City Council Meeting Oct 7, 2025 - Speed Cameras and Sidewalks

 In this meeting, , there was an update to the earlier discussion about speed cameras. At 47 minutes, the speaker says that speed cameras have not been installed on Roswell Road because of the state law requirement for signage to be visible at all lanes of traffic. On a multilane road a driver on the center lane could theoretically be blocked by another vehicle from seeing the sign informing them of a camera. This is absurd. We have the technology to hang signs so as to make them visible from all lanes. Every intersection on Roswell Road has them. This is the most dangerous non-highway road in Sandy Springs. Speed cameras should be installed there.

Here is the record of citations so far

At 51:06 this chart of crashes is presented.

When something can be predicted to happen in public over and over, that's not an accident. The effectiveness of these cameras is itself proof that crashes are a policy choice the government can choose to avoid. The speaker, from Sandy Springs Police Department, clarifies that this chart is only for accidents on the road, and "not counting private property cause schools I'm sure they have a lot of them" which is correct for purposes of evaluating the cameras, but should warrant a separate conversation from the city council. They should not tolerate crashes at schools in Sandy Springs any more than violence using other deadly objects.

The SSPD seems very diligent about avoiding false positives. In addition to the 10mph buffer, only issuing tickets for people going 11 over, they also add a time buffer. The example given is for a driver getting gas. If that hypothetical driver gets to a gas station before the school zone light and then pulls out after the school zone light, even if they break the speed limit and go 36 in the 25 mph school zone of the otherwise 35 mph road, they won't get a ticket for the first few minutes of the period on the chance they didn't realize the school zone was in effect.

At 1:00:26, council member DeJulio recounts how when Sandy Springs was incorporated, leadership discussed and decided against installing speed cameras in general, not just at schools. Since then speed cameras have largely gone away. That was a mistake, and it reveals the value of concerted action for safe infrastructure whenever possible. If speed cameras were an option then and had been implemented it would be harder to remove them, than to block new ones.

Multiple council members speak favorably for not enforcing speed limits around schools during the day, with mere $75 fines for drivers going 46 mph or over. Why do they want to protect dangerous criminals in school zones?

At 1:10:00 council member Paulson makes the valid point that the goal should be getting drivers to stop speeding, at least around schools, so none of them would get the fine. He asks the presenter about how to do that and they chat about continuing education etc. But speed limits are extremely easy to understand, even in the limited context of basic traffic laws. For one thing, these fines themselves are education, they tell drivers to learn to drive. Another component is traffic calming and building safer roads. The Sandy Springs city council seems generally opposed to traffic calming for our major roads. E.g., fewer lanes, narrower lanes, barriers on the side of the road between drivers and other road users. Coincidentally, the next topic on the agenda is neighborhood traffic calming. 

Council member Paulson has the right aspiration. I hope he gets some information from a traffic engineer experienced with traffic calming and actually pouring concrete to successfully get a city to, or at least close to, Vision Zero. In particular around schools, it would be great to build protected bike lanes to give kids a fun and healthy alternative transportation option with concrete barriers to remind drivers to take their responsibility seriously.

These fines, even if all of them somehow went to Sandy Springs residents (a majority of people in the city during business hours are not residents), amount to $1 or $2 per resident depending on if outstanding fines ever get paid. This is nothing in the grand scheme of city policy. It's absurd that scaling back these fines is getting so much attention and taking so much time at city hall, instead of focusing on reducing speeding.

Sandy Springs traffic calming policy is focused on neighborhood streets rather than more dangerous high speed roads like Roswell, and does not even take the safety of neighborhood streets seriously.

Ar 1:16:51 this table of completed projects is displayed.

This is great as far as it goes but it demonstrates how little traffic calming Sandy Springs is doing. These are minor roads and even these minor projects are not enough to make most drivers obey the speed limit, put away their phones, etc. We cannot have wide smooth lanes everywhere and then act surprised when drivers use them as traffic engineers know they will.

