Atlanta’s Buford Highway supports apartment communities, small businesses, and an international food scene that draws people from across the region. It also carries six to eight lanes of fast traffic, and drivers use it as an alternate route when nearby interstates clog. More than 20% of trips happen outside a car, yet roughly 90% of the corridor’s space is reserved for vehicles. Rebecca Serna, executive director of Propel ATL, and Sagirah Jones, the organization’s program director, hosted walk audits to put residents, planners, and elected officials on the same road and show how people navigate it every day. The audits exposed an unexpected barrier: many people supported bigger changes while remaining convinced that someone else would never allow them.
Hey, everybody. This is Chuck. Before we get started, I want to remind you, because we're going to be talking about Buford Highway in Atlanta today, that we have put together an outstanding report on the impact of the Federal Highway Trust Fund and federal highway spending. You can get that white paper at strongtowns.org/missionaccomplished.
We're calling the report a declaration of victory on the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, and we're outlining a vision for what a post-expansion highway program looks like. Download it, pass it along, and share it. If you're a member, go to the Commons at commons.strongtowns.org and have a conversation about it. You can direct-message me or talk to other members. We've got lots of conversations going on there besides the Highway Trust Fund stuff, but that's there too. Join in. Thanks, everybody. Enjoy the show.
Hey, everybody. This is Chuck Marohn. Welcome back to the Strong Towns Podcast. I had a street, a road, a highway—I don't even know what we want to call it at this point—called Buford Highway brought to my attention a few years back. I can't remember who it was. I think it might have been Stephen Davis with Transportation for America.
There are some nods already on the Zoom, so I think that's probably where I got it from. I've kept my eye on this for a long time because this is one of the most messed-up transportation corridors I have ever experienced. I'm just going to use my words before our guests describe it for themselves.
I came across this group, Propel ATL, that was doing amazing work on this corridor. I can't tell you how many times local groups contact us and say, "Hey, we're fighting this highway project. They're just about to let the bids. How do we stop it?" I'm thinking, "You can't stop it. At that point, it's way too late."
There's a deeper question about how you engage with people in your community, raise questions, and deal with a difficult transportation investment. None of this is perfect. It's a difficult process, but I've watched Propel ATL step up, engage in it, and be part of it. I've wanted to have them on the podcast for a long time.
Today, I've got Rebecca Serna and Sagirah Jones, both from Propel ATL, on the podcast. I'm sorry, Sagirah. I knew I would screw that up, but I'm practicing. Rebecca, I'm going to say hi to you first. Welcome.
Hi. Great to be here.
Happy to have you. Sagirah, I'll say hi to you next so everyone can hear your voice. Welcome to the Strong Towns Podcast.
Greetings. It's good to see you.
Nice to see you. Thanks for being here, Sagirah. I'll start with you. For the audience, I said I don't know whether we'd call this a road or what it's trying to be. Can you describe Buford Highway for people who are listening and are unfamiliar with this transportation corridor?
Sure. As the name suggests, it's a highway. It's a state route that consists of six lanes in both directions. In some places, I think it's eight. Is that right, Rebecca?
Depending on the jurisdiction, yes. It's six or seven lanes and 70 to 85 feet wide.
When you're talking about the experience, it's literally like walking on a highway: very high speeds, over 50 or 60 miles per hour, rough shoulders, no sidewalks, and very precarious situations for people who are walking, biking, using strollers, or using wheelchairs. Our thought was, how do we make this road—this highway—a better experience for those outside of a vehicle?
We're not the first ones to think this, obviously, but there is momentum because of the number of crashes and pedestrian deaths that have occurred on the highway. It's really important to get people to see the road for what it is, and that's truly a highway.
Chuck, I don't know how much you know about Atlanta and our roadway conditions and traffic snarls. There's a running joke that it takes an hour to get to Atlanta from Atlanta.
That's actually a good joke.
Not for those who are in the traffic. When there's a snarl on the interstate, people use Buford Highway as their alternate route and treat it as such.
Can I probe a little deeper? Rebecca, maybe you can take this one. Sagirah has described the roadway itself, but one of the more compelling things to me is what's along the roadway. This isn't a six- or eight-lane highway through a vast emptiness. There's a real place trying to exist along it, right?
