Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. will shut down the intersection of 10th Street and Monroe Drive from June 9 to 14 for a long-awaited overhaul of the congested area.
The organization has set official construction dates for the third and final phase of “Segment 1,” the Northeast trail that connects Monroe Drive to Westminster Drive with a portion in Piedmont Park. Phase one of the project completed a trail from Westminster Drive NE to Evelyn Street with temporary handrails, soon to be replaced with permanent guards. Phase two focuses on improvements to the walls, stair connections, and storm drain on the former rail corridor.
Phase three, a safety-focused redesign of the heavily trafficked road, was spurred by the 2016 death of a 14-year-old bicyclist, Alexia Hyneman. The student was killed by a Jeep while heading home from the adjacent Midtown High School. Hyneman’s death kicked off demands to make the area safer for pedestrians and bicyclists.
Once complete, the 0.9-mile stretch of trail will connect “Segment 2” and the Eastside trail, extending the path from Monroe Drive to the MARTA Lindbergh Station.
The revamped intersection will feature a six-inch raised intersection. The National Association of City Transportation Officials promotes the feature as a way to “reinforce slow speed and encourage motorists to yield to pedestrians at the crosswalk.”
“This is a bit more than a raised crosswalk; this is several raised crosswalks,” Senior Landscape Architect Meghan Injaychock said. “We believe it will slow people down; it’ll alert people to know they are coming into a different situation and that they need to pay attention in their car as well as either on their bike or on foot.”
The BeltLine, Inc. team partnered with the Atlanta Department of Transportation to design a series of pedestrian safety improvements at the intersection. Key safety measures include bollards, short posts used to deflect traffic lining the road, and a “scramble” where all pedestrians can cross without any cars moving. The trailhead at 10th Street and Monroe Drive will also be realigned to meet with the new Northeast trail, improved by phases one and two.
“We’re doing a lot to improve the pedestrian experience and user experience,” Injaychock said. “This is a heavily trafficked area for both students and people trying to get to the park. It’s very busy all the time, and it hasn’t been working for a while.”
The new design realigns the intersection with a “trail-centric” direction but keeps focus on traffic calming a congestion heavy area, thanks to the popular Midtown Promenade shopping plaza, Piedmont Park and Midtown High School all packed into the area.
“We’ve taken several months to figure out how to do this and how to just, you know, not disrupt traffic for both trail users as well as vehicular traffic,” Injaychock said.
BeltLine, Inc. met with Atlanta Public Schools leaders to decide on a timeline that would disrupt school traffic the least – landing on the early June shutdown. Project leaders opted for a full shutdown as the most efficient way to finish the project instead of several weekend closures.
The intersection will fully shut down on the evening of June 9 around 11 p.m. It won’t reopen until June 14. An official detour route runs from Kanuga Street NE to Virginia Ave NE, where travelers can return to Monroe Drive.
“This is full closure, this isn’t ‘we’re going to be opening back up at the end of the day,'” Injaychock said. “This gives us the ability to really rip the band-aid off, go for it, get in, get done and open it back up.”
Pending any weather delays, paving operations will kick off on Sunday, June 9, at night. The process will continue through Wednesday, June 12 until construction moves into utility work. By Wednesday, concrete ramps will be installed to bring cars up to the raised intersection. The ramps will cure for 24 hours before reopening to cars and pedestrians on the evening of June 14.
From then on the BeltLine will periodically run single-lane closures for sidewalk work through mid-September.
Project leaders are also working to keep businesses in the area open, like Park Tavern at the intersection on the edge of Piedmont Park. Other shops and Midtown High School will also be accessible during construction.
Still, Injaychock stressed that the shutdown would impact bicyclists, cars, pedestrians and motorscooter riders. She encouraged people to use the Kanuga Street detour in the meantime.
“Please be safe.” Injaychock said, “Please either use this or alternate routes to get where you need to go.”
Would love to see this detour for cars be permanent! This might be the city’s busiest intersection for pedestrian & bike/scooter traffic, safety and priority for people outside of cars should be paramount. Why make people wait at crosswalks and when the cars can take a bridge around?
Monroe Drive is very poorly maintained from 10th Street South. Plus people speed to make the light and Ponce heading North. I welcome the speed table at this intersection. Put another at Greenwood or St Charles. Too bad South on Monroe is so misrepresented.
Traffic calming = traffic creating. Too bad we no longer recognize that the purpose of roads is to facilitate efficient travel. Also too bad that the focus is not keeping businesses open long term, not just during construction, by not making it more time consuming to get to them.
The people who walk and bike also spend money at these businesses — and typically more of it than the car commuters who drive to one store or restaurant then leave.
There are tens of thousands of people living in the neighborhoods near this intersection. Making it easy for them to patronize local businesses should be the priority — not the people who drive in from somewhere else. Local shops would do much better financially by removing as many vehicles as possible from places like Midtown.