Hammond Park offers great playgrounds and recreational fields to visitors.
Just across Glenridge Drive from the park there is a lot of housing, great for families that benefit from using these facilities, and close enough that kids could easily walk or bike the distance.
Also there are bus stops along the park for both the 5 and 87 routes, which connect much of Sandy Springs.
There are two large parking lots, one off of Hammond and the other off of Glenridge.
Of these potential options, the park is designed to only welcome drivers who are entering the parking lots.
Riding a bike along these city streets is as dangerous as anywhere else in the public spaces of Sandy Springs, and kids can't readily do it even to go a few hundred feet. Even walking across the intersection of Glenridge and Hammond is unnecessarily challenging due to slip lanes, which increase both the length a pedestrian has to walk and the chance of an inattentive driver hitting a pedestrian. The intersection has slip lanes at the northwest and southeast corners, so any pedestrian crossing the intersection has to cross one.
If a pedestrian does cross from the residential areas on the west side of Glenridge toward the park on the east side, then they can reach the bus stop along Hammond Drive closest to the playground. There is a concrete walking path from there to the playground. However there are two metal fences blocking access.
The fence closer to the playground has a gate, so it can block young children from running off alone but still be opened by adults. But there is no gate on the fence closer to the road. So pedestrians are forced to walk further beside the road and enter close to the parking lot entrance.
There are more fundamental changes Sandy Springs should make to allow people to enjoy our public spaces safely. But until then we should encourage rather than discourage people from traveling without a car when they want outdoor recreation. To that end, these slip lanes should be removed, and a gate should be installed within the fence near the bus stop.
-Vladimir