Council member Bauman is correct that there's a lot of speeding across the city, we need a lot more infrastructure improvement for safety, and we need new financing for that.

At 1:33:00 they talk about setting the 85th percentile limit at 10 mph over instead of the current 8 mph. This continues to be nonsense. Instead of twiddling with this, neighborhood traffic calming needs better metrics.

At 1:52:19 council member DeJulio says "well I just think it's awful easy to request money, other people's money, to solve your problems" to summarize his hostility to the city paying for traffic calming, at the end of a broader conversation. This reflects a focus at city hall on subsidizing driving that is reflected in the deaths and serious injuries across the streets of Sandy Springs. The more rational way to frame fees, if DeJulio merely wants to keep the cost off of the City, is to force drivers to pay for the cost of reducing how much they crash. Council member Bauman has the better side of this conversation, it is basically the central purpose of the city government to make these streets safe.

2:32:00 starts discussion about eminent domain for property at 4684 Roswell, at Mystic Pl intersection. For the Roswell Road Transit Streetscape project. This is an extremely dangerous area where a driver killed a pedestrian earlier this year, hopefully that long delayed project starts moving.

Edit: Notes on a previous city council discussion about neighborhood traffic calming, http://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/06/notes-on-june-3-2025-sandy-springs-city.html

Notes on previous discussion about school zone speed cameras: https://safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/09/speed-cameras-near-riverwood-and-north.html

Vote Against Fulton County Ballot Measures to defund Fulton County Schools

Per https://atlantaciviccircle.org/2025/09/24/atlanta-fulton-county-senior-homestead-exemption-election/

 

In Fulton County, the following two questions will be on the ballot:

• Do you approve an act to provide a new homestead exemption from Fulton County school district ad valorem taxes for educational purposes in the amount of 25 percent of the assessed value of the homestead for certain residents of that school district who are 65 years of age or older?

• Do you approve an act to provide a new homestead exemption from Fulton County school district ad valorem taxes for educational purposes in the amount of 50 percent of the assessed value of the homestead for certain residents of that school district who are 70 years of age or older?

 

This is being marketed as an anti-displacement measure for seniors, but it is actually a measure to defund our schools. We do need the government to take action to let seniors continue to live in our community as they age. We need more housing. We need housing that's accessible, with no need to walk on stairs to enter the building or to go between floors. We need housing that's in a safe area for somebody no longer physically able to drive, with short and safe multiuse paths for walking or mobility devices to get to stores, doctors, transit, etc. The same politicians pushing these tax exemption are opposed to housing policies that would work for seniors. Some seniors are displaced purely due to financial need, and they are disproportionately renters rather than home owners. This policy does nothing for them.

The link above quotes a tax expert clarifying how this will operate across homeowners,

“If a 75-year-old living in a $10 million home is getting a $5 million exemption, that doesn’t seem fair,” he said, referring to Fulton’s proposed 50% reduction in assessed home values for homeowners over 70.  

There's simply no reason to structure the exemption this way if the actual concern was displacement. These measures are defunding our schools for the disproportionate benefit of property owners who have benefited the most from land appreciation. Land that could be better used if seniors in a $10 million dollar home downsized to something easier to manage.

Fulton County Schools needs better housing policy in general to enable more families to live in the area and boost enrollment. Otherwise there will be more school closures, like Spalding. These exemptions are not the housing policy we need. Likewise Fulton County Schools have many unmet needs, and these measures to defund our schools will make things worse. Please vote no.

-Vladimir 

Speed Cameras near Riverwood and North Springs High Schools

At an hour and fifteen minutes into the September 16, 2025 Sandy Springs city council meeting, the issue of speeding tickets near Riverwood and North Springs high schools was brought up.

