New Sandy Springs TSPLOST, the danger of kids riding electric motorcycles, and lack of safe alternatives in Sandy Springs

Sandy Springs voters will decide in November whether to renew the Transportation Special Local Option Sales Tax (TSPLOST). $ 44,600,000, nearly half of the Tier One total, will go mostly towards widening Hammond which will have a multiuse path but mostly enable more car traffic by people from outside of Sandy Springs. The city council should reevaluate priorities toward safety, whether that means reallocating money or finding more revenue.

I have seen children riding devices which may be marketed as ebikes but are closer to mopeds or motorcyles because they can get up to 30+mph without pedaling. I've seen them riding in the road and on sidewalks along Roswell Rd, which is owned by GDOT and is the most dangerous surface street in Sandy Springs. This could be involved in more tragedy. Roswell, and other streets in the city, will only become more dangerous if GDOT goes through with their expensive plan to build a larger higher volume interchange at Roswell and 285.

But I also understand why those riders might take those risks given the choices they face. Drivers and city planners have made the public spaces of Sandy Springs unsafe for children, thereby limiting their recreational opportunities and mobility. It is a major burden for anybody to be unable to go out without somebody else to drive them. It is dangerous for children to drive cars that weigh multiple tons and have hundreds of horsepower. New mobility devices allow for some trips that weren't previously possible, so the reality is they will be used.

These e-motorcycles can be safer around cars than normal bikes or ebikes exactly because their higher speed reduces the risk of drivers hitting them from behind, both by reducing the frequency of passes and the speed difference when a pass is performed. 

I've seen adult biking enthusiasts going as fast as they reasonably could with pure pedal power, and drivers pass them dangerously close rather than slowing down and waiting until there is more space to pass safely. In Georgia "[t]he minimum legal space for a motorist to pass a bicyclist is 3 feet", but drivers in Sandy Springs routinely ignore this as well as their obligation to stop for pedestrians generally, including in unmarked crosswalks. For reference, here is a picture of my bicycle with a lit bar that extends 3 feet. "LaneSaber" per the designer's sense of humor, it can also rotate up to be vertical. I'm not sure if drivers here will actually slow down or move further away to pass due to it, but it gets the point across: in our streets there is not room to stay within a lane and squeeze past a bike while also maintaining that distance, but drivers pass anyway.


More enforcement of traffic laws would be good, particularly to protect people outside of cars but also car occupants. Stopping and slowing down for cyclists and pedestrians, speed limits, red lights, phone ban, etc. Realistically enforcement is not enough. Biking in high speed mixed traffic (around motor vehicles) is inherently dangerous so we should build protected bike paths. 

Real protection is concrete barriers and metal bollards. Our new Police Department building rightfully has concrete to protect it from drivers, and people on bikes should too. With concrete protection from drivers coming from behind, it would be much safer for people to ride bikes at lower speeds around Sandy Springs. Then we could encourage children to use them safely. These protected pathways would also be good for strollers, wheelchairs, etc., where our sidewalks are inadequate. 

Sandy Springs should reprioritize TSPLOST for sidewalks and bikepaths on city streets to give kids safer alternatives. There should also be more modal filters, that allow people but not cars to pass, to connect these paths into a larger network. Such as, e.g., the footpath between Belle Isle and Highbrook. In the south east corner of the city, building bike paths on Windsor, High Point, and Northland would enable a lot of kids to reach each other and the otherwise hard to access Path 400 connection at Windsor. I'm sure similar networks could be built across the city.

Just this morning I was driving on Windsor with my infant in the backseat and a sports car heading the other way came into our lane to pass another vehicle at high speed. Despite the painted figure of a bicycle on the roadway, this is obviously not a safe environment at the moment. 

