the mileage of bike lanes and connect the network.

Building 100 new miles of high-quality bike lanes and trails is attainable. Cycle Atlanta 1.0, a supplement to the Connect Atlanta Plan (Atlanta’s Comprehensive Transportation Plan), called for adding 31 miles of bike lanes to the bike network. As of April 2017, 9.6 miles had been built and 11.45 miles have been funded. Renew Atlanta Bond projects include 30 miles of Complete Streets projects which, by definition, ought to incorporate bike lanes. TSPLOST projects, once implemented, would add approximately 49.5 miles of bike lanes and trails -- 16.2 miles from Complete Street projects, 13 miles of protected bike lanes, and approximately 19.5 miles of trails.

Image Credit: Atlanta’s Transportation Plan

Among the generally accepted four categories of potential bike riders (1. strong and fearless; 2. enthused and confident; 3. interested but concerned; and 4. no way, no how), people who are “interested but concerned” make up the majority of population (60%).

Research shows that their level of comfort and willingness to ride are greatly influenced by the quality of bike facility provided. Connecting gaps in the bikeway network and enhancing quality of existing bike lanes and trails would have enormous effects on the “interested but concerned” potential riders. Responding to the needs of “interested but concerned” group and making more investment in bike infrastructure would create a virtuous cycle of increased ridership and improved bike safety on streets.

Image Credit: Atlanta’s Transportation Plan

Research shows that U.S. cities that focus on connecting their bicycle networks see substantial increases in bike ridership and reductions in crashes, fatalities, and severe injuries involving people on bikes. Atlanta has experienced this surge in ridership when high-quality facilities are provided. For example, between September 2013 and December 2017, ridership increased by 225% on the 10th Street barrier-separated two-way bike lane.

In addition to addressing market demands for bicycle infrastructure, the city should set aggressive mode split goals. Both Portland and Seattle set mode split goals to drive future investments in transportation infrastructure. By setting a target on reducing the percentage of people driving alone for trips, these cities were able to more easily prioritize bicycle and pedestrian improvements before other forms of transportation.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Set a goal of building and tracking 100 new miles of high-quality bike lanes, including 20 new miles of protected bike lanes.

2. Uphold plans for complete streets in Renew Atlanta Bond and TSPLOST to include high-quality bike lanes and, where space permits, protected bike lanes, without any additional delays.

3. Secure additional funding to implement the rest of proposed bike lanes (approx. 22 miles) that have not yet been installed, as outlined in Cycle Atlanta 1.0.

4. Mandate bike infrastructure with new developments and on streets in the city’s planned bicycle network when they are resurfaced.

5. Set aggressive mode shift goals and prioritize spending for projects that reduce driving alone and increase biking, walking, or transit.

Prevent fatal roadway crashes by standardizing the speed limit to 25 mph

“You can’t tackle our rising epidemic of roadway deaths without tackling speeding,” said NTSB Acting Chairman Robert L. Sumwalt. “Speed kills.” According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2015 the percentage of fatalities involving speeding was higher on minor roads than on interstates and freeways. As we aspire to have safe streets for all users we can prevent traffic fatalities by establishing lower speed limits. The National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) recommends street engineers bring street design in line with the target speed. Lower speed limits alone don’t reduce speeding, but as roads are resurfaced or updated, speed limits influence how they are designed, and give engineers the opportunity to design for the posted speed limit. (For example - narrowing lane widths, adding speed tables, or installing curb extensions lower speeds.)

Image Credit: PlanPhilly

The importance of reducing vehicle speeds is hard to dispute. Studies have shown that the risk of pedestrians or cyclists getting killed or injured escalates dramatically as the impact speeds reaches 30 miles per hour. Slower driving speeds significantly improve driver’s perception and reaction time, making it easier to avoid a crash and significantly changing the crash outcomes. Pedestrians have a 93% chance of surviving if they are struck by a vehicle traveling at 20 mph, while only 80% of pedestrians survive if the impact speed is 30 mph. A person is 70 percent more likely to die if they are hit by a car going 30 mph versus 25 mph. It is clear that slowing down cars even slightly can profoundly affect the difference between life and death.

