Grady high schoolers to rally for ‘complete streets’ on anniversary of student’s death

Three years after Grady High School freshman Alexia Hyneman lost her life biking across the intersection of Midtown’s Monroe Drive and 10th Street, students from her school are still fighting for safer streets in Atlanta.

On Tuesday, the student-led Grady Pedestrian Safety Coalition will host a “Rally 4 Safe Streets” in the school’s auditorium. They plan to lobby for “complete streets” projects—initiatives to make roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists—at the intersection neighboring the school property where Hyneman died and beyond.

The rally will kick off at 11:30 a.m. and include remarks by Atlanta City Councilwoman Jennifer Ide and Thomas Hyneman, Alexia’s father. Ide is expected to outline “the actions the council is taking to make Monroe Drive safe for all,” according to a coalition press release.

Members of the GPSC lament that, to date, just one of the 16 complete streets projects outlined in the Renew Atlanta bond program has been finished.

The projects “were supposed to address the dangerous conditions on Monroe Drive and other dangerous streets around the city,” reads the statement, “but little progress has been made.”

The backlog of those projects stems largely from major funding shortfalls that make the Renew Atlanta and TSPLOST infrastructure improvement programs worth about $530 million. That’s just over half of the nearly $1 billion figure pitched when voters approved the initial project lists.

The financial strain means projects from both programs could be nixed, and others underfunded.

Renew Atlanta and TSPLOST officials are currently gauging public input to whittle down the project lists to fit the current budget.

They’ve crafted three possible funding scenarios, which would each use between about $68 million and $82 million specifically for complete streets projects.

A memorial for Hyneman is planned to follow the rally Tuesday.

The 14-year-old was traveling home from a Grady theater performance on the night of the accident. The driver in the collision, who was not criminally charged, reportedly told police he didn’t see Hyneman enter the street as traffic began to move.