A city that leaves walkers behind: Why Atlanta’s sidewalks are still in crisis

Atlanta ranks among the most dangerous U.S. cities for pedestrians. For those of us walking Atlanta’s streets every day, that statistic isn’t surprising. It’s personal. It’s lived.

As someone who doesn’t own a car, I walk. A lot. I’m fortunate to live near the Atlanta BeltLine, a smooth, pleasant path designed with pedestrians in mind. But off the trail, it’s a different story: broken pavement, missing curb ramps and entire stretches with no sidewalk at all.

Atlanta’s fragmented sidewalk network makes daily life harder and more dangerous for thousands of people. And according to Rebecca Serna, executive director of PropelATL, the system that governs sidewalk upkeep is as fractured as the infrastructure itself.

“As far as the City of Atlanta, the property owner is responsible [for sidewalk maintenance],” Serna said. “So, to oversimplify a little bit, it would be the homeowner, the business owner. But it’s [responsibility] a little bit murky in areas like business districts or near railroads.”

This model, a patchwork of individual responsibility for a public good, has produced one of the most inaccessible pedestrian environments in the country.

“The whole City of Atlanta is basically a big ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] violation,” Serna said. “If you use a wheelchair or a mobility device, or if your vision is impaired, it is so challenging to get around our city.”

And it’s not just people with disabilities who suffer. Serna noted that children, older adults, and transit users are also hit hard.

“There are a lot of bus stops where there isn’t a sidewalk that gives you access to that bus stop,” she said. “You see people on Browns Mill Road in southwest Atlanta walking in the street to get to a bus stop.”

A 2023 Bitter Southerner feature put it more bluntly: “Atlanta’s sidewalk policy and lack of accessibility, especially in its disinvested neighborhoods, has a long history.” The article highlighted how the city’s sidewalk failures particularly harm disabled residents, many of whom must navigate curbless crossings and crumbling pathways on their own.

There have been efforts to address the issue. Serna referenced Moving Atlanta Forward, a city bond program adopted in 2022 that includes funds for sidewalk improvements.

“There are great projects that have been identified… but the city wasn’t really rolling out those projects on a large scale yet,” Serna said. “Actually, building those projects has been going very, very slowly.”

Why? According to Serna, the answer lies in capacity.

“There are staffing shortages at the city and the Department of Transportation,” she said. “So, deadlines keep getting pushed back and back and back.”

That delay is more than an inconvenience; it’s a matter of life and death. Many fatal pedestrian incidents occur near MARTA stops, where sidewalk and crossing infrastructure are inadequate or nonexistent.

Still, Serna remains hopeful about the Atlanta Trail Plan, a comprehensive strategy for building walkable, bikeable infrastructure across the city, not just in the Beltline corridor.

“If we built every trail in that plan, Atlanta would become a bicycle mecca overnight,” she said. “But it’s going to have a pretty big price tag.”

It’s not just about cost. According to Serna, political will is a major factor. In wealthier neighborhoods, sidewalks were sometimes deliberately omitted.

“Some of Atlanta’s very wealthy neighborhoods also lack sidewalks,” she said. “…because they didn’t necessarily want people walking in the community.”

Meanwhile, formerly redlined neighborhoods still face chronic infrastructure neglect.

“Those are communities that, because of structural racism, didn’t have access to funding to buy houses, and there was a lot of government disinvestment as a result,” she said. “To this day, a lot of those communities lack sidewalks.”

Serna applauded the city’s attempt to use equity, safety and mobility scores to prioritize projects in disinvested areas. But she said recent decisions suggest a move toward “spreading things equally,” which risks reinforcing inequality.

A 2018 Georgia Tech study provides a sharper view. Researchers mapped over 1,200 miles of sidewalk and found more than 1,900 defects across just four corridors. More than 70 percent of those were uneven surfaces. Of the 615 curb ramps surveyed, 82 percent failed ADA compliance. Estimated costs to address defects and missing infrastructure citywide could top $60 million annually. Even more striking, only 46 percent of potential sidewalk links were present, underscoring the scale of missing infrastructure.

Serna said keeping homeowners responsible is not only inequitable, it’s also inefficient.

“It’s really expensive to maintain a sidewalk,” she said. “It’s like asking people to fix the potholes if they’re in front of their house.”

She also pointed to a state-level problem: Georgia does not require sidewalk maintenance on state routes.

“They repave those state routes every few years,” Serna said. “I just saw this happen recently near me on Memorial (Drive), and they repaved on top of the pavement so much, the curb is basically gone.”

So, what can residents do?

“Get to know your local elected officials,” Serna said. “Let them know what matters to you. Talk about the need for sidewalks and how they affect you on a day-to-day basis.”

Serna recognized Atlanta councilmembers like Jason Dozier, Matt Westmoreland and Antonio Lewis for walking the walk, literally. Dozier and his daughter were riding home on a bicycle after an Atlanta United game on July 15 when they were hit by a car — an example of the dangers pedestrians and cyclists face in Atlanta. 

“You can tell the ones who get it,” she said. “They actually are using this to get places, not just for a stunt or media piece.”

One can learn a lot about a city by walking it. Atlanta is beautiful, dynamic and full of potential, but it’s also difficult, disconnected and often dangerous on foot. If we want a healthier, more equitable city, we need to stop treating sidewalks as second-class infrastructure.

As Serna put it, “We know everyone does not want to drive…. But we still have the mindset that cars are the dominant mode, and anything that gets in the way of that is being in the way of progress.”