Could the next Beltline be on the Southside of metro Atlanta?
That's what will be explored by a $200,000 study commissioned by an aerotropolis community improvement district in an area around Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.
Jean-Pierre Bourget, a community organizer with Organized Clayton who studied city planning at Georgia Tech, said that while some affluent areas on the Southside like Lake Spivey have gotten new trails, he would like to see areas that most need trails get them, including neighborhoods with residents who don’t have cars on the west side of the county near the airport.
“Whenever there’s a lack of sidewalks, there’s usually a lack of infrastructure such as lighting,” Bourget said. “You have people walking in the dark and walking on the side of the road,” creating a safety issue.
The study will look for ways to improve the safety of paths on the Southside that pedestrians and bicyclists take to get to public transit, their jobs, the airport, local downtown districts, hotels, parks, libraries and other areas; and to connect trails to transit, according to documents submitted to the ARC.
The hope is ultimately that workers on the Southside would be able to more easily get to their jobs using alternative forms of transportation such as trails and transit.
To read about why some areas on the Southside are not pedestrian-friendly, who will fund the study and what trails a Southside Beltline could incorporate, read the full story on MyAJC.com
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