Skip to Content
Streetsblog San Francisco home
Streetsblog San Francisco home
Log In
Streetsblog.net

Suburban Atlanta: Where Parking Is Required But Sidewalks Are Not

The sidewalk disappears at this bus stop on Buford Highway. Photo: ATLUrbanist
false

Buford Highway north of Atlanta is the deadliest road for pedestrians in the region. Though lined with residences of people with low incomes, the high-speed, high-traffic road has no continuous sidewalk. Lacking dedicated infrastructure, pedestrians have worn paths in the grass all around it. (See more photos below.)

Darin at ATLUrbanist says these paths are a stark illustration of inequality built into the region's transportation system.

Those cars are in spaces that are mandated as part of minimum parking requirements -- requirements that don’t seem to have a relative in regard to pedestrian infrastructure at bus stops.

This is a good metaphor for the second-class state of pedestrians in car-centric places throughout Metro Atlanta. Cars receive a luxurious abundance of infrastructure for both moving and parking, while pedestrians and transit users fight for a safe place on the edges.

You can see "desire paths" like this -- where people have worn down the grass in a median from repeatedly walking through it -- along many roads in the metro. I remember seeing them along Canton Highway in Cobb County, where I grew up.

Take a look at these desire paths worn into the sidewalk-free Buford Highway turf:

Photo: ATLUrbanist
Photo: ATLUrbanist
false

Elsewhere on the Network today: Family Friendly Cities notes that Seattle is opening a new downtown school. And The University of Oklahoma Institute for Quality Communities shares before and after maps showing the damage done by highways and urban renewal in Northeast cities.

Stay in touch

Sign up for our free newsletter

More from Streetsblog San Francisco

And Here We Go… Election Day Is Finally Upon Us

If you haven't done so already, get that ballot filled out and into the box

November 5, 2024

Caltrain Needs Help with Bike Stuff

Interested in helping guide future bike and pedestrian features on the Caltrain system? Time to step up... or ride up, as the case may be

November 4, 2024
See all posts