Evidently a lot of criminals are complaining to city hall about receiving fines. Per 1:16:40, quoting loosely and including some later clarifications about the speeding fines,

As of Friday, 2,274 citations have been issued. 1,736 citations occurred when the signs were flashing, when speed limit was 25 mph, 7:20-8:20, 3:30-4:30 pm. Fines only for 10+ mph violation, so 35 mph during those limited hours. An officer reviews footage to validate the fine is applied to the correct vehicle. When lights are not flashing but school is in session, cameras are issuing tickets for vehicles going 45 or higher in the 35 mph zone. 609 warning issued before enforcement began.

It's only an $75 fine for first offense. $125 for subsequent offenses.  

Agreement with speed camera vendor will terminate next year as currently written. Only 27 tickets have been challenged in city court. 

A few background facts. The vast majority of violent deaths and injuries in Sandy Springs are caused by drivers. Speeding and other criminal activity by drivers is rampant in Sandy Springs, as anybody can observe on our streets. A Sandy Springs officer was injured on Saturday September 20, 2025, while working a crash site, revealing how dangerous it is for our first responders to work on the side of the road and providing one reason among many that they should not be tasked with low level interventions that can be automated at lower cost and lower risk.
 
Anecdotally, I have talked to a police officer while standing side by side watching criminals speed and hold their phones while driving in front of us. We were standing on Roswell Road, near where a pedestrian was killed by a driver earlier this year. I asked him why the police didn't pull over more of these criminals outside of the daycare where I send my kids, and where multiple drivers had crashed into the parking lot over the past few years. It was a casual conversation, and the officer told me plainly that drivers complain to city hall when they get tickets. Our democratically elected leaders give enforcement priorities to the police, and intentionally or not elected leaders have sent the message that they don't want to receive complaints from voters who get tickets. 

We do not need more warnings for speeders. We do not need an amnesty or pardon. We do not need more signs telling speeders to ignore the speed limit elsewhere in Sandy Springs and only recognize it near high schools. We do not need elected officials telling criminals that actually they're the victims because they get a fine. We do not need elected officials giving police officers the message that if they put themselves in harms way for the sake of public safety to give a driver a ticket, then city hall will be upset with the police department when that criminal calls and complains.

We need more enforcement of traffic laws. We need speed cameras at all of our schools, and elsewhere on our roads too. We need red light cameras. We need to stop drivers from staring at their phones while driving through Sandy Springs. We need traffic calming to reduce speeds. We need to reduce the death and injury caused when drivers crash in our community.

If people are surprised by getting a speeding ticket during the school day because the light isn't flashing, they should learn to drive! The speed limit exists at all hours. Anyone driving is supposed to be trained and licensed to drive, they should already know how to follow the speed limit. When drivers complain to city hall that they've been fined, we need leaders to stand up to them and tell them to learn their lesson. If learning to drive is too difficult for folks, that is one more reason to use alternative modes of transportation. That's a more productive direction for the city council to pursue. 

Sandy Springs rejects Whataburger drive-through, but omits discussion of safety

The Sandy Springs city council has rightfully rejected an application for a 24/7 drive-thru. See this coverage from Rough Draft, and the earlier coverage of a Sandy Springs planning commission agreeing to extend hours to be 24/7.

Speakers at the meeting reasonably pointed out that neighboring residences would be disturbed by the light and noise coming from a 24/7 drive-thru.

Huntington Place resident Adrianne Murchison said the greatest issue she had was the 24-hour drive-through. Moving the drive-through to the back of the building wouldn’t make much of a difference, she said, as the back of the townhomes face the site.

“That leaves residents exposed to the speaker system, customer voices, cars idling, headlights shining towards our windows,” Murchison said.

Here's a link to the city council meeting, https://www.youtube.com/live/I9yISch6Cz4. At 57:10 they begin discussing the drive thru. I highly recommend listening to the comments of both speakers in opposition, especially this from Ronda Smith, president of the Sandy Springs Council of Neighborhoods:

The comprehensive plan identified that "along its commerical corridors and especially Roswell Rd the city lacks true walking environments and the goal", one of the 10 for the next 10, was to "convert Roswell Rd into a pedestrian friendly boulevard".  Again if we don't start somewhere to move the needle on Roswell Rd we will never get anywhere to improve it.

