Propel ATL 4-Year Policy Agenda

There's a growing demand for options outside the car to get around Atlanta. But despite voters approving the funding through Moving Atlanta Forward, the City of Atlanta isn’t building safe street infrastructure fast enough to meet the needs of everyday Atlantans. The City should set ambitious yet achievable goals for annual installation of sustainable transportation infrastructure and be held accountable for meeting them.

In 2016, voters in the City of Atlanta authorized a tax increase to expand transit service, known as “More MARTA.” More MARTA was intended to dramatically expand transit service, but fell behind on delivering projects. The original list has been revised several times, each time with fewer and less ambitious projects. We've criticized the process for the lack of community input.

Atlanta can’t thrive without a thriving transit system. Whether or not you rely on transit, we all need it for cleaner air, less traffic, reliable transportation options for the economy and job access, safer streets, and healthier communities. It's time to get on track.

Repaving streets makes it easier for car drivers to speed, which in turn makes streets more dangerous, unless safety improvements are installed at the same time. The City of Atlanta's policy is to "take every opportunity to make streets safer." Yet, paving projects are often green-lit without plans for safety improvements, such as pedestrian crossings or bike lanes. (For example, the World Cup bond was used to repave dangerous corridors like Baker Street downtown without other changes.)

A bike trip is only as safe and comfortable as the worst intersection it crosses. Dangerous gaps in the network of bike/scoot lanes prevent many people from using bikes or scooters to get around. This contributes to car ownership, congestion, pollution, and a lack of physical activity. Bike and scoot infrastructure should be connected and protected. When the City updates its Comprehensive Transportation Plan in 2026, the Atlanta Department of Transportation must prioritize physically separated bike/scoot lanes.

Bus trips are often delayed when the bus gets stuck in traffic. To improve bus service and on-time trip delivery, the ATLDOT should plan bus lanes where car traffic causes the most delays. It should also include other ways to prioritize bus trips, using signals and other technology.

Currently, the first $7 million in revenue goes directly into the City of Atlanta General Fund. Revenue over $7 Million is split 80/20. Because most curbside revenue goes into the General Fund rather than being reinvested in the streets, sidewalks, and facilities that make curbside parking valuable, the system doesn’t maintain or improve the infrastructure it relies on. Therefore, we recommend phasing out the contribution to the General Fund over the next 3 years. Funds should instead be reinvested through ATLDOT to directly support things like sidewalk and ADA upgrades, protected bike lanes, scooter corrals, and bus stop accessibility.

The City of Atlanta’s Vision Zero Action Plan, adopted in November 2023, is extremely ambitious with many worthwhile action items; however, implementation is lagging behind due to the lack of funding and staff.

If the City is serious about eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries by 2040, it needs to invest significant time and resources. The Vision Zero Plan and establishing the Fatal Crash Review Commission were good first steps, but the City has yet to allocate enough staff and funding to fully implement the recommendations.

In 2021, Propel ATL advocated for a new traffic calming ordinance that simplified the process to request these projects. However, four years later, neighborhoods still make their traffic calming requests through Councilmembers, an arbitrary and ineffective process. What's more, Moving Atlanta Forward allocated $10 million towards traffic calming in 2022, but the fund hasn’t been touched yet.

ATLDOT should create a landing page on its website that outlines the process for communities to request traffic calming projects and information on projects in the pipeline.

The Atlanta “Pothole Posse” was revived in 2021 by the City of Atlanta and filled some 4,000 potholes that year. That same year, the City of Atlanta repaired just 2.7 miles of sidewalks. Sidewalks are a major safety and accessibility concern, yet fixing them takes years or even decades, while potholes get repaired quickly because they affect mostly drivers. Given the enormous need, public interest, and ADA settlement, ATLDOT should have a Sidewalk Squad with equal or greater funding and personnel as the Pothole Posse.

Quick Build projects (also known as Tactical Urbanism) are a way for communities to install safety improvements relatively quickly and inexpensively. But there are too many barriers for most neighborhoods, especially those in under-resourced communities, to install these projects. A “Safety Fast-Track Team” would implement small improvements that make a big difference. This will help the City achieve its goal of eliminating traffic deaths and serious injuries by 2040.

Atlanta residents, businesses, and visitors increasingly value safe, accessible, and sustainable transportation options. Clear, transparent communications can help answer their questions about progress on projects and maintain support for future public investments. Transportation project dashboards on the ATLDOT website should be revised to be user-friendly and accurate.

Currently, Atlanta property owners are responsible for maintaining the sidewalk adjacent to their property. This puts an unfair burden on lower-income homeowners, including seniors on a fixed income. Even for those who can afford repairs, fixing one section of sidewalk at a time is an inefficient way to maintain an essential public good.

Many international cities already take responsibility for sidewalks. In the US, Chicago, Dallas, Portland OR, St. Louis, San Antonio, Los Angeles and Madison WI all have cost-share or rebate programs in place. Even Atlanta fills potholes on public streets–what is the justification for not repairing cracks in public sidewalks used for transportation on foot and by people using wheelchairs?

