"The Stitch" - Plan to Cap the Connector Moves Forward (Atlanta: credit, gated)

[bryantm3]

There's a better answer out there. I don't think we should make the perfect the enemy of the good, but I think this needs more study vis-à-vis the traffic impact on having ramps off of 75/85 going directly onto streets that have to be crossed to reach a new park. Unless it's part of a broader effort to give the connector a road diet, it seems like it would be a dodgy situation.

Given that there's such interest in getting both this and the stitch done, and the impact the freeways are having on the beltline, transit, and other projects like the capitol green and GSU expansion, I wonder if a broader effort might be the answer, a mega-project to cut and cover the downtown connector and I-20 inside the beltline.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

...

Given that there's such interest in getting both this and the stitch done, and the impact the freeways are having on the beltline, transit, and other projects like the capitol green and GSU expansion, I wonder if a broader effort might be the answer, a mega-project to cut and cover the downtown connector and I-20 inside the beltline.

Yes!

This is exactly. It is what I have always imagined and envisioned for years.

[Mossberg]

Federal funds to boost downtown's highway-capping 'Stitch' proposal

Like the Atlanta BeltLine’s Southside Trail, a grandiose proposal to build a park over the downtown Connector is getting an infusion of federal cash in hopes it can help knit intown neighborhoods back together.

U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told the AJC today that $900,000 in grant funding is being channeled to downtown’s “Stitch,” which was first proposed to fanfare five years ago but hasn’t progressed much beyond engineering studies.

The Stitch concept calls for a 14-acre greenspace covering a winding section of the downtown Connector, between the Civic Center MARTA station and just east of Piedmont Avenue.

The federal funding will come from $1-billion program Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity, or RAISE. Buttigieg told the newspaper the grant will pay for Stitch planning studies while helping to further the Biden Administration's infrastructure agenda.

The BeltLine has been allocated substantially more—$16.4 million in RAISE funds—to assist in building about two miles of trail on the city’s southside, between Pittsburgh and Grant Park.

The Stitch would stretch for about three-quarters of a mile and help reconnect parts of Midtown and downtown divided by construction of the I-75/I-85 conjoined expressway.

In April, U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams called for $1.16 million in federal funding to help construct the park, describing it as a sound use of taxpayer dollars that would “improve mobility and access, create jobs, and boost economic and community development, and revitalize the downtown region of Atlanta.” U.S. Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock have also publicly backed the project.

Buttigieg called the Stitch a good use of old right-of-way that plans for America’s future priorities.

[Need4Camaro]

Didn't know the plan also covered I-20. Thought it was only the Downtown Connector.

[Yoski]

Infrastructure week indeed! Georgia's congressional delegation is really coming through for the state and Atlanta.

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Didn't know the plan also covered I-20. Thought it was only the Downtown Connector.

It was for only the Connector, this is the first I've heard anything about I-20 at all.

[seussie]

That's because I-20 is not part of the Stitch plan. Biden's infrastructure plan (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-...bill/3684/text) includes a pilot program to reconnect neighborhoods split by racist highway development, which potentially includes I-20 and other interstates across the nation. Two different things, even if the Stitch is receiving federal funds as is the Beltline.

[Mossberg]

The I-20 capping idea was floated here in the past. I'd also like to see it happen, but I am skeptical if any actual funding will happen for it.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by seussie

That's because I-20 is not part of the Stitch plan. Biden's infrastructure plan (https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-...bill/3684/text) includes a pilot program to reconnect neighborhoods split by racist highway development, which potentially includes I-20 and other interstates across the nation. Two different things, even if the Stitch is receiving federal funds as is the Beltline.

Interesting. Good to know!

[bryantm3]

I know this is completely contrary to what I wrote earlier, but I have started wondering, after seeing a lot of projects gurn out to change the city in negative ways that I didn't forsee, that maybe I should be more skeptical.

This decade has a whole lot of parallels to the 1920s and 30s- not just the pandemic. Downtown Atlanta did a "stitch" project back then, too. The railroad used to cut straight through downtown, between Alabama and Wall street. Rail, pedestrian, and new car traffic got to be so bad that over time, all the streets crossing the tracks north-south (Spring, Forsyth, Broad, Peachtree, Central & Courtland) were raised 1-2 stories, creating a series of bridges over the tracks connecting south and north downtown, essentially creating a smaller scale version of the area they want to "stitch" today.

Back then, they also decided to cap nearly the whole thing and put a park above. But since then, that area has been changed significantly. That part of town lost a lot of its vibrancy, and eventually mamy of the historic hotels and the two train stations along that track were torn down. I think, if they are going go do this $900 million study, they need to put some of that money towards a study of *that* project and how it affected downtown.