Sandy Springs Transportation Master Plan - Last Session, Thursday, February 26 | 5:30–7:30 p.m, Church of the Redeemer

Latest information: https://www.sandyspringsga.gov/sandy-springs-transportation-master-plan

Hello, a reminder to everyone to get involved with the Sandy Springs  Transportation Master Plan. The last session is tomorrow, Thursday, February 26 | 5:30–7:30 p.m, at the Church of the Redeemer. See details at the link above. You can come at any time during this window, you do not have to stay.

Here is my previous post about it: https://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/11/sandy-springs-transportation-master.html 

Sandy Springs officials pride themselves on having the best public safety and emergency responders that we can get. We should have the same high standards for road safety and not accept the status quo that leaves 40k people a year dead on America's roads.

I went to tonight's session to give my input. Specifically I called for protection where drivers entering the southern border of the city on Roswell Rd frequently crash off of the road. Here is my post about last months' crash https://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2026/01/january-5-2026-crash-from-roswell-rd.html and the Rough Draft article about the crash. As a reminder, this is only the latest in a series of many crashes at this site, and if you walk that stretch you can see marks of some of them.

City staff told me their decision to build protection depends on previous injuries and property damage. This is the wrong way to analyze where we need to build safety improvements. A guardrail or concrete barrier at this bend in the road might even increase property damage, as dangerous drivers crash into it and damage their own cars. But it is still the right thing to do for the city to stop drivers from crashing and injuring other people. Roswell Rd is managed by GDOT and hypothetically they might object because they prioritize drivers speeding through Sandy Springs over safety. But the city should force the issue by trying to get it done and make GDOT react.



I also recommended building bike paths to connect the city to the upcoming Path 400 connection to Windsor, in line with this post. More broadly I reminded them that spending millions of dollars to increase how many cars can drive on the city's streets will not solve congestion, because of induced demand. Our Transportation Master Plan needs to be providing infrastructure for alternative modes of transportation, ideally in partnership with other city departments reducing demand for driving. Especially by non-residents; the daytime population of the city is over twice as large as the population of residents, and many others drive through the city between neighboring municipalities.

Rough Draft publishes article about the Jan 5 crash

https://roughdraftatlanta.com/2026/01/12/roswell-road-safety-concerns/

I am quoted in this article, which I believe was prompted by my public statement at the city council meeting. 

Here is my earlier post about the crash: https://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2026/01/january-5-2026-crash-from-roswell-rd.html 

January 5, 2026 crash from Roswell Rd towards Creme de la Creme daycare

 

On Monday January 5 a driver flew off of Roswell, knocked out the bottom half of a telephone pole, and totaled a car parked in front of the daycare.

Here is a video description of what happened, https://youtu.be/ho8f9pvotFM 

My public comment to the Sandy Springs city council is at 19 minutes at this link,

https://www.youtube.com/live/fUHMEM-vSb0?si=FMniftFBsXKOObo3

This section of Roswell is a recurring safety risk for Sandy Springs and I hope it is prioritized within the new Transportation Master Plan, https://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/11/sandy-springs-transportation-master.html

Sandy Springs Transportation Master Plan Update

If you are part of the Sandy Springs community (including workers etc, not only residents) and would like to discuss ideas for how to improve the transportation master plan, you can join this GroupMe or comment below https://groupme.com/join_group/106787193/RO10hjeC

Sandy Springs is launching an update to the Transportation Master Plan. This is a major process that cycles every five years. Please participate, because this is a key opportunity to make Sandy Springs safer. Information is available here, https://www.sandyspringsga.gov/sandy-springs-transportation-master-plan . There will be meetings and community engagement sometime after New Years.

For now, there is a survey. Link on the page above, or if you want a direct link it's https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/sandyspringstmp

 

Please submit a survey response with your thoughts. For what it's worth, I'll share my responses below for each question,

1. 