Under the current City of Atlanta municipal code adopted in 1977, the city is divided into two speed zones. The maximum speed permitted in the inner zone -- defined as area within a radius of 2.5 miles centered on the intersection of Peachtree St. and Marietta St. -- is 25 mph. Meanwhile, the maximum speed permitted in the outer zone is 35 mph.

There is currently no standardized speed limit and any reductions of posted speed limits at 30 mph or less have been done on an ad hoc basis, wasting taxpayer dollars and delaying the safety benefits. 

Unlike cities like Austin and Boston, where bureaucratic obstacles challenged their ability to lower speed limits on neighborhood streets to 25 mph, Atlanta can standardize the speed limit. The State of Georgia has already given local governments more control of regulating traffic speeds on their streets. Georgia permits the alteration of speed limits within urban or residential districts to 25 mph.

In addition to promoting safer streets and improving public safety, reducing the speed limit to 25 mph can make more effective use of public funds. Rather than pay for the traffic studies required to propose a reduction of the posted speed limit for their streets, neighborhoods could request streetscape improvements.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Request a study to evaluate the impact of a standardized speed limit of 25 mph.

2. Legislate a 25 mph speed limit on all streets within the City of Atlanta.

3. Support efforts at the state level to allow local governments to legislate 20 mph speed limit on local or residential streets.

4. Replace traffic signs as needed throughout the city.  

5. Launch a public education campaign to reinforce the message that speeding is both dangerous and illegal.

6. Ensure measurably equitable enforcement of the speed limits through use of automated speed cameras rather than traffic stops. 

This campaign is celebrating a win with the April 2020 adoption of Vision Zero legislation. Read more.

Set a city goal of zero traffic deaths, and create a data-driven approach in which multiple city departments collaborate to reduce roadway crashes and fatalities to zero -- because no one should die trying to get somewhere.

Atlanta should aspire to make streets safer for everyone regardless of their choice of travel modes. The unfortunate reality is that the number of roadway crashes increased from 2011-2014 across Metro Atlanta. The numbers are highest in Fulton County. In 2017 alone, 115 people died on streets in Fulton County, 36 of whom were walking, and two of whom were on bikes. None of them should have died while trying to get to where they were going.

In making Atlanta streets safer for everyone, it is imperative to set a city goal of zero traffic deaths by adopting a “Vision Zero” strategy for the City of Atlanta. Vision Zero starts with a simple premise: traffic fatalities and severe injuries are preventable. The Vision Zero approach requires rigorous collaboration across city departments and stakeholders to devise data-driven and measurable strategies to achieve the shared goal of zero fatalities. Originally started in Sweden, Vision Zero has been adopted by 27 American cities, including San Francisco, Portland, New York, and Seattle.

Vision Zero emphasizes engineering streets for safety and educating the public. By acknowledging that people will make mistakes, we must thoughtfully design streets that provide clear visibility for streets users, discourage speeding, provide separation between modes, and protected pedestrian crossings that would dramatically reduce the conditions that lead to fatalities and injuries.

Another fundamental key to eliminate traffic fatalities and serious injuries is public awareness. Vision Zero Action Plan should incorporate efforts to educate travelers of all modes to allow them to travel safely and respectfully together.

While some U.S. cities include enforcement of traffic laws using traffic stops in their Vision Zero strategies, we do not support that strategy for Atlanta. Traffic stops have not been proven to have a lasting impact on the risk of collisions and create the potential for dangerous interactions between the public and the police. Traffic stops would not get us to a safe transportation system that we aspire. Over-reliance on police enforcement could hinder street design and policies that truly prioritize safety for people using all modes of transportation. From an equity perspective, there has been growing interest in limiting law enforcement actions in Vision Zero in order to reduce the possibility of disparate impacts on minority and low-income travelers. Traffic stops also significantly hinder the flow of traffic creating obstacles and unsafe conditions for all modes.