Yes. I grew up in this area, in DeKalb County. I went to Chamblee High School. Buford Highway was where we spent a lot of our time, and many of my friends lived in apartments along the corridor. There are immigrant communities from all over the world. A lot of people came here around the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta and stayed, and they really revitalized these neighborhoods.
The mall that's now called Plaza Fiesta has become a fun, thriving place with many small local businesses that support a lot of jobs. It used to be one of those dead, dying, almost vacant malls. I vividly remember my mom making me shop for a homecoming dress at Dress Barn. I wasn't very happy about that. It was the only shop left in the place, and not a high school kid's idea of a good time.
We also had a $1.50 movie theater and a lot of family-owned local businesses that popped up along the corridor. They were started by immigrants from other countries and created a thriving small-scale economy. I've even been in a dining club where we just went to restaurants on Buford Highway.
There's a lot of vibrancy and life happening just off the highway, but the highway is a scar through these communities. It's incredibly hard to cross on foot, and it's also dangerous in a car. Someone recently—and I won't talk about them in detail—lost loved ones in their family in a car crash on Buford Highway. Dangerous highways that go through communities make everyone's lives worse because of the way they're designed. They're not designed for human-scale life. They're designed to move traffic, as Sagirah said.
The thing that was most profound for me, and Sagirah, I'm going to ask you to comment on this, was the sheer number of apartment buildings and housing destinations alongside the highway, and then the huge distance between what would be nominally safe crossings. I'm not even going to call them safe crossings, but places where we're at least attempting to make it nominally safe.
It also seems connected to the demographics of the corridor, and I feel a push and pull here. The corridor design has devalued the adjacent property because it's dangerous and congested. In devaluing it, it has attracted people who are on the more vulnerable end of the spectrum and may be less likely to drive. You have many people who are going to walk or get around outside an automobile, yet this place doesn't seem well designed for that demand.
Sagirah, can you describe the human experience in this area? If you're trying to walk or bike, what is your day-to-day experience going to be?
I've been on Buford Highway several times. I went there for site visits before we did a community walk audit, and some of the things we saw on the highway were devastating. We literally saw people trying to cross the road and walking into oncoming traffic to get to the next crossing point because the next crosswalk was so far away. They were trying to cross the road and get over the barrier so they could reach the bus stop.
The bus route there is one of the most heavily used routes in our system, so you see a lot of people walking. You see families with strollers because this is a highly residential area with multifamily homes and many apartment complexes. You'll see kids getting off the school bus to walk home, or people trying to get to the store.
As Rebecca mentioned, there's a thriving small-scale economy there: restaurants, shops, laundromats, and just about everything people need to live. People need to get to those places. They can be walking on a sidewalk and then suddenly the sidewalk ends, leaving them on the shoulder of the road next to high-speed traffic. There are multiple areas with broken or damaged sidewalks, and people with mobility devices or strollers have to navigate them.
It's what you would see in any typical neighborhood: kids walking to school or the park, families interacting, and people going to work. The difference is that, instead of a neighborhood street, they're interacting with a very dangerous speedway.
I'm not sure which one of you wants to talk about Propel ATL, but before we get to the walk audit, I'd like people to know about the organization. Rebecca, I'll start with you, and Sagirah can add anything she wants. Why are you around? What do you do? How does that intersect with the work we're discussing on Buford Highway?
We were founded in 1991 by people who came out of the environmental movement in Atlanta. They were biking for transportation and grew frustrated that there weren't safe places to do that in our city. I came on board in 2007, almost 20 years ago.
We realized that it wasn't only unsafe and unwelcoming to ride a bike in Atlanta. People were also being hit by drivers while walking and even while waiting for the bus. I'm sure this happens in other cities—I hope it doesn't—but I find it especially tragic that people have been hit and killed while waiting at a designated bus stop because a driver lost control, wasn't paying attention, went off the roadway, and hit them while they were simply trying to catch the bus and get to work.