First question on the survey asks to rank goals. These are fine but I think misleading because each option has to be condensed so much it lacks context. Of course "Safety" is good, all else being equal. I even ranked it right after my custom goal. But the real question with concrete choices about transportation infrastructure is managing tradeoffs. Here was my list:

1. Other
2. Safety
3. Improving well-being and minimizing environmental impact
4. Mobility and Accessibility for All
5. Land Use Integration
6. Economic Vitality
7. Maintenance, Resilience and Reliability
8. Beautification
9. Efficiency and Optimization

So all of these are good, as above. I specifically ranked "Efficiency and Optimization: Minimizing travel times and travel delay" last because my interpretation of the option, based on prior messaging from the government, is that this means higher motor vehicle speeds. I do want faster travel, but that is the wrong way to improve it and makes actual fundamental improvements harder. As mentioned in this earlier post the city is spending $60 million to widen a short stretch of Hammond. I predict this will end up being a huge waste with little improvement to travel times to justify that outlay, and I want to discourage that sort of misallocation.

2. 

Below the ranking of goals, there is a text box to enter your "Other" goal. My submission was based on my caveat above about this ranking exercise. The only way to achieve those goals overall, given Sandy Springs residents aging in place, hopefully new families coming in, plus the daytime population doubling as employees and shoppers come into Sandy Springs, is to get people out of cars and into other modes of transportation. 

As long as all of those trips are performed by driving, the reality of an ever larger quantity of large metal boxes moving around is that it'll be dangerous, burdensome, not accessible, inefficient, etc. So the overarching goal for now should be:

Mode shifting to safer, more widely accessible, and environmentally responsible modes of transportation like transit, biking, walking, away from driving. 

3. What primarily brings you to Sandy Springs?

Multiple choice to understand how respondents relate to Sandy Springs. Living, working, shopping here etc. Or even just driving through. I think it's good for the city to collect this data, although I wonder what they'll do with it.

Many people who do not live in Sandy Springs do have a valid interest that we should respect. The city has a policy of trying to have more jobs than residents, i.e., many people come into the city for work. Some of them work in corporate offices, and some of them are service workers directly helping Sandy Springs residents. Finding safe and convenient options is important for everyone. Right now a lot of workers along Roswell Rd have very long and unsafe commutes, and the city needs to get better transit service and safer sidewalks.

4. How do you usually get around Sandy Springs?

I do drive and take transit often enough, rarely bike. Probably the most frequent trips are relatively short walks.

5. Are there any other ways you sometimes get around Sandy Springs? (check all that apply)

I think this is a better question than 4. Some options are not convenient for everyone, but people who never do anything except drive probably have a skewed perception of how the city actually operates.

6. What issues do you face with the methods of travel you currently use to get around Sandy Springs? (check all that apply)

Tricky question because for people who use multiple modes of transportation, the downsides are probably different for each one. I selected based on walking,

• confusing, stressful or unpleasant
• feels unsafe
• doesn't well accommodate my limited mobility due to disability, age or other factors

To clarify I do not identify as having a disability. However an "other factor" is that I do care for my children and, e.g., have contacted the city about sidewalks or lack of sidewalks that are difficult to use with strollers. 

7. Are there any methods of travel you wish you could use more often? (check all that apply)

Do I ever wish I personally could ride bikes more often. My kids have asked me. Other kids have volunteered how they wish they could, but their parents rightfully tell them that Sandy Springs is too dangerous for them to ride bikes. 

 I also selected walking and taking transit. 

 8. What barriers do you face in using these methods more often? (check all that apply)

 I selected "unsafe" due to lack of high quality sidewalks and protected bike paths.

 For "Other" I entered:

Insufficient transit service. Sandy Springs should pay MARTA for bus lines running from Medical Center, rather than the 5 bus getting stuck in traffic within the City of Atlanta. 

9. Drag and drop to rank these potential changes to driving in the order you feel would make it better for you. (with 1 being the most important change and 5 being the least important change)

Similar the first question. 