This touches on the safety risks of drive-throughs without really digging in to what they represent for the local community, especially a 24/7 fast food drive-through along a stroad like Roswell Rd. Sandy Springs does not need to appeal to drivers passing through our communities to get a burger, especially at night when the risk of crashes is especially high. 

The closest they come to addressing safety head on is council member Paulson saying, in the context of asking the developer about sound mitigation,

obviously everybody's nightmare is two in the morning some guy pulls up drunk yelling "I want fries with that burger." How do you mitigate that? What can you do to mitigate that noise level that comes? Not the guy yelling, you can't really keep that from happening, but what can you do 

My worst nightmare related to a drunk in a drive through at two in the morning is not noise. Council member Paulson is responding to the concern of residents, and I get that, but tangentially referring to drunk driving and ignoring the risk of death or serious injury is unacceptable. He has a responsibility to all residents of Sandy Springs and he should prioritize minimizing the risk of crashes caused by drunk driving. 

There is a lot of time spent discussing building articulation. I don't really care, but I do disagree with the revealed prioritization.  

Also unmentioned is what neighbors lose when commercial land is used for a drive-through. In general, if people in their bedrooms can readily hear drive through customers and see their headlights, then they could instead be walking distance to a cafe with outdoor dining that's not surrounded by loud and carcinogen emitting idling cars. They could have easy access to an urgent care or a pharmacy if they're unable to drive, in general or due to a medical issue. A fast food drive through is an amenity for customers driving through the area, not for the people living there already. A drive through can fundamentally make sense on a remote highway off-ramp where almost the only people in the area are driving through. By contrast, they do not make sense in the middle of Sandy Springs along Roswell Rd. The Sandy Springs city council should reject future applications and take action to remediate existing locations, so that the land can be used in ways that do more to benefit residents of Sandy Springs while not contributing as much to the risk of motor vehicle crashes. 

 

 

 

Financial Cost of Crashes in Sandy Springs

According to page 3 of the executive summary of the Sandy Springs Safety Action Plan (the summary), crashes in Sandy Springs have an overall cost of $650 million per year. This dwarfs even the direct subsidies for driving such as $60 million to widen 3/4 of a mile of Hammond drive to support more through traffic and $5 million for 111 parking spots near City Hall. Car insurance does not remotely cover the full cost of crashes, even when drivers don't flee afterward. These figures starkly demonstrate how our government is not being financially responsible and also not adequately investing in public safety. 

I just wanted to see if I could approximately recreate the $650 million figure since there's no footnote in the summary explaining it.

According to page 9 of the summary, from 2018-2022 there were 27,502 total crashes, 38 fatal crashes, and 205 serious injury crashes. I don't see a breakdown of the number of fatalities and injuries per crash, so until I get that granular detail this will be necessarily vague.

Assuming one fatality per fatal crash, that's 7.6 fatalities per year. According to WISQARS that's $10.56 million per fatality assuming these are occupants in a motor vehicle, although the figures is similar for pedestrians, for a total of $80 million per year.

I'm not sure how to approach non fatal injuries. Sandy Springs breaks down "serious injury" but not unserious injury versus no injury. WISQARS breaks down "Hospitalization" versus "ED Treat and Release". So the following comparison is necessarily imprecise.

Assuming serious injury is equivalent to hospitalization, the cost per serious injury for motor vehicle occupants is $266,728. Assuming one injury per serious injury crash that's 41 per year or around $11 million.

