Inside
Buckhead Reporter
Spooktacular!
Need ‘bold change’ APS superintendent speaks frankly COMMUNITY 2
Water hazard
www.ReporterNewspapers.net
Are local dams safe? COMMUNITY 12-15
OCT. 16 — OCT. 29, 2015 • VOL. 9 — NO. 21
Going batty
COMMUNITY 9-11
Residents give GDOT engineer earful over Peachtree bike lanes plan BY COLLIN KELLEY
Buckhead residents angered by a state plan to add bike lanes along a portion of Peachtree Road are continuing their efforts to convince state officials to put on the brakes. Georgia’s state traffic engineer got an earful at a Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods meeting Oct. 8 as a standing-room-only crowd at times booed and jeered his presentation of a proposal to add bike lanes to Peachtree. The residents said state officials should come up State transportation with an alternaofficials scheduled a tive plan. town hall meeting on BCN PresOct. 29 to discuss ident Tom plans for Peachtree Tidwell quesRoad. The meeting at tioned whether the Shepherd Center, the GDOT was “pandering to 2020 Peachtree Road, begins at 5 p.m. the bike lobby,” while other residents blamed the Buckhead Community Improvement District for pushing the bike lane option despite community opinion. Georgia Department of Transportation state traffic engineer Andrew Heath said state officials looked at a number of plans and even built a computer simulation of Peachtree to monitor traffic flow before arriving at the current proposed plan, called the Peachtree Battle Hybrid Alternative. Under this plan, there would two traffic lanes north and south, a center turn lane and bike lanes on either side from I-85 to Peachtree Battle. Beyond that point, the road would shift to three southbound lanes, two northbound lanes and a center turn lane to Maple Drive. Heath said traffic models showed removing the bike lanes at Peachtree Battle would help improve traffic flow while giving cyclists access to the nearby Atlanta BeltLine trail. He said a similar “road diet” on Ponce de Leon Avenue had seen a 25 percent decrease in accidents in the past year. Heath said adding the turn lanes on Peachtree Road would decrease crashes by up to 20 percent. GDOT officials have scheduled a town hall meeting on Oct. 29 to discuss the plan.
Bike lanes town hall
William Swann, 6, tries his hand at snagging a bat in the Bat Cave during the 52nd annual Pace Academy Fall Fair on Oct. 10. The event featured carnival rides, a candy castle, inflatables and a street market. See additional photos on page 7.
PHIL MOSIER
Some want streetcar project to hit the skids BY COLLIN KELLEY North Buckhead Civic Association President Gordon Certain wants to stop Atlanta’s streetcar from rolling through much of Buckhead. Although the streetcar now is limited to a 2.7-mile loop in downtown Atlanta, long-range plans call for a 50mile system of streetcars crisscrossing the city. The tracks would follow the 22-mile Atlanta BeltLine loop and run along Peachtree from the Buckhead MARTA station to Fort McPherson. “Wouldn’t streetcars be a charming addition to our future?” Certain asked in an editorial in the October edition of the NBCA’s monthly newsletter. “Actually, no.” Certain expounded on the editorial at the Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods meeting on Oct. 8. He framed his opposition to the streetcar line with the controversial plan to add bike lanes to part of busy Peachtree Road. “I want to stop the plan to build the streetcar on Peachtree,” Certain said. Besides the projected cost of $375 million to build the
13-mile line, Certain said the Peachtree line was untenable because there is no room for a dedicated travel lane for the streetcars. He said streetcars traveling in traffic lanes and stopping for signals and at stations would cause chaos. Certain pointed out that MARTA rail already runs along the Peachtree corridor, and suggested that if the city was determined to add streetcars, maybe it should build underground tunnels or elevated platforms for them. Certain said he and his wife went downtown last week to ride the 2.7-mile streetcar loop that runs from Centennial Olympic Park to the King Center. He wasn’t impressed with it. “We rode the entire loop and it took half an hour,” he said. “There were hardly any riders at all. And it smelled.” At-Large City Councilmember Mary Norwood said the discussion of a streetcar line on Peachtree had been ongoing since around 2006. “I was opposed to it then and I’m SEE SOME, PAGE 5
SEE RESIDENTS, PAGE 6