Here is my ranking:

1. Safer roadway and intersection design
2. Other
3. Better roadway signage
4. Increased nighttime visibility
5. I don't drive and don't want to
6. Increased vehicle roadway capacity

For the last option about increased capacity, I interpret it as projects that will backfire on us. Sandy Springs already has I285, 400, and State Route 19 (Roswell). They are very dangerous. Shoving more drivers onto those roads will make them more dangerous and increase the risk of respiratory harm to all of us, particularly our youngest and oldest residents. Shoving more drivers through other roads will make those other roads dangerous. It's the wrong perspective on our problems.

10. If you have a potential change you marked as "other" above, please specify here (if this does not apply, please put N/A in the box)

For other, I wrote

Enforcement. Retain our speed cameras and expand automated enforcement as much as state law allows. Clearly communicate to the SSPD that the city council takes traffic safety seriously, because there is currently a message that council members complain when their misbehaving friends get fines.

This may be outside the scope of the master plan but it's important. Roughly a fifth of drivers I've observed when I bothered to count were actually cell phone users behind a wheel. Speeding is rampant. Drivers do not understand when pedestrians have right of way. Etc.

11. Drag and drop to rank these potential changes to transit in the order you feel would make it better for you? (with 1 being the most important change and 5 being the least important change)

Here is my ranking.  

1. More transit service
2. Other
3. More or better transit stop amenities
4. Better transit information/signage
5. Increase security on transit or at transit stations
6. I don't use transit and don't want to

In my experience the scariest part of riding transit are the drivers between transit and destinations, so I find it frustrating that security is mentioned here but not in question 9 about driving. 

12. If you have a potential change you marked as "other" above, please specify here (if this does not apply, please put N/A in the box)

For other I wrote:

Better connections to transit. Design guidelines should emphasize access for transit users on a safe path from the stop to the entrance. E.g., Hammond Park has fencing to block children from the nearest stop getting to the playground.

I wrote about this example previously here. But in general it's a problem that even for locations relatively close to transit lines, the actual path from one to the other is often hostile. Even if somebody never plans to use transit themselves it is just mean and disrespectful to ignore the service workers they depend on at their destination.

13. Drag and drop to rank these potential changes to walking in the order you feel would make it better for you? (with 1 being the most important change and 5 being the least important change)

My ranking

1. More sidewalks
2. Slowing vehicle traffic down
3. Other
4. More crosswalks or mid-block crossings
5. More shade trees along streets
6. I don't walk and don't want to 

 14. If you have a potential change you marked as "other" above, please specify here (if this does not apply, please put N/A in the box)

Here is my submission:

 Better sidewalks. Right now many of our sidewalks along Roswell lack a curb, so drivers do not even notice a bumb while they veer off the road. Sidewalks need higher curbs, separation from the road, and to be wide and flat enough for strollers, wheelchairs, etc.

 15. Drag and drop to rank these potential changes to cycling or scootering in the order you feel would make it better for you? (with 1 being the most important change and 5 being the least important change)

My list:

1. More bicycle lanes or improved existing bicycling lanes
2. More multi-use paths 
3. Slowing vehicle trafffic down
4. Other
5. More crosswalks or mid-block crossings
6. I don't cycle or scooter and don't want to 

 16. If you have a potential change you marked as "other" above, please specify here (if this does not apply, please put N/A in the box)

My submission: 

Create a bicycling lane network rather than isolated spots. Given the lack of recreational facilities in the southeast of the city, build bike lanes along Windsor and north/south streets so more residents can access Path 400. 

This is a summary of this previous post.

 

17. Do you have any other feedback about getting around Sandy Springs? (if this does not apply, please put N/A in the box) 

A meta comment

The city should be concerned about all people who get around Sandy Springs, not just drivers. This is especially true for getting better feedback. You have still not finished the crosswalk at the North Fulton Government Center so it's frankly unsafe for a non-driver to attend meetings there. Even City Springs subsidizes drivers by validating parking, but with no corresponding support to transit or bike riders.

Long time ago I went to a meeting purportedly about safe transportation at the North Fulton location and shared by thoughts about how inappropriate that was with the staff members who all drove there. People who are physically unable to drive need to go to that location for all sorts of critical government services. I crossed to the bus stop fine, but I wouldn't ask anybody else to especially if they had a disability.

