Fresh images: How interstate-spanning people bridge will look, function

A functional statement piece for ITP Atlanta’s growing multi-use trail system landed a funding boost Thursday. 

Decide DeKalb Development Authority’s Board of Directors voted to award a $588,168 Urban Renewal Fund grant to the City of Brookhaven for designs of the new bike and pedestrian bridge that will span Interstate 85 northeast of Midtown. 

Decide DeKalb, the main economic development and job-growth agency for Georgia’s fourth largest county, also provided renderings that vividly illustrate how the Peachtree Creek Greenway Connector Bridge will link with roadways, sidewalks, and parking lot areas on either side of the interstate. (Find those images in the gallery above). 

The grant funding is being sourced through the Briarcliff North Druid Hills Tax Allocation District. 

Decide DeKalb officials say the 14-foot-wide connecting bridge—stretching between Emory University's Executive Park campus and the Peachtree Creek Greenway, over one of Atlanta’s busiest freeways—will create a safe, ADA-accessible link for two of the county’s largest employment centers and the regional trail network. 

The area today has just one option for pedestrians to cross I-85: a 42-inch-wide sidewalk along the North Druid Hills Road interchange bridge. 

The pedestrian bridge’s western side will include an elevator plaza and ADA-compliant ramp, for a connection with Peachtree Creek Greenway’s second phase, according to Decide DeKalb. 

The eastern side of the bridge will flow down to a parking lot and existing infrastructure around Emory’s facilities, per renderings. 

“We’re not simply helping fund the design of a bridge,” Dorian DeBarr, Decide DeKalb’s president and CEO, said in a grant announcement. “We’re helping connect people to jobs, institutions, trails, and future opportunities.” 

“This bridge will overcome a significant physical barrier created by I-85,” noted Brookhaven Mayor John Park.

The Decide DeKalb grant will cover about 1/3 of design and project soft costs, as Brookhaven continues to work with design firm Michael Baker International and the Georgia Department of Transportation to put the bridge project in motion. Brookhaven officials are expected to return to Decide DeKalb’s board in late 2027 to request additional TAD funding for construction costs. 

Earlier this month, Emory agreed to contribute $15.8 million to the bridge project over the next 10 years. Brookhaven is contributing funding through its Special Service District. 

Forecasts call for all right-of-way acquisitions, easements, and environmental permitting to wrap next year, followed by finalized designs and GDOT’s final stamp of approval, per Decide DeKalb. 

Should schedules pan out, the bridge project will begin construction in 2028 and finish sometime in 2029. 

Nearby, Peachtree Creek Greenway’s 1.1-mile second phase is expected to break ground this year and finish construction in roughly two years. It will bring the trail system down to the Atlanta City Line, closer to the Beltline and the Southfork Conservancy trail system.

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