“The overall goal is yes, we do need to slow traffic down in this corridor.”
As Atlanta District 6 City Councilmember Alex Wan says this at the Monroe Drive Safe Streets groundbreaking on July 22, a car flies by at top speed, rattling over uneven pavement and the city’s ever-present potholes.
Speeding, congestion and crashes are exactly what Monroe Safe Streets has set out to change. On July 22, the city official broke ground on the $18.5 million safety makeover on Monroe Drive from 8th Street to Piedmont Circle. Once complete, it will convert Monroe Drive from four travel lanes to three, with one lane in each direction and a center turn lane.
The project will take roughly two years to complete, but it’s been a decade in the making.
In 2016, Midtown High School freshman Alex Hyneman was struck and killed by a motorist during her bicycle ride home at the intersection of 10th Street and Monroe Drive. She was 14 years old.
The fatal crash pushed her father, Thomas Hyneman, into work as a pedestrian and cyclist safety advocate. He co-founded Atlanta Families for Safe Streets and spurred the movement for a safer Monroe Drive.
Monroe Drive is a part of Atlanta’s High Injury Network of roads that account for 73 percent of the city’s fatal car crashes and serious injuries. Advocates have pushed for better sidewalks, continuous bike lanes and safety-forward street designs to reduce the danger.
After ten years of community meetings, planning and studies, the city has officially begun work on the Monroe Safe Streets project. The improvements include crosswalk upgrades, enhanced intersections, and “AI signal technology” to improve traffic flow.
Still, the biggest change will be the lane reductions and added center medians – two well-known changes to lower driving speeds. The remaining lanes will be widened to 11 feet each (instead of the 10-foot width often recommended by the National Association of City Transportation Officials) to accommodate MARTA buses and truck traffic. Four lanes will remain at Piedmont Ave. along the front of Ansley Mall.
Councilmember Wan said it will slow cars down, though not to a standstill.
“If the features slow folks down a little bit, I think that overall is a good thing,” Wan said. “Because we’ve had too many accidents, injuries and fatalities on the corridor.”
Project leaders estimate it will reduce crashes by 30%. According to their traffic models and studies, the reconfiguration should also help traffic, not increase congestion. Still, advocates like Hyneman think that the negotiation of additional congestion for safer streets is a worthy trade.
But the project comes with some caveats. To some residents’ dismay, the Monroe Safe Streets project will not include bike lanes. According to project officials, this comes down to a matter of space.
The road size does not allow for “standard width” protected bike lanes, and the city would require a design variance approval to add in substandard bike lanes. The city wouldn’t approve the lanes, though. The road simply isn’t wide enough.
Atlanta Department of Transportation Commissioner Solomon Caviness framed it as a practical decision, thanks to the neighboring Beltline trail: “Let’s bring them off the city streets and onto the greenway.”
Some project skeptics have also raised concerns about how Amsterdam Walk will be impacted. The controversial project could bring in heavy construction equipment and work that may damage the revamped Monroe Drive.
But developers Portman Holdings haven’t filed project permits yet, and the city had no plans to wait for the construction project. “We have redevelopment in the city everywhere,” Wan explained. “I don’t think we should stop projects and wait, because we would never get anything done.”
Besides, Wan said there’s too much urgency to wait. In 2020, the city committed to the Vision Zero systems-based approach to eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries. Atlanta aims to reach “Vision Zero” by 2040.
“We have an obligation, and quite frankly, we have the goal of Vision Zero that we need to be doing these enhancements now,” Wan said.
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