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 The City of Atlanta and a joint Task Force of
the Virginia Highlands Business Association and the Virginia
Highlands Civic Association are engaged in a planning study,
focusing on North Highland Avenue. The areas of main concern
are the business areas at St. Charles, Virginia, Amsterdam, and
University. The objectives are to calm automobile traffic, increase
pedestrian safety, improve the quality of the environment for
everyone - pedestrians, bicycles, and automobiles; businesses
and neighbors; visitors and residents - and, finally, begin to
address the issue of parking impacts on neighborhood residents.
There is a general agreement that automobile traffic capacity
should not be increased, because that would further increase
traffic volume and speed in the neighborhood. Further, there
is general agreement that the parking supply should not be decreased
due to future improvement and could be increased slightly if
it were unobtrusive and would not stimulate any additional business
expansion. The City will be issuing a report containing the assessment
and overall recommendations at the presentation on September
18..
The planning process included a neighborhood
workshop, which was held in January at Inman Middle School. About
a hundred residents, business owners, employees and guests attended.
Working in small groups, the participants suggested improvements
for each of the four business areas and a larger group discussed
ideas about how to address parking problems.
After the Workshop, the Task Force reviewed
the recommendations and decided to select the Virginia Avenue
and North Highland Avenue intersection for detailed design studies,
following the general recommendations made by the Workshop participants. |
