A year after a high-profile traffic fatality, and just four months before downtown is flooded with thousands of 2026 FIFA World Cup visitors, advocates for safer Atlanta streets are calling for a relatively small but important change on the city’s signature thoroughfare, they say.
Propel ATL and Atlanta Families for Safe Streets have scheduled a press conference for noon Wednesday to advocate for a mid-block, raised crossing near 225 Peachtree St. NE downtown—a location where multiple pedestrians have been killed or injured while trying to cross the street, per organization officials.
The event will take place a year to the day after Pradeep Sood, a 67-year-old business owner at nearby AmericasMart, was fatally struck by a truck while attempting to cross Peachtree Street via a crosswalk that was reportedly faded and deactivated. What remained of the crosswalk was quickly removed.
The Peachtree Street mid-block crosswalk in question in December 2021. Google Maps
Condition of the same downtown crossing in July 2024. Google Maps
On the same busy section of downtown’s main street, a Department of City Planning initiative called the Peachtree Shared Street Demonstration Project had been removed in 2022 after less than a year following pushback from some powerful property owners downtown—to the chagrin of other business leaders and many urbanists. Following the removal of planters, signage, wheel stops, and other elements, Peachtree Street again became a four and five-lane road through downtown. Indications that a more permanent conversion of Peachtree Street could eventually come to pass have not played out.
The city’s current plans call for a mid-block crossing halfway between John Portman Boulevard NW and Andrew Young International Boulevard NE—but no construction date has been set, and a June 30 deadline established in an Atlanta City Council resolution for a “safe crosswalk” is now seven months past, per event organizers.
“Despite being one of the city’s most iconic and heavily used pedestrian corridors,” reads a media alert issued today, “Peachtree Street was recently repaved as a four-lane, car-centric configuration, without any additional crosswalks, curb extensions, or traffic-calming measures.”
Members of Sood’s family continue to operate the AmericasMart business and plan to attend Wednesday’s event to support safe streets advocates.
Propel ATL—formerly the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition and Pedestrians Educating Drivers on Safety—aims to help transform city streets into safer and more inclusive spaces for people not in vehicles. Atlanta Families for Safe Streets is a local chapter of the Families for Safe Streets organization, composed of people directly affected by traffic injuries and deaths.
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