Assuming crashes that are not fatal and do not cause a serious injury lead to one emergency department visit for a checkup or minor treatment, the cost per crash for motor vehicle occupants is $98,153. Assuming one injury per crash that's 5,452 per year or around $535 million. I am the least confident in this figure because the of the lack of detail on Sandy Springs crashes and how to tie these less-destructive crashes to the WISQARS categories.

This rough calculation did get to $626 million ($80 + $11 + $535) , versus $650 million in the summary. Also I did not count property damage at all, either to vehicles or to buildings and infrastructure, which is probably close to the $24 million difference in total cost of crashes. E.g., 5,500 crashes per year causing $4,363 of repairs on average would total $24 million. Might just be coincidence and the team putting together the Safety Action Plan had an entirely different framework.

I want to be clear that although my result is imprecise, I do not believe it is necessarily an exaggeration. I.e., a more accurate figure could well be higher.   

This post prompted by Steven Vance doing a similar review for Chicago. It would be great if Sandy Springs were as transparent about injuries and fatalities.

The WISQARS attempts to calculate the total cost of various injuries based on factors such as cause and severity. See this paper for methodology.  

 -Vladimir

Notes on June 3, 2025, Sandy Springs City Council meeting on Neighborhood Traffic Calming

This was a public meeting about the critical topic of traffic calming. Here's a good introductory video from Justine Underhill for anybody who wants a primer on the concept. Here is the Sandy Springs City Council meeting.

My perception is that staff is doing the best they can within the confines of the instructions they have. The council members more active in the discussion are trying to help, but want to give high level support without personally getting into planning details. Between the two, the conversation kinda meanders around what tweaks to make given where the city code is now. Some meaningful ideas get brought up, but still anchored to the status quo. In my opinion there's no single speaker with both a clear view about what goal the city should pursue and also enough authority to speak aspirationally in a public meeting at the risk of criticizing the status quo. Below I'll recap the discussion with the timestamp (minutes:seconds) of noteworthy moments.

At the highest level, this whole discussion is backwards. Sandy Springs is full of people who want to use our public spaces more. In particular, full of children who would like to ride bikes around their neighborhoods, to local stores, or to school. If you don't believe this, talk to more kids, it's no secret. We don't have crash data for those trips because those trips don't happen, and they don't happen because parents understand that most of our streets are too dangerous for children to go alone. Starting an analysis of whether traffic calming is needed by observing trips that happen, while ignoring all the ones that don't, means never fixing our most obvious safety problems.

 

Meeting Minutes

Starting around 5:20: Preceeding the traffic calming discussion, there's a contractual update to provide free parking in the underground garage at City Springs for major events (Juneteenth, Star and Stripes, Sparkle Sandy Springs) rather than charging hourly parking rates. Everyone on the council supports it. I get it, it feels nice, but this is bad policy. As a financial matter, the city spent a lot of money building that underground garage such that it's more convenient than alternate parking lots further away. Now that we have it, the garage is an asset that should be used to generate revenue for the city. Also, making it free for drivers is kinda unfair for everyone who attends without needing to use it, why not do something nice for people walking, biking, or riding transit too?

The purported justification is to avoid delays by getting rid of payment for drivers leaving the garage. However, this ignores that traffic is unavoidable when a crowd leaves City Springs all at once. Furthermore, given that there will be traffic, it's better for drivers to slowly leave the garage, i.e. to contain the traffic jam in there as much as possible, rather than to let drivers rush out and jam up the nearby streets. Either way drivers can only leave as slow as the street network allows. 

After a July 4th fireworks show I watched Sandy Springs police doing traffic control and favoring departing drivers over Roswell Rd traffic so much that a MARTA bus unable to turn from Johnson Ferry onto Roswell went off route and skipped the stop closest to City Springs. This parking fee change will only make the resulting congestion on nearby streets at the moment an event ends worse as drivers leave the garage more rapidly and cause a more intense traffic problem. But there will still be traffic, so drivers won't actually be able to leave faster. Fundamentally, speeding up the exit from the garage is the wrong approach to minimizing delays for departing drivers, because the delay is caused by an excessive volume of vehicles in too short a time. The best response is transit. MARTA isn't going to work for everyone, but every passenger that takes it is one less vehicle causing traffic after these events, and the city could contract for higher service levels. Alternatively, find activities to keep attendees around such that they slowly leave rather than all doing so at the same time. That way that departing drivers don't cause such a spike in traffic.