 

Then there are some demographic questions to wrap up. I did "Decline to answer" about having a disability because as stated above, I have found myself pushing a stroller often enough.

New Bike Paths to link to Path 400 on Windsor Parkway

Sandy Springs is building an extension of the Path 400 multiuse path and a connection to Windsor Parkway.

Southeast Sandy Springs, 400 going up the middle and Windsor parkway going across

 

This is a great addition to the southeast corner of Sandy Springs, which is otherwise lacking in city recreational facilities. However, it lacks access. That section of Windsor only has a sidewalk on the north side, and the Path 400 access is on the south. That existing sidewalk is in bad condition for pedestrians and not necessarily safe for all strollers, wheelchairs, etc.

There is a general lack of accessibility in the area except for people who are driving. Children can't safely ride their bikes outside of short neighborhood streets. Sidewalks are generally in poor repair or of poor design.

The city should build protected bike lanes to connect the area to itself, and to Path 400. Starting with these roads, in descending order.

1. Along Windsor Parkway, from Roswell Road to the eastern edge of the city or at least to Peachtree Dunwoody.
2. High Point Rd, from Windsor to Glenridge.
3. Northland Dr, from Windsor to Glenridge. 

All of these roads are connected to many residential streets. Bike lanes would connect those neighborhoods to Path 400, and also to parts of Sandy Springs. Sandy Springs residents could use Path 400 for recreation. Kids would be able to bike to see visit their friends. Kids could even ride to school, at High Point Elementary, Atlanta Jewish School, and Ridgeview middle school. High Point and Northland connect to the existing bike paths on Glenridge, which are not protected yet but would allow even more people to use the network.

Long term, High Point could be connected to Roswell with bike lanes along other east-west streets between Glenridge and Roswell. That would enable more people to visit businesses along Roswell without having to drive or to ride along Roswell Rd.

October 21 City Council Meeting

Video available at https://www.youtube.com/live/wMCe5oerz34

It opens with yet another public comment about lighting and noise for evening high school football practice and football games. So much time and effort has been spent on this, can we devote as many resources to other children's activities? So many kids in Sandy Springs are already or would like to be playing soccer or running track, performing in plays, playing music, going to math competitions or science fairs. Surely we can find children's activities other than contact football that the community wants to watch and celebrate that don't entail so much disturbance to neighbors. Or, what would it say about us if we can't?

At 11:00, there's a discussion and approval of $905,000 for Georgia Power to put power lines underground, as a component of Hammond Drive project. Maybe it's fine. But it does strike me that the city council is very quick to spend our money on road infrastructure for driving, but not for other (safer) modes of transportation. Nearly a million dollars just for electrical work for a short segment of road is a lot. I'm curious if they even have a firm metric in mind of how much congestion will be decreased, or in other words how much faster an average drive along Hammond will be at rush hour, a few years after this multi-million dollar project is completed? I predict it'll still be awful. Maybe total traffic volume on Hammond will be higher, possibly increasing crashes and definitely increasing emissions in the area, contributing to childhood asthma etc.

At 14:00 there's approval for some supplemental agreement with GDOT for Path400. I didn't follow the details but good that this project is proceeding. Key here is that funding is mostly coming from outside of Sandy Springs. There's a 20% city local match.

19:00, discussion of GDOT transportation alternatives and mitigation air quality competitive funding program, and the local funding match. This is only an application to participate in a federal program managed through the state. In past years this program was managed by ARC instead of GDOT, unclear why it changed. There are two different types of grants. First, Transportation Alternatives. Second, Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement. 20% local match required for pedestrian and bike programs. Increasing road capacity is not eligible, but unclear if transit is. Emphasis on decreasing emissions and increasing safety. City staff propose a project near Holcomb bridge. Seems fine by itself, although it does perpetuate a bias of parks and recreational infrastructure that neglects the southern half of the city.

-Vladimir