Why are east and west-bound traffic flows so restricted in Midtown Atlanta? The north and south rivers move in one-way arteries called Juniper, Piedmont, Spring and West Peachtree. Turn ninety degrees and your paths over the Downtown Connector become the two-way veins of 17th, 14th 10th and tiny 5th, which makes a constricting dogleg turn where it crosses mighty West Peachtree. Georgia Tech brings a significant volume of pedestrian traffic to the mix there and was a key player in the solution unveiled today, which included the efforts of City Hall, the Midtown Alliance and a grant from Bikes Belong. Now we have a "Copenhagen Left", beautifully illustrated by Joshuah Mello in this
facebook album. Riders will have to adjust to turning left from the right lane, but do have a traffic signal for that purpose.
There is more to come. Both Mayor Kasim Reed and colorful, fixie-riding City Councilman Kwanza Hall affirmed their commitments to cycling infrastructure as a way of keeping Atlanta in the vanguard of American cities. Georgia Tech has risen to the occasion by developing an application for smartphones that will track urban cycle commuting so leaders and planners can see who rides when, where and why. Get yours from
Cycle Atlanta.
This urban corridor was a different sort of place when I first dared to explore it on a spring morning of 1994. Overgrown in kudzu and home to an underground culture, the disused tracks were an hostile environment. As Mayor Kasim Reed remarked this morning, clean up crews were lucky not to have found a dead body. Mine, perhaps. Nor did I return from the walk with a plan for urban renewal. That distinction belongs to Ryan Gravel, whose Master's thesis at Georgia Tech gave Atlanta the blueprint. It was his vision and the contributions of many BeltLine supporters that a sizable crowd gathered this morning to celebrate with the dedication of the Eastside Trail. Now it is possible to ride from Piedmont Park to Sweet Auburn in ten minutes without having to contend with motor traffic. But what's the rush? Pause to admire the art installations, great city views and derring-do on display in the Old 4th Ward Skatepark. All of this is only the beginning of what many believe to be the best thing ever to happen in Atlanta.
