A recent story in the Economist about the rise of e-bike parents ferrying kids to school observed, “Revolutions begin with a push of the pedal.”
That goes double for Henry Slack, bicycle enthusiast and co-founder of the Atlanta Bicycle Campaign (aka ABC), the organization founded in 1991 that eventually evolved into Propel ATL. A lifelong Atlanta bicyclist and transportation advocate known for commuting by bike from Decatur to downtown, Henry remains a guiding light for Propel ATL’s mission and values.
I spoke with Henry about the history of ABC, the struggles and achievements of the past few decades of transportation advocacy, how the city transportation landscape and priorities have changed over the years, and his vision for the future of safe, inclusive transportation in Atlanta.
Henry shared how, early on, they staged a commuter race to raise awareness: “The Great Commuter Race. I'm not sure what name we used for it at the time, but we had a bicycle race against a car. You had to have two stops, one for a cup of coffee, one to buy a stamp at the post office. Which, you know, yes, stamps and post offices were a thing back then. … So we did that two years in a row, and the bike won the first one, I think, and the second one was a tie.”
Henry recounted several of the achievements of ABC in the first decades including convincing MARTA to allow bikes on MARTA trains and buses, creating neighborhood Bicycle User Groups, and providing safe cycling instruction to the public. We talked about how e-bikes make riding in Atlanta’s hills, heat, and humidity easier, how the Beltline influences the public perception of multimodal transportation, and the ins and outs of organizing advocacy efforts.
Henry told the story of how ABC got the City of Atlanta to turn street grates perpendicular to the roadway (so that they don’t trap bicycle wheels). As Henry told it, “What we knew at the time was if the city was informed of a hazard, they would fix that hazard. So we started having regular bike rides where people would fill out cards and say ‘There's a hazardous grate at the corner of Howell Mill and Collier. That can trap my bicycle wheel. Please fix it.’ And on those cards, we could put down about half a dozen grates. And so we started doing these rides to identify these [hazardous grates]. And eventually, the City of Atlanta said, ‘You can stop doing this. Our policy now is to change them all.’”
Henry also shared the story of a CDC chief talking about transportation: “He would ask his audience, ‘How many of you walked or bicycled to school as a kid?’ Probably 90 percent of the audience would raise their hands. And then he would ask, ‘How many of you have kids or grandkids who have walked or biked to school?’ And there would be very few hands. Because we've failed to plan for that. All we planned for was people to get around in cars.”
When I asked what other fun things he remembered from the first couple decades of ABC/Propel ATL, he replied simply, “Well, the fun thing was always riding my bicycle. Biking is just so much damn fun.”
In the course of our conversation, Henry always came back to the strength of shared advocacy, the power of like-minded people working together to make change. He noted later that, “As individuals, none of us can follow all the ins and outs of city policies to recognize where our voices can make a difference. We can rely on the leadership of Propel to tell us the next actions we can take to make life easier for people walking, for bicyclists, for people on buses and trains.”
That sentiment is exactly what I felt when I started getting involved and donating to Propel ATL (and its precursors ABC and PEDS) years ago, and it is what I still feel today.
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Read on to enjoy some of Henry’s recollections, triumphs, insights, and thoughts for the future.
Fwiw, link to The Economist article: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2025/11/13/parents-on-e-bikes-are-transforming-the-school-run