The City of Atlanta should update code to make sidewalks part of the City Right of Way and the City's responsibility to maintain. (Legislation to make this change was introduced by the City Council in 2020 but not adopted.)

Currently, the Georgia Department of Transportation regularly repaves streets and conducts other maintenance, but does not consider sidewalk maintenance on state routes to be its responsibility. Sidewalks on state routes across Georgia are in disrepair. Local governments across the state, especially small towns, often lack funding to fix sidewalks. As a result, Georgians who walk or use wheelchairs have less access and are exposed to greater risks as pedestrians.

The official Code of Georgia §32-2-2 (a) (1) doesn’t define “other maintenance activities” and therefore is subject to interpretation. (See “Sidewalks on state routes throughout Georgia are in need of repair.”) Georgia should clarify state code to allow "sidewalks" as an authorized category of major maintenance, to eliminate the confusion that has contributed to the subpar condition of many sidewalks on state roads in Georgia.

Pedestrians and people using wheelchairs or other mobility devices are sometimes forced to walk or wheel in the road when sidewalks are closed due to construction on both sides of a street.

On state routes, there is nothing to prevent this from happening. The Georgia Department of Transportation should not approve permits to close sidewalks on both sides of the street and tell the public about detours when sidewalk or bike lanes are closed.

The City of Atlanta has stricter requirements for sidewalk closures that require temporary accommodations, but they don't apply to bike lanes. Those requirements should be updated to require temporary alternatives when bike lanes are closed and communicate clearly about all closures, not just those affecting drivers.

As the department responsible for transportation and mobility, ATLDOT should review all transportation permits. (Prior to the ATLDOT being created in 2019, DPW reviewed sidewalk and lane closure permits, and many of the City's websites with permit applications, including those under the Mayor's Office of Special Events, or MOSE, have not been updated.)

The number of people killed in traffic–across the board, in every kind of transportation–increased 49% in DeKalb County between 2019-2023. (The Human Cost of Mobility, Propel ATL, 2025). The county recognizes the problem and sees an opportunity to redesign streets and use proven safety strategies to save lives. Adopting this goal is the first step.

As Atlanta continues to draw major international events, the crowds create more demand for transit and add to transportation costs. Programs such as the hotel/motel fee can help support transit system improvements to a greater extent, benefitting the tourism and convention industry as well as Atlanta residents. In 2015, HB 170 created a $5 per night/per room fee on hotel or motel rooms for transportation or debt reduction. Yet the fees are flat, set at $5 in 2015, and not tied to inflation. What's more, transit is capped at 10% of these funds, limiting their potential to improve the transit visitors rely on to explore our city. (See Today’s Funding Landscape - ATL.)

Automated speed enforcement in school zones was a hot topic during the 2025 Georgia legislative session. While many communities expressed support for the safety improvements they had experienced near schools, other constituents complained about confusing time-of-day rules, a lack of clear signage, streets that encourage speeding, and storing the images.

Allocating the revenue raised from tickets specifically to safety projects in school zones would help reinforce that the goal of this program is to make kids, families, teachers, and staff safer, not just to raise money. Reforming the program with signage and time-of-day requirements and clarifying the data collection, storage, and reporting in a transparent way could build public trust.

GDOT reviews speed camera permits. At permitted locations, GDOT should create safe routes to school projects that redesign these streets to discourage speeding and ensure revenue is never the reason to install cameras. The ultimate goal is to prevent kids, families, and teachers/staff from being hit by cars on their way to school.

MARTA has long planned to update its bus network, and the new network is slated to roll out in fall 2025. MARTA and riders alike hope the redesigned routes will improve reliability. However, the project has been delayed for years. Publishing a tracker for the new network rollout showing progress would also help build trust.

Bus trip cancellations leave riders who rely on transit stranded or force them into expensive alternatives, such as rideshare. Cancellations are not reported in MARTA's on-time performance metric. The Board needs to make this a top-level metric and make progress towards resolving it at every board meeting, and trip cancellation data should be included in the public data dashboard.

MARTA should create a free student fare program like that in Washington, DC, or half-price fare like Chicago and Houston. MARTA currently allows kids 46 inches and shorter to ride MARTA for free. A student fare program would lay the groundwork for the next generation of transit commuters. It would also support families who are transit-dependent and cost-burdened, make family trips by transit less costly for everyone, convert some car trips to transit trips, provide mobility and independence for teenagers by allowing them to travel to work, school, and activities.

Transit is safer than other modes so increasing transit trips can save lives (if there are safe routes to transit). This program would represent an investment in the future of transit in Atlanta by leading to higher levels of future transit use.

MARTA should also cap transit fares when it rolls out the new fare system, so passengers only pay for the actual rides they take within a certain time period, up to the cost of a day or weekly pass. This would be a big win for riders who need it most. A 30 day pass costs $95 up front, so reducing that to $2.50 over time would support riders who don't have $95 cash on hand. MARTA's new fare technology will make it feasible to implement this change. MARTA would benefit from having increased ridership, which makes transit feel safer.