ATL DOT coming soon!

We were thrilled to hear Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announce she is creating an Atlanta Department of Transportation (ATL DOT) at the 2019 State of the City.  We've advocated for the creation of a City of Atlanta department dedicated to transportation for two years, through our 2017 policy platform, our mayoral forum, and as members of the ATL DOT stakeholder committee. In fact, we were asking for it informally even before then, once we realized that planning and implementation needed to fall under the same authority and leadership.  Thanks to the smart, tireless, and humble work of Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Councilmember Andre Dickens, we are now closer than ever to the dream of safe, equitable mobility. We're proud of the advocacy work that's gotten Atlanta this far. None of this would be possible without the support of our members. JOIN TODAY to support our continued work on this issue.  Read more

Congrats to the 2019 shiny & bright Blinkie Award winners!

On Thursday, February 7th, about 300 members and guests attended the 2019 Blinkie Awards & Member Party, sponsored by BikeLaw Georgia and the Trolley Barn. We gathered to connect with our members and celebrate the people making Atlanta better by bike. In case you missed it, read more for the award winners.  Read more

Calling All Advocates - Final Push for Safe & Complete Streets

We closed 2018 calling on the City to prioritize the Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST Complete Street projects that have stalled out after three years of public meetings and delays. As taxpayers and voters, you and I authorized these projects, and we voted for Complete Streets - twice! Now it's time to mark your calendars for our last run at getting safe & complete streets built. Bring friends, family, and anyone who owes you money to these meetings and tell the City to prioritize safe & complete streets. There's a lot to like in the Complete Streets Scenario presented at the Transportation Committee Work Session earlier this month. (You can review the presentation here.) Namely, full funding for Howell Mill Road, Cascade Road/Avenue (Phase 1), Monroe Drive AND Boulevard, and the removal of the reversible lane on DeKalb Avenue. But there are three important projects missing. Read more

Prioritize the Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST Complete Streets Proiects

If you voted for safe and Complete Streets that provide more mobility and transportation options for everyone, please take the Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST survey and make sure these projects get built. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms launched an effort to prioritize the Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST project list after she identified major funding shortfalls that would jeopardize long overdue projects that were overwhelmingly approved by voters. As stated in the presentation to the Atlanta City Council Transportation Committee, Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST will prioritize projects based on the safety, mobility, and affordability goals established in the Atlanta Transportation Plan (ATP). Read more

MARTA and ABC Remove Barriers to Last Mile Trips

MARTA and the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition are here to jumpstart a new way of getting to work by helping you finish the first and last mile of your commute! Thanks to MARTA, you will now experience last-mile connectivity in our classes. Starting in November, when you take a City Cycling or Hack Your Commute class, you get a Breeze card loaded with two trips. Read more

Save the Dates: Atlanta Streets Alive 2019

When the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition launched Atlanta Streets Alive in 2010, we set out to shift Atlanta’s culture. We wanted to inspire Atlantans to re-envision and reclaim our city streets as spaces for people. Now, eight years, 25 street activations, and almost 70 miles of open streets later -- energized by deepening community support, Atlanta Streets Alive has evolved. A modest, interactive tactical urbanism demonstration that attracted 5,000 participants for its debut on Edgewood Avenue has become an award-winning initiative that can draw over 130,000 people at a time onto some of Atlanta’s most familiar streets. Atlanta Streets Alive has been embraced by Atlantans as part of our city's cultural signature. Here’s how -- with your support -- we’ll harness that energy and momentum to transform Atlanta streets into healthy, safe places that foster civic pride and community in 2019. Read more

Get the story behind the rebuilt Courtland bridge and what it promises people on bikes

After just months of construction, downtown Atlanta has a new Courtland Street bridge. Looking at the bridge today, you'll see wider sidewalks and a safer crossing at Gilmer, but otherwise, the bridge looks much the same -- surprising to many given increasing calls for safe streets for people downtown, including tens of thousands of students. But the finishing touches are still to come. We will continue to advocate for the bridge, which cuts a wide swath through the heart of Georgia State University, to be oriented towards people first. Read more for the background on this project and what we've tried to do to improve it. Read more