Over the years, many neighborhoods and communities came to us and said, "Biking is great. We want that, but what we really need is a sidewalk that gets to the bus stop, a way to cross this street, or a way to let our kids play outside safely without worrying about whether they'll get home." We wanted to add more of the tools community members needed and were asking us for.
We expanded beyond biking to include walking, people using mobility devices, and public transportation. We became an organization focused on sustainable transportation and creating more options for people. A big part of our work is supporting communities as they advocate for what they know they need.
We do things such as walk audits. We have programs that say, "Here are these resources. Here's this information. Let us help demystify the process so you can advocate for your own needs." We provide education along the way and opportunities to be involved.
Let's talk about what a walk audit is. Different people do this in different ways. Sagirah, I'll start with you because there's a technical aspect, and I'm an engineer. I've been involved in these from a technical standpoint, but there's also an engagement and dialogue component. How would you describe a walk audit, and what are you trying to accomplish?
To me, it's almost like a Walk with a Doc program, where you walk with a doctor and ask questions. This is like walking with a planner or transportation engineer. You walk along the road, make observations, build community, and get technical questions answered by a technical lead who's typically on the walk.
It isn't just us. Rebecca and I like to play transportation planners on TV, but we're definitely not. We make sure we have a technical lead with us, and we pick a stretch of road based on crash analyses. In Atlanta, we have what's called the High Injury Network, where 8% of our streets account for 78% of our crashes and fatalities.
We tend to focus our attention on those areas because they're the ones that need the most investment. Buford Highway is definitely on that list. We look at where the most crashes occur, get community feedback about where people are having the most trouble, and go out for a site visit ourselves to get a feel for the area.
Then we engage with the community. We don't simply announce, "We're doing this." We talk with people beforehand to find out whether they're interested in participating and, if so, bring them up to speed on what a walk audit is and why it's needed. Resoundingly, the response is, "Yes, please. When can we do this again?"
People say, "We know what the issues are because we live here, but the opportunity for someone to listen to us, hear our point of view, and understand our lived experience is very important." As an organization, we feel qualitative data is just as important as quantitative data. We incorporate that information into our reports and into the feedback we give decision-makers and transportation agencies about what's actually happening, rather than relying only on formulas on a piece of paper.
That's the difference between a walk audit and the more technical road safety audit. A road safety audit asks questions such as how many feet there are between crosswalks and whether that spacing is allowed by the municipality or state. We focus less on what's allowed and more on what should be there, designing for the people who are actually using the space.
I think that's fascinating. I'm going to say this even though I don't know it to be absolutely true: when I look at Buford Highway, I suspect it meets the design criteria in the highway design manuals for that kind of space. The spacing between signals, the lane widths, and the recovery zones probably meet the base requirements if you look only at the civil and transportation engineering side, even though it's clearly one of the most dangerous roadway stretches there is.
Rebecca, why choose the walk audit? Why is that the tool Propel ATL reaches for? What are you trying to accomplish with it?
I think it helps flip people's mentality and mindset. Most people have experienced these roads from inside a car. A walk audit helps them feel the vulnerability of being outside a car on a highway where many people are walking and catching the bus.
On a road such as Buford Highway, more than 20% of the trips are made outside of cars, but about 90% of the space is dedicated to cars. To your point, it's designed according to all the AASHTO guidelines for a highway, but it isn't designed for the way it's actually being used. There are so many apartment complexes and small businesses, and tens of thousands of people live there. Many don't have access to a car, and some aren't allowed to drive even if they wanted to.
Something that's wild to me, having gone to high school in this area, is that a long stretch near the mall I mentioned earlier didn't have sidewalks when I was in high school, and it still doesn't have sidewalks 30 years later. After one of our walk audits, I crossed the street to pick up the lunch order. It took me 20 minutes to cross because I had to walk all the way down to the next crossing and all the way back. On my way back, there was no sidewalk, and I was walking along something like a cliff edge.
It's really wild, especially because this road has been studied to death. I think one of the many studies literally begins with the line, "Buford Highway has been studied to death." The walk audit helps more people experience it.