At 8:00, they begin the traffic calming discussion.

This policy is all about neighborhoods, not the larger city streets where more people are hurt by crashes or where it's already harder to travel without an automobile. In my opinion this tension between the nominal goal (slowing down drivers, safety) with the limited geography (our slowest and safest streets) really sets up a lot of the meandering in the subsequent discussion. 

One way to reconcile this tension is that neighborhood streets should be not merely safer than large steets, but just plain safe. Safe the way going down a grocery store aisle is safe, even for children or people using a wheelchair. However, the discussion centers around managing these primarily as spaces for drivers to conveniently pass through, not as safe spaces for Sandy Springs' residents. That is a policy choice, and if we look elsewhere we can see better answers.

 

11:20 Sometimes in lieu of building in traffic calming, police monitor a neighborhood and enforce traffic laws. Per the presenter, often many neighborhood residents are stopped. No mention of what the long term impact is, but I hope most of them slow down permanently. This policy would be more effective if it happened without neighborhood conversations so drivers didn't know when to expect it. Police could be rotating around neighborhoods to detect the ambient level of dangerous driving, and looking for behavior other than speeding as well (running stop signs, texting, etc).

 

12:05 Regarding putting traffic calming treatments on hills,

Sandy Springs is a very hilly area, people are speeding down a street, your car naturally is going faster down a hill. But that is not a safe place to put a treatment, so it has to be fairly flat.

This statement seems so illogical to me that I must be misunderstanding the presenter, who I know to be knowledgeable. We know drivers speed down hills and the group that manages this neighborhood traffic calming process observes that behavior. That speeding is the danger. This statement is backwards because we need these treatments especially there to remind drivers to avoid speeding up. It's also objectively not a correct statement about Sandy Springs' infrastructure, I know of speed humps on downhill neighborhood slopes in Sandy springs. So I don't think this is actually city policy, and I genuinely don't understand what this statement meant but nobody asked for clarification.

 

32:40 A slide with staff's ideas for modifying the existing policy.

First idea is to be more selective about how a neighborhood gets into the program. With a focus on what to do if one person requests a change but the neighborhood overall doesn't support it. This suggestion is unclear to me. If professionals think a road is dangerous, why should they wait for a neighborhood wide response to act? People are very bad at judging low probability risks like that, and it's hard to organize people who are busy with everything else going on in their lives. Council member Bauman emphasizes this later on.

34:00 Considers the cost benefit for low volume streets, e.g., cul-de-sacs. But if drivers are speeding that's still a safety risk, and probably they're also being unsafe when they get out of their neighborhood. I think people on low volume roads should also feel safe going outside without an automobile. There's a troubling tension between the city deciding to go to the expense of paving a road but then deciding the traffic volume is too low to warrant making it safe. This is really where the elected council members should step in and put their authority behind the use of funds, and I believe at least a handful of them share my sentiment.

33:45 Staff recommends altering the criteria for approving traffic calming measure from 8 to 10 mph, i.e., requiring the 85th percentile of drivers to be 10 mph over the speed limit before taking action. They cite neighboring jurisdictions, which seems irrelevant, there is no advantage to having this particular criteria be the same across jurisdiction unless 10 mph is substantively better. No reasoning for that is presented. Why would you want the city to target 85 percent of drivers going up to 10 mph over the posted speed limit in your neighborhood, and 15 percent of drivers going even more than that? I.e., if the speed limit is 25 mph, and a hundred people drive on your street, then more than fifteen of them would have to drive 36 mph or more before the city takes action. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the risk of pedestrian injury in the event of a crash goes from 3% at 25 mph to 22% at 36 mph! That is obviously unsafe to me. It is also arbitrary. What I suspect is happening is that the cost benefit analysis for these traffic calming measures in neighborhoods is tough, given how these roads are already relatively safe compared to other city streets, so this cutoff is needed to limit expenditures. If so, we should be upfront about it instead of hiding behind this methodology which seems nonsensical as a matter of safety.

