On October 21, 2024, Atlanta City Council approved a $120 Million bond request from the Mayor's Office. Thanks to advocacy efforts and Councilmembers Matt Westmoreland and Jason Dozier, the legislation included an amendment that improved the project list. Now to the hard part: holding the City accountable to deliver on multiple competing priorities and build measurably safer and more accessible streets.

Find out more what your advocacy helped change in the legislation.

Recommendations

The original list proposed by the Mayor's Office would have gone mostly to "resurface" streets–patch the surface and put the rest back the way it is. Over the past several weeks, after learning the bond was highly likely to be approved by City Council, we worked to improve the project list to make streets safer and more accessible to everyday Atlantans. 

We made specific recommendations to improve the project list that you can view here. We also recommended the bond be used to invest in crosswalks on streets not being resurfaced, a new City bike share program that emphasizes equity, access, and affordability, transit station area and placemaking enhancements, bus lanes (pending MARTA's bus network redesign being adopted in time). Read more

Results

We still have concerns about the Atlanta Department of Transportation's capacity to get these projects done, given the backlog of incomplete projects dating back to 2015, and concerns about this set of projects leapfrogging others. But under the circumstances, the results below represent a better outcome.  

1. Funding to repair sidewalks and ADA ramps increased from $5 Million to $20 Million. The first list would have fixed just 2.9 miles of sidewalks rated "poor" and "very poor" and the adopted list will improve 11 miles of sidewalks.  

2. The amendment required safe streets, bicycle, and pedestrian safety improvements be made to any streets being resurfaced. Here's the Westmoreland/Dozier amendment

Photos: Propel ATL