We did one walk audit primarily with community members and another primarily with decision-makers. The community members said, "Yes, we know what this is like. Let us tell you about it." The decision-makers' response was more, "Wow. This is what it's like. This is what people are experiencing. I knew it was bad, but I hadn't necessarily walked for a mile and a half or two miles on this corridor, because why would I?"
That's really powerful. I feel there are many people listening who have situations that may not rise to this level of urgency, but their situation rhymes with what's happening on Buford Highway.
Can you describe the process for them? If I have a local group or a Local Conversation and I'm interested in this, do I have to take a class or hire professionals? What do I have to do to conduct a walk audit? How do I get started? What's the process you undertook to make this happen?
I'm going to sound old-school: call your phone tree. Gather your neighbors. Knock on a couple of doors. If you have a neighborhood association, put up some posters, or ask your neighbor while they're walking their dog, "Do you want to survey some of this information with me?"
Fortunately, AARP has a walk audit toolkit that's broadly used for community-based walk audits. It's simple to use and has clear instructions. You can pull up the information and go out on your own.
If you want something more in-depth, I recommend calling your local DOT. If it's a state route, call the state. If you have a city or county transportation agency or public works department, that will work as well. Ask them to come out and walk with you and some neighbors so you can provide feedback.
Sometimes you may get pushback. They may say, "We know what's going on," or, "We have a study." But as Rebecca said, there's a difference between reviewing a study and literally walking off a sidewalk cliff into an active construction zone while a car zooms past at 50 or 60 miles per hour.
Your roads may not be as bad as Buford Highway, but there may still be issues that need to be addressed. It's a good exercise for ramping up if you have a major corridor you want to address. I would even suggest starting with localized interior neighborhood streets or smaller roads to get a feel for what it's like.
You can also contact a local advocacy organization, whether it focuses on transportation justice, mobility justice, ADA accessibility, transit access, or housing. Housing and transportation are closely tied. As we seek more density, infill, and local access to development, we have to think about how people get around. Local housing advocates are good people to tap, as are municipal engagement teams that want to understand what residents are experiencing.
Ultimately, you don't have to have access to anyone. It can simply be you and your neighbor walking down the street with an online form or a piece of paper and making observations. Advocacy groups and municipalities can help share that information, lift up your observations, and get them into the right hands and ears so something actionable can be done.
I want to ask about the report you put together. Rebecca, part of the process you're describing is experiential. You're out there walking together, experiencing the corridor, and noting and discussing what's happening. But you can't conduct a walk audit with everyone in the community, and not everyone will experience it.
How do you decide what goes into a report, and what is the role of putting this down in writing so it can be shared beyond the people who had the experience?
We're working on a story map. Right now, we have a summary of what people said and what we found, and it echoes many of the things in those other plans. I think the story map will help people visualize it. They can see what half a mile or a mile between crossings looks and feels like and hear, in people's own words, what that experience is.
We're combining some of the technical data, including the number of fatal and serious-injury crashes in just the last five years, with those experiences. I also want to mention that many projects have tried to improve safety on Buford Highway. Signalized pedestrian crossings have been added, and some sections have gotten sidewalks, but it feels as though we're tinkering around the edges.
Those projects have made measurable safety improvements. I want to give credit where credit is due while also saying it's definitely not enough. We still have all this lane width to work with. As Sagirah mentioned, there's a perception—or a reality—that this is an alternate to the interstate, but we don't have alternates to the interstate going through every community. We have one going through this immigrant community, and people are being killed or seriously injured as a result of that decision.
I think the lack of political power in some of these neighborhoods, because many residents don't have access to the vote, has to be a factor. That's me speculating, but if you go out and see what's happening, I think you can see it pretty clearly. The report formally documents what we did and what we want to see happen.
One thing we want is bigger, more sweeping change. With the number of lanes—six to seven—every time I say that, I hear my kids making fun of me, but anyway.
That's just the number of lanes, kids. I'm sorry. That one might be passé now, but I'm not pausing.
Yes, they would be cringing deeply.
The report documents what happened, but it also says, "Let's do something more." We've made small changes, and they have improved things slightly, but it isn't enough given that this is the highest-ridership bus route in Metro Atlanta.