34:15 Recommends removing treatment options that require reconstruction (e.g., roundabouts) in neighborhoods. Maybe that's too expensive for this program, but there should be some other program where it's considered so if a road is rebuilt (new pavement, sidewalks, etc) then these changes can be incorporated. Chamblee has done those for major streets, and Sandy Springs should pursue those policies in those especially dangerous areas with heavy vehicle traffic.

38:00 Council member Bauman asks at what point city says we are going to do this based on objective safety risks, regardless of neighborhood feedback.

 

39:00 - 44:16 Council member Bauman begins a discussion about this neighborhood program vs safety action plan. Why have this narrow program? Emphasizes his desire to get more traffic calming measures built, but he seems to still be talking in the confines of this narrow neighborhood program and not speeding up the larger safety action plan. 

 

44:15 Council member Reichel begins to make a similar point to what I wrote up top, about neighborhoods wanting to protect children in the streets before crashes occur.

I know that we look at the accidents but aren't a lot of these request for traffic calming because children are in the neighborhood and maybe in the streets and they're trying to slow people down so it's not necessarily because there have been accidents in the neighborhood.

I could be biased but my interpretation is that the intent was to pivot the conversation toward proactive safety so children can enjoy our public spaces, and away from reactive responses to crashes. That's not how the response to the question went, and there was no follow up unfortunately. The staff member emphasizes that she follows state code when walking her dog and walks facing traffic to avoid having a driver sneak up behind her, but doesn't really get to the difficulty of children's safety. The fact that she feels the need to emphasize how vigilant she is on her street is a red flag that the street has been made safe for drivers but not for other users, and certainly not safe enough for children. In particular, at 45:33 ,

When we have a posted speed of 25 miles per hour in a neighborhood, that's what we should be going

contradicts the earlier staff guidance to allow 85% of drivers to go 35 mph before building any traffic calming treatments.

48:20 Council member Bauman points out we're a pass through city, in support of more safety measures. Our roads should not be more dangerous for residents just to enable faster commutes for drivers going elsewhere.

49:00 Council member Paulson points out, if the data and staff supports active measures, it should be done. If the data does not clearly support it, but a neighborhood supports it, he doesn't want to get involved. Either criteria on its own seems sufficient to me. If neighborhoods that are relatively safe collectively decide that they want to be even safer, with less or slower driving, that seems great as long as they're not displacing traffic onto other streets. People should feel safe being on their neighborhood roads, not just driving through them.

51:00 Mayor Paul says that "we have speed humps or speed control devices that firetrucks have a difficult time maneuvering through". Seems there should be a separate discussion about the city exploring smaller fire trucks, to save costs and enable safer road design. There has been reporting that, in part due to consolidation in the industry, large purpose built fire trucks have gotten more expensive and delivery times keep getting longer. Maybe Sandy Springs can find more creative ways to find vehicles that meet the safety needs of houses on small neighborhood roads and also are able to navigate these speed control devices more easily.

53:45 Mayor Paul says maybe we'll have some sort of public hearing later on to solicit feedback, which I would support.

Sandy Springs National Kids to Parks Day versus Atlanta Streets Alive

We went to two outdoor family friendly municipal events back to back. On Saturday 5/17 it was National Kids to Parks Day at Hammond Park in Sandy Springs. On Sunday 5/18 it was Atlanta Streets Alive on the West End/Grant Park route. Both were fine outings in their own way. Looking at them from a broader perspective, only Atlanta Streets Alive points toward a future where people could regularly and safely enjoy the outdoors with their communities. Sandy Springs needs leaders who can envision kids safely enjoying the outdoors as part of their daily life, as a way to build additional relationships, not merely as a destination or as an annual event.

