A welcoming community embraces neighbors knowing each other by name and waiving as they walk or roll by. It is an environment accessible to everyone, including those using wheelchairs, walkers, or strollers.
Capitol View is a neighborhood in Southwest Atlanta where people care about their neighbors and work to create a welcoming place for all. However, the built environment is inaccessible because most streets have nonexistent or cracked and broken sidewalks in complete disrepair.
This means people must walk in the street to avoid tree roots that have broken through where sidewalks once existed or roll in the grass because sidewalks are not in place. Most of us don’t think about this until we have an accident, surgery, or disability and discover our community is not physically accessible to all.
Former Capitol View Neighborhood Association president and current NPU X chairman, Zach Adriaenssens, recently had comprehensive back surgery. Part of his recovery involves taking short walks using a walker. As he investigated his path forward, he discovered the difficulties of using a walker on streets with sidewalks either missing or in such bad shape that he needed to roll in the street.
This risk is frightening, considering that there have been nine pedestrian-related deaths in District 12 during the last year, and several people, including a child, were hit by cars in recent years in Capitol View.
With these events in mind, the community organized the Sidewalk Posse, a group of concerned citizens dedicated to ensuring safe and adequately maintained streets and sidewalks for all residents. The Posse accomplishes its goals by advocating for Capitol Views’ long-term multimodal needs, filling sidewalk gaps, calming the roads, and protecting neighbors. The Posse has identified several high-risk areas, including the intersections of Dill and Allene and Dill and Sylvan.
These two intersections have experienced the highest number of accidents, as sidewalks are missing in some places, while others are unusable and dangerous. Someone was hit by a car at this intersection just days after a community-wide march to bring attention to this issue. There is a direct correlation between having safe, passable sidewalks and treacherous intersections without them.
The Capitol View Neighborhood Association believes our tax dollars should be used to make our neighborhoods safer and more physically accessible. Our City Councilmember and the City of Atlanta have told us repeatedly that there is no money for sidewalks. Yet, the Atlanta City Council recently approved borrowing $120 million to improve downtown streets for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Approximately $5 million will be used for sidewalks and to meet various Americans with Disabilities Act standards. While the City should be applauded for making Downtown more accessible for people with disabilities, many of the neighborhoods where people with disabilities live full-time remain inaccessible because of missing or crumbling infrastructure.
Neighborhoods in Southwest Atlanta, like Capitol View, have asked for new sidewalks for decades. Zach Adrieassens organized his friends and hosted the First Annual Southwest Mobility March to bring attention to this issue. The March, held on Oct. 24, 2024, drew a crowd of over 25 people with disabilities, moms and dads with strollers, and others concerned about the safety of their streets.
Mr. Adriaenssens told the crowd: “We cannot be a world-class city if we have seniors in wheelchairs in the middle of the streets. We must demand better from our elected officials.” He suggested that the City pass a bond package to increase discretionary sidewalk funding.
The frustration over sidewalks has become so high that community members took their message to the City of Atlanta Transportation Committee. CVNA president Eric Jacobson and Sidewalk Posse member Allie Sudholdt spoke about the dangerous intersections that exist and why this is a social justice issue for people who use wheelchairs, walkers, or strollers.
It was suggested that friends and relatives who use wheelchairs and come to visit Capitol View risk their lives because of sidewalk issues.
Sudholdt must walk through the dangerous intersection of Allene and Dill to take her daughter Primm to daycare. As Sudholdt said in her presentation: “So, the fact that we’ve been working for years to resolve one intersection with high traffic on the way to the Beltline with no results is incredibly frustrating.”
It is time for City Hall to take care of the neighborhoods surrounding Downtown.