The  City of Portland (city population of 639,863, metro population of 2,389,228) has explicitly limited enforcement and pledged to no racial profiling in its Vision Zero that was adopted in 2015. Portland also implemented policies to give safety education to people who have broken traffic laws instead of giving them punishment through fines or jail time. In California, San Francisco (city population of 870,887) has also added an equity platform to its Vision Zero and specifically narrowed enforcement role to focus on the top five offenses that lead to the greatest traffic violence. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles (city population of 3,976, 322), there has been a growing movement to revise Vision Zero to address racial profiling and disproportionate enforcement issues.

In lieu of increased enforcement, we recommend that the city ask the state legislature to authorize the use of automated speed cameras to reduce high-speed traffic crashes. Earlier this year, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended that states that prohibit or restrict automated speed cameras “remove barriers to the use of automated speed enforcement—are based on the findings that it is an effective but underused countermeasure.”

A 2010 study found that automated enforcement using speed cameras significantly reduced speeding and serious injury crashes. The report states that the “consistency of reported positive reductions in speed and crash results across all studies show that speed cameras are a worthwhile intervention for reducing the number of road traffic injuries and deaths.”

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Immediately create a Vision Zero Task Force to create and oversee the implementation of an Action Plan. This task force should draw stakeholders from city departments, transportation-related fields, and community organizations. Ideally, the Task Force would be chaired by the Director of the Department of Transportation.

2. Support and standardize the collection and creation of comprehensive data that reveals significant factors contributing to fatalities and severe injuries as well as where most crashes occur (to designate the High Crash Network). The Action Plan should be built upon this data and should lay out specific actions that are measurable against performance indicators.

3. Collaborate with GDOT to revise data collection practices to ensure bike and pedestrian crashes are properly accounted for. Standardize a count program to understand how exposure affects the crash rate.

4. Ensure that the Action Plan addresses inequity concerns that would disproportionately affect people of color and low-income communities.

5. Ensure coordination between the ATL Vision Zero Action Plan and the Street Design Policy.

6. The police enforcement should be limited to focus on the High Crash Network area and on the most influential behaviors contributing to fatal crashes.

7. Secure adequate and sustainable funding for the implementation of the ATL Vision Zero Action Plan.

8. Support the provision of speed cameras across the city, with priority along the High Injury Network, including any state legislation needed.

9. Set aside money in an annual budget specifically for the purpose of Vision Zero and link lives saved to these dollars.

For more on our 2017 policy platform, visit atlantabike.org/platform2017. 

Make housing more affordable by eliminating the minimum number of car parking spaces required for housing developments

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition believes affordable housing options can keep the city more livable, inclusive, and economically diverse. An impediment to affordable housing is our outdated minimum parking requirement policy. Off-street minimum parking requirements increase both the construction cost of housing and the land cost per unit by reducing the achievable development density. These two impacts can hinder the development of affordable housing. The impact of minimum parking requirements are even more harmful for renters. According to the national American Housing Survey, the cost of garage parking for renters is approximately $1,700 per year, while the bundling of garage space with residential unit increases rents by about $142 per month, or 17%. Moreover, the study also found that minimum parking requirements have disproportionately impacted renters without cars.

Image Credit: Atlanta’s Transportation Plan

Eliminating residential parking requirements in the City of Atlanta would increase market-driven-affordable housing by giving each housing development the flexibility to build parking based on market demand. In addition, eliminating minimum parking requirements would also disincentivize automobile use, which would encourage people to ride transit, bike, and walk, and promote more efficient land use.

VIDEO: Kronberg Wall Parking: A look at how parking influences the design and use of our neighborhoods and cities

In the City of Atlanta, parking minimums are required in the city’s zoning code. While minimum parking requirements have been removed for some land uses in Downtown and Midtown, the city as a whole requires minimum parking rates for every land use, including in districts that are specifically designated to serve multi-family residential purpose. For example, in Multi-family Residential (MR) -- a zoning district that was created to encourage a range of housing types and prices that meet different needs -- parking minimums for residential vary from 0.42 to 2.2 car spaces per dwelling unit, depending on the permitted Floor Area Ratio (FAR). MR-1 districts with a maximum FAR of 0.162 (approx. 2-3 story buildings) have parking minimums that range from 1.8 to 2.2 spaces/ dwelling unit. This intense requirement might continue to hamper the provision of affordable housing in the City of Atlanta.