National Kids to Parks Day

Probably the worst part National Kids to Parks is getting to Hammond Park, as I've written before.

It was fun. There are lots of activities arranged around the main recreational field.  Most of the activities were inflatable bouncy houses of one variety or another, a couple of which had water slides as well. There was also tennis and a few other stations of that nature. Here's a panoramic view,

 

My least favorite aspect of the bouncy houses was the nearby generators. The field is not wired with outlets, which is an unfortunate oversight since it is surrounded by light poles, so generators are needed for the air pumps. But many of the bouncy houses had large spools of mostly unused extension cords sitting right beside them.

I would have preferred for the generators to be placed as far away as the cords would allow, to reduce the kids' exposure to the extremely loud noise and unhealthy particulates that go along with the noticeable smell of these small engines. It's a pet peeve of mine, but we wouldn't want somebody to smoke nearby if kids could smell it on the bouncy house, why would we tolerate a much larger source of emissions.

There was a noticeable police presence on the field. Hammond Road alongside the park looked as dangerous as normal, with many drivers continuing to look at their phones etc.

All of this was inherently a one time event. People can come back to Hammond Park, but all of the stations depend on coordination. Even if a vendor or volunteer wanted to teach tennis lessons or  provide a bouncy house, they would have to sign up for the space which is otherwise used to play a variety of sports. That is, no matter how often or how many kids come, they'll never spontaneously find these activities. There's no path to that sort of flexibility or incorporating these experiences into regular habits. It's great if this event inspires kids to come more often to use the existing facilities, including playgrounds. I only mean that there's no clear aspiration toward a broader change beyond hosting this event once a year.

 

Atlanta Streets Alive 

This is a monthly event series during the summer. It switches between two routes, one between the West End station and Grant Park, and the second going down Peachtree street from Arts Center station to Five Points.

 

It was fun. Great follow up to the Sandy Springs event. Kids got to ride bikes and have treats. There are various tents and stations along the way for activities (painting, stickers, messaging from civic groups and politicians).

Some visitors take the opportunity to express themselves with really unique rides

but mostly it's people walking or riding whatever they have (bikes, roller blades, skateboards, mobility devices such as wheelchairs, etc. etc.), visiting restaurants along the way, having a good time.

There is only a train station on one end of this route, which presents a logistical difficulty. Entirely feasible to ride or even walk back and forth for many people. But it's also entirely possible to get tired, especially for children or people who have mobility challenges, and have to travel pretty far back to where you started. There are plenty of places to stop and rest, and I'm sure there are resources for people who need help. But the route along Peachtree touches six train stations, so anybody who gets tired and wants to stop has a relatively short distance to go. Which is an advantage of that route, and more generally a benefit communities get from good rail connections.

 

These are heavily produced temporary events. Plastic barriers are brought out to stop vehicle traffic on most cross streets. Police are stationed along the route, including some cross streets where vehicle traffic continues. 

However, there are paths toward more of this if the community demands it. More street segments could be pedestrianized on weekends. Some streets could be pedestrianized permanently, with heavy traffic calming measures and only low-speed driving allowed for e.g. deliveries or residents getting to their driveway. Traffic lanes could be converted to protected multiuse lanes for everybody not in an automobile. Then more people could regularly get outside for recreation, to see members of their community and easily stop to chat, go places even if they don't want to or are unable to drive themselves. Even if none of that ever happens on this particular route, I hope these recreational events get some participants to consider those possibilities. I hope the local businesses see the lines out of the door (with no need to pay for land to provide parking for them). Then, maybe, local leaders could add aspects of this experience into the daily life of their communities.

 

-Vladimir