Why don't we have a bus lane, for example? That's something our transit agency has considered. They're building arterial rapid transit, so there will be improved bus stops. As a transit rider, it's nice if the stop is nice, but once you have a shelter and a place to sit, what you really want is for the bus to come more often and not get stuck in traffic.
The way the road works now, the outside right lane is essentially a bus lane in practice, combined with a turn lane. There are a ton of driveways, which is also a safety issue. We're trying to call for bigger changes. Frankly, we're tired of hearing that those changes aren't possible, because Metro Atlanta and the State of Georgia have spent several billion dollars on an interchange recently. We know these things are possible.
I'd like to ask both of you this, and I'll start with Sagirah. Did you learn anything during a walk audit that surprised you? Did you watch someone have that moment when the light goes on and something is brand-new for them? Is there a moment that stands out—something you learned or watched someone else grapple with for the first time during this process?
For me, it was the fact that this experience is so normal—or normalized—for residents. One of our community partners who works on the corridor came on behalf of his organization. He grew up on the corridor and was part of one of the immigrant families Rebecca was talking about.
He said this was simply a normal, everyday experience. He knew it wasn't right, but he had accepted it as part and parcel of life. It wasn't until he participated in the walk audit that he had the realization: "Wait. There's really something wrong with this. Other people aren't dealing with this. Other people don't fear dying when they walk out their front door, and we should push harder for change."
For me, it was a major learning moment to watch him realize that disinvestment doesn't have to be the norm for residents in the City of Atlanta. It was a wake-up.
That's beautiful. Rebecca?
One thing I learned was somewhat specific, but I hope I can apply it again. At the end of our second walk audit, there was a group of taxi drivers standing in the shade and waiting for calls. Because there are many undocumented people in these communities, taxis are an important way to get around. Taxi drivers see a lot, and there are many of them.
While we were waiting, I asked, "What do you think about this corridor? What would you want to change?" They immediately had 10 ideas. I thought, "Wow. I wouldn't have thought to ask taxi drivers to participate in these walk audits," but they had tons of feedback.
One thing they pointed out was a project adding some of the sidewalks we mentioned earlier. As part of the project, there are concrete barriers in the middle of Buford Highway. Sagirah talked about this. We saw multiple people try to cross half the highway, reach the median, and then realize they couldn't get over it. It looks smaller from far away. People were getting stuck in the middle of the highway, running alongside the barrier against traffic, or biking alongside it against traffic.
The taxi drivers brought up that median and said, "You've got to get rid of that as soon as possible. We've seen so many crashes and people trying to make dangerous left turns out of these apartment complexes, because otherwise they have to go far down the road to turn." Listen to the people who are putting in the most miles on the corridor. In this case, that's the taxi drivers.
I want to ask what comes next in a Strong Towns sense. We always try to ask, "What's the next smallest thing we can do? What's the next thing we can do today with what we've got to make this better?" But it feels as though there's a larger issue that needs to be decided.
Is Buford Highway going to be about through traffic? If so, what are we doing? Or is it going to be about the local traffic and life that are already there? If so, what are we doing? Are we stuck waiting for that broader decision before we can make meaningful change?
Rebecca, you mentioned tinkering around the edges. What needs to happen now? You're raising awareness, conducting walk audits, and getting people out there. What are you looking for?
I'm looking for the reality of what people support when you talk to them. Elected officials and other decision-makers really do support making bigger changes to Buford Highway, but everyone thinks someone else would never let that happen.
I think we need to get everyone together for a deeper conversation, rather than talking only about what small changes or improvements we can make around the edges. Instead of asking about the low-hanging fruit, ask what big change would really improve quality of life on this corridor.
We've landed on reallocating the space based on the percentage of trips and the way the corridor is used. We should have an engineering conversation about that, because this is one of those cases where I think an engineering conversation will lead to the same result as a human conversation.
Instead of assuming the large state agency will oppose it, let's give the agency an opportunity to consider and study it. We have arterial rapid transit and more frequent buses coming. You're not going to be able to use that lane the way it functions now. It probably should be reallocated. Let's expand the medians, make sure there are sidewalks, and represent people's needs more adequately.