POSTPONED: Take Action for Complete Streets

  ***Renew Atlanta/TSPLOST will not be presenting to the Transportation Committee this Wednesday, October 24th. We will post an update as soon as we hear about the next meeting.*** 88% of Atlanta voters approved the $250-million Renew Atlanta bond back in 2015. After three years of public meetings and bold promises, only one out of 16 Complete Street projects have been built -- and that project didn't have a single public meeting nor was it on the project list shared with voters. Failure to build these projects would defy the will of the voters who overwhelmingly said yes to both the Renew Atlanta bond and TSPLOST. Read more

Atlanta's most popular bike lane needs you

Are you one of the 2,700 daily riders on the 10th Street protected bike lane who have been affected by the latest festival-related lane closure or the missing flex posts? The recent bike lane and sidewalk closures on 10th Street raise serious questions about how we prioritize and define transportation -- especially when it comes to Atlanta's most popular bike lane. Read more

Catching Up with the City of Atlanta's New Chief Bicycle Officer

The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition catches up with Cary Bearn, the new City of Atlanta Chief Bicycle Officer, to find out what she has planned for Atlanta’s bicycle network. Read more

Peachtree Street for a New Era

How do you design Peachtree Street for a new era? The answer's in the street - its past, present, and future. You can be part of the next chapter of our most iconic street when you visit Atlanta City Design's Shared Street Pilot at the Atlanta Streets Alive - Central on Sunday, September 30th. Through this pilot, we want you to experience a street that's a destination worth traveling to, not just driving through. Read more

Where we stand on all this mobility

There's a picture making the rounds on the internet. It shows someone riding an electric scooter on the Downtown Connector. It tends to set off a lot of comments. And lately every meeting we're in starts with small talk about dockless bike share and scooters. Often it's "Ugh, they're everywhere!" But our feeling is "Yes, they're everywhere!"   Atlantans are riding scooters and shared bikes in droves, especially in parts of the city where streets are the most congested, or in areas with big gaps in transit service, or well, even that one guy on the highway (yikes).  All this demand highlights just how little space is available for anything other than cars, and how much space we've dedicated to cars. Google streetview illustrates the story on roads like Courtland Ave near Georgia State University: After hearing from many of you and watching the explosion of mobility options in Atlanta, we've realized a few things. Read more for our positions on dockless bikeshare and scooters and let us know what you think!  Read more

Why We Can't Ignore Atlanta's High-Injury Network

How can Atlanta eliminate traffic deaths? Other U.S. cities that have adopted Vision Zero policies -- with the aim to eliminate traffic fatalities­ -- ­have taken the initial step of identifying where the majority of severe injury and fatal crashes occur on city streets, known as a “High-­Injury Network”. Read more

Taking notice of people killed on bikes in 2018

Earlier this year, there were two fatal bike crashes in Atlanta. Miles apart, they are connected by the fact that both seemed to go unnoticed. Until Georgia Bikes shared a mid-year update on bike crashes in the state, we were unaware that two people have been killed while biking in/near Atlanta in 2018 so far. In the last few years, we've had one fatal bike crash per year. But every single person's life lost in traffic is one too many.  Through further inquiry, we have confirmed that both individuals are from Latino backgrounds. That means the two un-remarked, uncovered bike fatalities this year might share more than obscurity. Read more

Monroe Drive and Boulevard Draw Attention to Urgent Need for Complete Streets

Three years after voters overwhelmingly approved the Renew Atlanta bond, in March 2015, just one out of the fifteen Complete Street projects has been completed and only two projects have progressed beyond a quarter of a percent complete. Now, we're seeing one project after another get kicked down the road to 2020, according to the Renew Atlanta Complete Street Project pages. Construction on phase 1 of DeKalb Avenue was scheduled to start this year but now it won't start until 2020; Cascade Road was also going to start this year but now it's been delayed until 2020. The same goes for Howell Mill Road. After the most recent open house for Monroe Drive/Boulevard Complete Street, which failed to include a road diet north of 10th Street, it's become clear that the city needs to commit to these Complete Street projects. Read more

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