e-newsletter header
June 2012 
In This Issue
July 17 Sidewalk Maintenance Forum
Safe Routes to Transit Guidebook
Regional Transportation Referendum
Action Alert: July 17 Sidewalk Maintenance Forum
Please participate in our upcoming public forum on the City of Atlanta's sidewalk maintenance program:
 

Tuesday, July 17, 2012, 6:30 pm - 8 pm

Old Council Chambers, Atlanta City Hall

55 Trinity Avenue, Atlanta

 

Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, Councilman Michael Julian Bond and Public Works Commissioner Richard Mendoza will participate in a panel discussion moderated by PEDS President & CEO Sally Flocks. We'll include time for questions from the audience.

 

Your presence will let City Council members know that voters want the City to make sidewalk maintenance a priority.

outside City Chambers with City crestPeople attending the Atlanta Streets Alive event last month showed their support for safer sidewalks by creating a petition composed of 180 signed footprints.  

 

A week later, volunteers helped us present the banner at an Atlanta City Council meeting.

 

Help keep up the momentum for policy change that enables the City to address the estimated $152 million backlog of broken sidewalks and missing or broken curb ramps. Please participate in the forum and ask your friends and neighbors to do so as well.

  

PEDS thanks Pam Aerts, Matt and Marilyn Bolch, Danae McBurney, Melany Chambers, Matt Monroe, Angus, Ewan and Beatrice Pritchard and Melanie Turner for your help at Atlanta Streets Alive, and to Joann Awada, Amanda Fox, Saul Kaplan, Lisa Safstrom and Carole Willis for holding up the banner at Atlanta City Hall!

Promoting safe pedestrian access to transit     
If you're like
PEDS staff discuss unsafe bus stop locations on Buford Highway with GA Dept. of Transportation engineers
most people in metro Atlanta, you find many streets too dangerous to cross.  This is especially problematic for people who depend on catching a bus on state highways, most of which are high-speed, multi-lane roads.

To address this problem, PEDS created a Safe Routes to Transit Task Force that has met monthly to discuss problems and solutions. At our May meeting, we focused on what transit representatives identified as "responsibility gaps"--areas where agencies might see a problem but have no authority to fix it.

Using the latest research and guidelines published by the Federal Highway Administration, Transportation Research Board, Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Clearinghouse  and others, we've also drafted a 70-page guidebook on Safe Routes to Transit. We'll be ready to seek feedback on the guidebook with task force members in early July.  After incorporating members' recommended changes to the guidebook, we will ask the ARC to adopt it as a supplement to the regional bike-ped plan.

To increase awareness of the importance of creating safe pedestrian access to transit stops, we recently made presentations to the Center for Disease Control's Built Environment Work Group, the Atlanta Regional Commission's Bike-Ped Task Force, and at an ARC meeting on Transportation Access for Older Adults, People with Disabilities and Non-Drivers. 


PEDS thanks Kaiser Permanente and the Georgia Governor's Office of Highway Safety for their support for this project.
New GOHS logo

July 31 Regional Transportation Referendum: What's planned for local funds?
Transportation professionals in the City of Atlanta, Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties, and elsewhere in the region increasingly recognize the importance of installing and maintaining sidewalks and safe crossings. Lack of funding for local projects, however, continues to be a major barrier to progress.  

On July 31, citizens in  metro Atlanta have an opportunity to vote on a one cent regional sales tax that would raise over $7 billion to fund regional and local transportation projects.

Fifteen percent of the taxes will be controlled by local governments. PEDS was pleased to learn that the City of Atlanta plans to dedicate most of its local funds to sidewalks, safe crossings, bicycle facilities, mixed-use trails, transit access and maintenance of existing infrastructure. Cobb County is also committing over $2 million per year to sidewalk and other pedestrian projects.

The transportation tax referendum is just over a month away. Check out the interactive map, project fact sheets, and information on local projects  to learn more about the projects that would be funded if voters approve this tax.

 
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