UPDATE: 10:34 a.m., July 20: Following Wednesday's report that Atlanta Streets Alive will be resurrected soon after a four-year hiatus, District 2 city councilmember Amir Farokhi sends details Atlantans have long been waiting for:
According to Atlanta Department of Transportation officials, Atlanta Streets Alive will officially return Sunday, September 24, opening a roughly three-mile stretch of Peachtree Street in downtown and Midtown to people and closing it to vehicle traffic.
Later this year, Streets Alive will also be staged on that same Peachtree route on the third Sundays in October and November.
But wait, there's more! According to ATLDOT, Streets Alive will return to the three-mile Peachtree route in April next year—and then continue there on the third Sundays of every month through November 2024. No other routes have been announced.
In other words, Atlanta's signature open-streets program is officially back, rooted in a designated place with the city's densest neighborhoods, and now more frequent than ever.
For context, here's a look at what Streets Alive's most patronized open-streets path—Peachtree Street's Central Route—looked like in years past, before the program went on hiatus in 2019:
What a three-mile centralized Atlanta Streets Alive route looked like when the events were a more common occurrence four years ago. Propel ATL
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Believe it or not, September will mark four years since Atlanta hosted its last large-scale, open-streets program. That unanticipated finale drew an estimated 40,000 people to a route that swooped through Southwest Atlanta, connecting seven neighborhoods between Summerhill and Westview.
By all indications, the cherished tradition that was Atlanta Streets Alive isn’t finished. Instead, it’s about to awaken from a long, pandemic-induced hibernation.
To help prepare, the City of Atlanta has scheduled an online information session Tuesday to outline how the city’s signature open-streets event expects to return this fall after its four-year hiatus.
City officials are seeking input from Atlanta residents, and they plan to relay info on how regular Atlantans can get involved to help bring Streets Alive back. Registration for the 6 p.m. webinar can be found here.
Atlanta City Councilmember Amir Farokhi, who helped secure $200,000 in the city’s budget this year to fund Streets Alive’s return, said a specific date for the first event has yet to be determined, beyond sometime this fall.
Approved funding will cover the cost of between five and 10 car-free events. The Atlanta Department of Transportation is in the process of determining what each one will cost, according to Farokhi.
“It’s not clear yet where the routes will be,” Farokhi tells Urbanize Atlanta. “I was told at least a couple on Peachtree [Street] and then some in other parts of the city.”
An Atlanta Streets Alive takeover of Peachtree Street downtown in 2019. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
The Peachtree Street route, usually stretching from South Downtown to near the High Museum, was among the most attended and frequently staged of the events over the years. Crowds often topped 100,000, as estimated by volunteer counters.
Atlanta Bicycle Coalition (now Propel ATL) originated Streets Alive. Inspired by ciclovía events in Bogotá, Colombia and other cities, the Streets Alive phenomenon began meagerly one day in 2010 when a stretch of Edgewood Avenue opened to bicyclists, skaters, walkers, and anyone else not driving a car.
Over the next decade, the events drew increasingly more massive crowds—some 1.7 million people total—to temporarily open streets spanning from DeKalb Avenue at the Decatur line to West End and Collier Hills. It happened three or four times per year, for a few hours on Sundays.
A festive Streets Alive scene in South Downtown in October 2018. Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta
A previous ordinance that emerged in 2021—as supported by the bicycle coalition and six cosigners on the city council—proposed opening up Peachtree to Streets Alive every Sunday. But those efforts later dissolved.
Over the course of a decade, organizers say Streets Alive staged 29 events and covered some 83 miles of city streets. Where should it head next, in the cooler months ahead?
What a three-mile centralized Atlanta Streets Alive route looked like when the events were a more common occurrence four years ago. Propel ATL
[CORRECTION: 3:48 p.m. July 20: A previous version of this story stated the first Atlanta Street Alive will be held September 17, not September 24 as planned.]
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