We've been having one-on-one conversations with elected officials from the different jurisdictions. Buford Highway starts in the City of Atlanta and goes through multiple cities, all in DeKalb County. Many jurisdictions, local and state governments, and the transit agency are involved.
After all those one-on-one conversations, the next step is getting people together and saying, "Remember how you all think everyone else is against this? Turn to the person next to you and find out what they actually think."
I'll add one more thing. Many years ago, when I started doing this work, Buford Highway was one of the first roads we looked at. We had an opportunity to talk with the state DOT commissioner at the time, and he said, "Rebecca, if I make any changes to Buford Highway, they'll put my picture up on a billboard and shoot at it all day and all night." I thought he was wildly exaggerating, but he really believed that.
There seems to be a shared-knowledge problem where we all believe we know what everyone else believes. The walk audit and the dialogue you're having feel like ways to get around that common-knowledge problem. Sagirah, what are you hoping the next steps are? You were nodding a lot as Rebecca was talking.
One reason I was nodding was the distinction between the human conversation and the engineering conversation. I'd just like to point out that engineers are humans too.
Sometimes we are. We should rename the podcast that.
Yes: "Engineers Are Humans Too." What I'd like to see is that continued sense of community—not because it isn't already there, especially on Buford Highway. Various civic associations, community groups, and coalitions work well together.
I'd like the transportation issues to be elevated. In the environment we're in now, people are dealing with so many socioeconomic and political issues, as well as fundamental questions about whether their kids are safe, whether they're getting a good education, whether their jobs are stable, whether they'll have food, and whether they have housing.
Transportation sometimes gets dismissed because it doesn't seem to rise to the same level. But when we talk with different groups, access to safe transportation is one of the issues that rises to the top. I think the lead gets buried.
We need to elevate the human experience and understand that access to safe transportation options isn't only about getting from point A to point B. It's access to opportunity. People use transit, bikes, and sidewalks to reach healthcare, green space, and jobs. This is about social mobility and the quality of life people can access.
For me, the questions are: How do we continue the conversation? How do we keep making sure people are heard? How do we make sure they have access to those opportunities?
Let me give both of you a scenario and have you react. Buford Highway seems like one of those places where, if we were truly committed to moving traffic and wanted it to work as overflow for the highways in the Atlanta metro—which isn't lacking in highways—we wouldn't develop along it. We would close accesses, favor through traffic, and try to keep everything moving.
That would be a strange world to imagine based on what's already there, what has been invested along the corridor, and what the local governments seem committed to doing.
What disaster would befall us if, instead of six to eight lanes, we had one or two lanes for automobile through traffic in each direction, and the rest were reallocated to transit, sidewalks, bike lanes, and safe transit stops? Would private investment collapse? Would people stop visiting this corridor? Would they be unable to shop or live their lives here, or would the opposite happen?
There seems to be a less-is-more argument when it comes to through mobility and actually building the place. What would hold us back from embracing that? Sagirah, do you want to take that one first?
I just said engineers are humans too, but in this case, I think it's a matter of engineering overpowering humanity. You have guidelines that people refer to and say define what's allowed for distances and street design, but we need to look at how the corridor is actually used.
As Rebecca mentioned, this is a local economy, but it's also a destination economy. Buford Highway is known as an international marketplace because of its grocery stores and restaurants. People visit Buford Highway for what it offers.
If you had two vehicle lanes for throughput on either side, I don't see it being any different from another well-developed road or street that caters to people outside cars who are participating in the local economy.
Rebecca, if the technical issues went away and the engineers said, "This is the solution. We're going to de-emphasize through traffic and emphasize building this place," what harm would befall us?
We might trip over ourselves doing a little happy dance. I think that's about it.
I worked for the census in 2010 and went to many of these apartments on Buford Highway. I had a crappy old car, and I would drive from one side of the street to the other because there was nowhere to cross safely. I think a lot of the traffic is generated by people who feel stuck in their cars and trapped in these environments.
I'm also thinking of another street in Atlanta that underwent a radical overhaul a couple of years ago. The report just came out. People said traffic would come to a standstill, residents wouldn't be able to get out of their driveways, and businesses would go under—all the things you hear around the country.