Among other efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing, the City of Atlanta mandated the Atlanta BeltLine to create 5,600 affordable workforce housing units, that ought to be attainable for people with income levels at or below 60% of Area Median Income (AMI), over the life of the BeltLine Tax Allocation District (TAD). However, a study co-authored by Professor Dan Immergluck, formerly of Georgia Tech’s School of City and Regional Planning, states that up until Spring 2017, fewer than 1,000 affordable housing units have been created. Moreover, using the data on home sales in the City of Atlanta from 2011 to 2015, this study suggests that homes that are located within a half-mile of the BeltLine are expected to have increased in value 17.9 - 26.6% percentage points more than similar homes outside a half-mile radius from the BeltLine. Adding to this complexity, the city code still requires a minimum of one car parking space per dwelling in the Beltline Overlay Zoning district. This regulation is counterproductive to the creation of affordable housing, more crucially, in area that is designed to be transit-rich, well-served by multi-trails, and where all people throughout all income brackets should have equal opportunity to live in.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Eliminate off-street minimum parking requirements for housing developments in the City of Atlanta in all zoning districts, not only in SPI-I Downtown and SPI-16 Midtown District. This elimination could be accomplished gradually. Examples of cities that have progressively eliminated residential minimum parking requirements in many of their districts are San Francisco, Oregon, Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, and New York.

2. In stage one, the City of Atlanta should prioritize eliminating minimum parking requirements for residential developments in the BeltLine Overlay District.

3. In stage two, the City of Atlanta should eliminate minimum parking requirements for residential uses located in transit-rich areas or adjacent to protected bike lanes or multi-use trails. For the purpose of amending the city code, these transit-rich areas should be clearly defined. For example, if the residential use is located within a walking distance of ¼ mile of a street with frequent transit service, no parking minimum is required. The distance is calculated from the nearest transit stop to the lot line of the lot containing the residential use. (Seattle has adopted this policy.)

4. In addition to eliminating parking minimums, the City of Atlanta should formally introduce and set up the regulations for unbundling residential parking. Unbundling parking means separating the costs to residents of housing and parking. This could decrease car ownership rates, since it allows proper functioning of the market for parking. Unbundling parking would encourage multiple housing developments in close proximity to combine their parking units into a single structure parking garage on a separate parcel. This would make for more efficient land use, significantly lowering the construction costs, thus making housing more affordable.

5. The City of Atlanta should then take steps to reduce the residential parking maximums in Downtown, Midtown, and transit-rich neighborhoods in attempt to encourage more sustainable transport modes. Currently, the residential parking maximums range between 1.25 to 2.5 car parking spaces per dwelling unit in the SPI-1 Downtown district. Those numbers should be lowered, since there is oversupply of parking in Downtown and Midtown, according to a thesis by Georgia Tech’s student. (San Francisco, where residential parking maximums range from 0.5 to 0.75 in Downtown, is among the many cities that have adopted lower residential parking maximums than Atlanta.)

6. The City of Atlanta should then adjust its process to include a special use fee per parking space proposed within new developments. Money raised would be dedicated to the Department of Transportation.

Adopt the Street Design Policy drafted by the Department of City Planning

In November 2016, voters approved a referendum authorizing the City of Atlanta T-SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax for Transportation) that will generate approximately $300 million over a five-year period to fund transportation projects citywide, including $75 million for 15 Complete Streets projects.

The lack of a Street Design Policy leaves a void in our current policy structure. The Atlanta City Code and the City of Atlanta Public Right-of-Way Manual provide general information regarding permitted constructions and activities conducted under a permit, franchise agreement, or special agreement within the City’s right-of-way. However, these statutes do not provide legal standards for designing streets in the City. Meanwhile, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Design Policy Manual (DPM) only has limited application - to projects along state highways, state bikeways,and projects funded by GDOT. The absence of a legal guide to local street design can prompt liability concerns among traffic engineers, and can build roadblocks to creating good street designs.

