The Atlanta Regional Commission’s (ARC) January board meeting marked the beginning of an ambitious new year. The joint meeting with the Transportation and Air Quality Committee (TAQC) on Jan. 14 provided a high-level overview of the city’s efforts to improve residents’ quality of life as both organizations laid out the year to come.
Before the joint meeting convened, five new ARC board members raised their right hands to take an oath of office: Conyers Mayor Connie Alsobrook, Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch, Hampton Mayor Ann Tarpley, District 2 citizen Archie Emerson and District 10 citizen Jim Brooks.
Regional Housing Strategy
In ARC’s most recent Metro Atlanta Speaks survey, housing affordability was participants’ primary concern.
Community Development Principal Planner Kristin Allen introduced an update to the Housing Strategy for the Atlanta Region. The new strategic plan, which is slated for board adoption in June, aims to produce more affordable housing, preserve existing affordable housing and provide stability for residents.
“We’re integrating housing with ARC’s work in transportation, workforce, aging and sustainability across our agency,” Allen said.
As part of this effort, ARC is establishing five focus groups, including “Regional Strategies for Housing Stability and Homeless Prevention.”
“[The focus group] will bring together continuums of care, housing authorities, local government staff, and community-based organizations to further explore coordinated approaches to funding, data, practices and shared resources for prevention,” Allen said.
The Housing Strategy will establish a shared vision for the future of housing in Atlanta, outline action steps and track the region’s progress on housing goals.
Sharon Carney, a principal at ARC’s consultant HR&A Advisors, said the Housing Strategy takes an interdisciplinary approach, including wraparound support to stabilize residents in their homes, as well as focus groups to guide the Housing Strategy forward.
“I think there’s a real opportunity to leverage people who are not typically involved in housing conversations,” Carney said.
HR&A will conduct analysis to determine where growth should occur, what types of homes will be affordable in the future and how vacant and underutilized land might be leveraged to reach ARC’s housing goals.
Focus groups will convene in February to address five key topics: Funding Across the Region, Innovative Strategies for Land and Housing, Setting and Tracking Local Housing Goals, Connecting Housing to Jobs, Transit and Amenities and Strategies for Housing Stability and Homelessness Prevention.
ARC’s Regional Housing Summit, a capstone for the two-year development of the Housing Strategy, will be held at the Gas South Arena on April 30.
Transportation Plan
ARC Principal Transportation Planner Joseph Hacker presented a first read of the updated Coordinated Human Services Transportation Plan (CHSTP).
In order for the city to access Federal Transit Administration (FTA) Section 5310 funds for seniors and disabled transit users, the plan must be updated every five years, Hacker said.
“[The plan] identifies gaps in services, it develops strategies and proposes priorities for planning efforts moving forward,” he explained.
387 transit users were surveyed at senior centers, community events and online to inform the updated plan, which outlines three major concepts: regional mobility hubs, a regional trip planner, and a regional fare instrument. Mobility hubs aim to improve connectivity between modes of transit. The trip planner will include trip information, scheduling and alerts.
“One of the things we’re most proud of for this plan is the robust engagement,” Hacker said. “We employed a significant number of user surveys and outreach and provider meetings to both identify the needs of users and to vet strategies with the providers.”
The updated plan is set for adoption in February.
Safety Targets
The TAQC then introduced and adopted a set of updates for transit safety. Principal Planner Tejas Kotak presented 2026 federal transportation safety targets, which must be adopted annually in compliance with federal law.
Kotak outlined safety statistics from the Atlanta region, compared Atlanta to peer metro areas, identified trends and analyzed the impacts of transportation fatalities and injuries in the region.
“We also set non-binding aspirational targets to help guide our own policy work and our project selection,” Kotak said. “The targets that we set are in adherence with our regional safety strategy that we adopted in 2022 and our long-term Vision Zero goal, which is a long-term goal to get to zero traffic fatalities within our region.”
The Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) only provides data until 2023 on transportation fatalities per capita, but in 2020, 2021 and 2022 Atlanta surpassed Chicago, Denver, Charlotte, Houston and Seattle metro areas. Atlanta rose above the national average in 2021 and 2022.
“From 2020 to 2024, a conservative estimate is that our regional economy has lost $3.8 billion due to these fatalities and serious injuries,” Kotak added.
In the past year, however, the Atlanta region experienced a 5 percent reduction in crashes, fatalities and serious injuries.
“Recent trends are moving in the right direction, so let’s continue the good work we have done and consider these safer designs in all of our roadway projects,” Kotak said.