Instead, travel time decreased by 8% during the busiest hours of the day. Pedestrian crashes fell by more than 50%, all roadway crashes fell by 23%, and no one has been killed since the project was implemented several years ago. Before that, one or two people were killed every year.
A lot of the dire predictions simply don't come to pass, and I've seen this time and time again. There's a street near me where people said travel times would increase by 18 minutes if it went from five lanes to three. What happened? The bus sped up so much that the agency had to change its headways because buses were reaching the next stop too quickly. These predictions don't come to pass. Our models are built around assumptions that don't hold up when you give people other options.
You brought back a memory from years ago in my small hometown. We have a community college on one side of a road and a bunch of student apartments on the other. They widened the road between them, which used to be a small road, and now it's a major shortcut around the south side of town.
We talked to students who live in the apartment buildings. From the apartment door, you can literally see the community college 200 or 300 feet away. They get in their cars, drive down the road, go through the roundabout, come back, and then turn in because that's safer than trying to cross the roadway.
On Buford Highway, I wonder how much of the traffic creating the congestion comes from people reacting to the terrible design by taking short trips they would otherwise be happy to walk or bike. My instinct is always to ask, "What's the next incremental thing we can do?" But sometimes we're faced with issues where we've created such a mess that there is almost no small way to back away from the house of cards. It's going to take a significant mental shift.
I'm going to include links to the AARP toolkit, your website, and your walk-audit work so people can see what you're doing. If people want to support you, join the group in Atlanta, or learn more, where should they go?
If they want to support us by volunteering their time or making a donation, they can go to letspropelatl.org. There's a donate button, and we have another walk audit coming up this Saturday. By the way, Sagirah, we have 45 people signed up for this walk audit.
All right.
You'll need a megaphone for this walk audit.
We're going to have to split into a couple of groups.
Yes. There are definitely many opportunities to get involved. You can also follow us on social media and join the conversation. Even if you don't have a few hours to spend with us this Saturday, sharing the perspectives and voices we're trying to lift up and help people hear benefits all of us.
That was Rebecca Serna. Rebecca, do you have a title with Propel ATL?
I'm the executive director.
Sagirah Jones, do you have a formal title with Propel ATL?
I'm the program director.
I have the two heavy hitters in the organization here. I want to say thank you. I really admire the work you're doing and the courage you're showing in the face of what is, to me, one of the most disrespectful public transportation investments we've made in the country.
We've invested lots of money to degrade a neighborhood and make life difficult for many people without any measurable benefit to society. I'm grateful there are people like you doing the heavy lifting and the hard work to make this conversation better.
Thank you for taking the time to be on the podcast. I'll give you the last word. Sagirah, you can start. Any last thoughts before we sign off?
Even if you don't call yourself an advocate, you are one simply by speaking up, observing, gathering, and being in community. Don't be afraid to share your voice. It matters. Don't take for granted that you're just as knowledgeable as the engineers and planners designing the streets. Your voice is just as important, and you should have a say in what happens in your community.
Rebecca?
Beautiful. I'm reflecting on what you said and the phrasing "a disrespectful investment." It's a great way to put it. I think it's inadvertent because everyone is dealing with what they've been handed.
There are so many people along this corridor—organizations, neighborhood groups, elected officials, and even the state agency—who want to change it. But it's hard to see our way out of the current situation and what we've been dealt.
I'm reflecting on the power that exists within these disparate pieces. If we could put the puzzle pieces together a little better and finish the puzzle, that would create a much better situation for many people.
Sagirah Jones and Rebecca Serna, the group is Propel ATL. Thank you for the work you do, and thanks, everybody, for listening.
Go out and do your own walk audit. You can start with what Edward Erfurt at our organization calls "talkabouts," where you simply walk around, look at things, and chat. It's a great way to get started. You can work your way up to a walk audit. These are great communication tools.
Thanks for listening. Keep doing what you can to build a strong town. Take care, everybody.
This episode was produced by Strong Towns, a nonprofit movement for building financially resilient communities. If what you heard today matters to you, deepen your connection by becoming a Strong Towns member at strongtowns.org/membership.