Image Credit: National Association of City Transportation Officials

The City of Atlanta Department of City Planning (DCP) has responded to the demands for street design policy by devising the “Move Atlanta: A Design Guide for Active, Balanced, & Complete Streets.” The process of drafting this manual started in 2012. Adapted from the Los Angeles County Model Design Manual for Living Streets, Move Atlanta provides guidelines for Complete Streets designs --- ranging from project development, roadway designs, intersection designs, sidewalk designs, pedestrian crossings, bikeway designs, transit accommodations, traffic calming, and green infrastructure. Though the adoption of a Complete Streets design manual is influential in determining how safe a city is to transit and active transportation users, the City of Atlanta has not approved ordinance 15-O-1343 to formally adopt the Move Atlanta. Two years have passed since its first introduction to the City Council, but still, as of June 2017, the status of this ordinance is returned as held to the Community Development/Human Services committee.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

1. Institute performance measure metric in “Move Atlanta" to evaluate how well the streets are serving users of all ages and abilities.

2. Ensure that “Move Atlanta” is well-aligned to the engineering component of the ATL Vision Zero — a comprehensive strategy of achieving a city goal of zero traffic deaths.

Create a City of Atlanta Department of Transportation for a cohesive transportation planning and project delivery process that better leverages resources.

The increased demand for transportation options and the desire for context-sensitive approaches to transportation infrastructure that prioritize safety, equity, and accessibility requires a new approach to how we plan and deliver projects. The creation of a City of Atlanta Department of Transportation (ATL DOT) is fundamental to meeting these demands. Creating an ATL DOT would restructure our current transportation, public works and planning tools in order to better leverage resources and streamline project delivery.

Since the ATL DOT would govern the full lifecycle of transportation projects — from planning, project identification, project funding, and project design, to implementation and maintenance — an ATL DOT would have the capacity and, thus, the responsibility, to work strategically.

Currently, Atlanta’s transportation planning and services are distributed primarily between the Department of City Planning (DCP, formerly Department of Planning and Community Development) and the Department of Public Works (DPW) Georgia Department of Transportation, the PATH Foundation, and the Atlanta Beltline. In general, DCP, through its Office of Mobility Planning, is responsible for transportation planning, while DPW is responsible for approvals, operation and maintenance of transportation facilities and infrastructure.

According to a recent study conducted by Georgia Tech graduate students, the absence of a centralized transportation department in the City of Atlanta cleaves the transportation roles in half, forcing the two departments to operate under unclear divisions of responsibilities and scope. Handing off transportation projects from DCP to DPW is often not a clear-cut process, and interdepartmental communications and collaboration tend to be ad hoc. This lack of definitive oversight leads to backlogs, conflicting priorities, and confusion over jurisdictions that may hinder the ability to effectively devise and implement cohesive transportation strategy for the City of Atlanta.

Image: City of Oakland Department of Transportation Strategic Plan

The question of whether to create a centralized transportation department is not new. The City of Atlanta can learn from other cities that have recently restructured their transportation governance in order to improve project delivery and policy implementation.The City of Oakland (population 420,005; San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland metro population 8.8 million) successfully created an Oakland Department of Transportation (OakDOT) in June 2016. The concept of OakDOT was formally introduced in Spring 2015 and championed by the newly elected Mayor. The City of Pittsburgh (pop. 303,625; metro pop. 2.3 million) commissioneda study to explore alternatives of new transportation agency structure, as well as Denver and Wichita have also commissioned studies.

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition recommends that elected officials:

• Review the study commissioned by City Council Member Andre Dickens as soon as it’s published to create a sound strategic plan that addresses financial budgeting and staff realignment, ensures public transparency, and captures organizational and institutional knowledge, as well as clearly outlining a transition schedule.

• Immediately appoint an “Interim Director of Transportation” whose tasks include setting up the department with minimal political pressure and after 9 months appointing a permanent Director, whose task would be to oversee the above mentioned strategic plan, facilitating communication within existing departments, and engaging employees and stakeholders in the process of governance restructuring. The Director of Transportation will report to the Mayor and Chief of Staff and will lead both the reorganization process and the newly created Department of Transportation.

• Ensure a cohesive vision and clear goals for transportation are set to direct the works of ATL DOT.

• Ensure clear performance metrics and benchmarks are established to allow effective evaluation of the ATL DOT’s works and accountability.

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