The multi-lane eastside Atlanta drag strip that is DeKalb Avenue is notorious for being pocked with potholes and chaotic with drivers who don’t understand a “suicide lane” concept—or who take the concept too literally.
The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition naturally calls the east-west corridor “fast, dangerous, and out of control.”
Earlier this month, that organization set out to prove DeKalb Avenue doesn’t have to be so foreboding, hosting the year’s first Atlanta Streets Alive festival on a 4.5-mile route connecting downtown to Lake Claire and Kirkwood.
The result? Roughly 74,000 walkers, joggers, bikers, skaters, eaters, drinkers, and every other sort of Atlantan—of basically all ages—showed up, per ABC estimates. (They use a team of counters who take surveys of different route points to calculate attendance).
Now, the bicycle boosters hope that momentum will carry toward a reinvention of vehicle-centric DeKalb Avenue.
Like other key arteries around Atlanta, DeKalb Avenue made the cut for a Complete Streets overhaul as part of the Renew Atlanta Infrastructure Bond approved by voters back in 2015.
Along with needed repaving, the work would add bike lanes or a multi-use path and safer crossings while swapping the middle reversible lane for a series of turn lanes at busy intersections. The results could look a lot like this:
As a next step, a Renew Atlanta community conversation about DeKalb Avenue’s future is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the MLK Jr. Recreation and Aquatic Center at 110 Hilliard Street SE. (More details here).
As for ASA itself, the next road-closure street party (the second of three in 2018) is planned June 10 for the Westside route that debuted last year, connecting downtown with Underwood Hills via Marietta Street and Howell Mill Road.
- Renew DeKalb Avenue [ASA site]
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