Where Beltline meets Ponce, on-ramp and better lighting up for vote

The Atlanta City Council is considering a serious upgrade where Ponce de Leon Avenue meets the Beltline.

According to CBS46 News, the council will vote today on whether to approve a plan for upgraded lighting along Ponce, between Monroe Drive and Freedom Parkway, a corridor where bike lanes were installed in recent years.

Council member Kwanza Hall, the project’s sponsor and an avid cyclist, said the upgraded lighting would be funded by the Georgia Department of Transportation and would complement standard Georgia Power lighting in the corridor.

What’s more, plans call for the long-discussed on-ramp from Ponce to the Beltline to actually move forward, in addition to the installation of street furniture such as seating, the station reports.

As is, Hall noted, there’s no way to conveniently access the Beltline from street level in the immediate area.

This talk of lighting begs the question: How’s that “Light the Line” initiative going?

Alexa Lampasona/RootsRated

A year ago, the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership launched a campaign to raise $1.1 million for high-tech lighting along the Eastside Trail, which stretches (for now) from Krog Street Market to Piedmont Park.

The goal was to have the money in the bag by April 30.

But by mid-April, the Light the Line campaign had raised only about $100,000 of its goal. So fundraisers got crafty.

Fundraising partnerships with vodka companies, yoga gatherings and events with a bestselling author ensued. But the initiative’s website — lighttheline.org — appears to have been dismantled since.

Maybe that means the fundraising goal was met. But probably not.

The Beltline’s Eastside Trail lighting plan calls for 130 low-energy LED path lights every 90 feet along the trail, all equipped with motion sensors that would brighten the lights as joggers, walkers, and cyclists pass at night:

Light the Line

• Atlanta City Council to vote on lighting the BeltLine [CBS46]
• Beltline Lighting Campaign is Aiming to Raise $1.1 Million [Curbed]