More People, Fewer Cars

On Sunday, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition sponsored its biggest Atlanta Streets Alive event yet, this time returning to Peachtree Street.  Last spring the event came to Peachtree Street for the first time and it was fun, but there weren't so many people.  The rain stopped just before the 2 p.m. start and that probably kept many people at home.  But on Sunday the weather was clear and not to hot and it was a nearly perfect day for walking on Peachtree Street.

The weather may have been perfect, but our schedules were not.  We got a late start on the afternoon because of Iain's schedule and we needed to end early because of mine, so on foot we had no chance to doing the entire 4-mile route from start to finish and then back.  Tom dropped us off near the start, at Pryor and Martin Luther King, and then we walked north from there.  Other than the absence of cars and a few bicyclists, there wasn't much evidence of anything special going on until we got to Woodruff Park.  There there was music and a vendor selling hot dogs and a woman from Zoo Atlanta with an unusual fashion accessory.

We also had heard that our favorite guerrilla literary team, the poets of Free Poems on Demand, were somewhere around Woodruff Park.  Given our time constraints we didn't track them down, which I regret, as getting a free poem on demand is one of the very special things about Streets Alive events.  Hopefully they will be at the next Streets Alive event on North Highland in October.

We saw where they are laying the streetcar tracks, near Ellis Street.  Moving north, there was more activity, and in many places the street was full of pedestrians and bicycles.

We saw several bicycles that if illuminated would have fit right into the Beltline's lantern parade the night before.

People with dogs or bikes, and the King of Pops at at least three locations on the route.

There were women in costume (shown) and a kid on a trapeze (not shown).

There was dancing on the sidewalk.

A competition involving dragging heavy things and moving really big tires.

We got something to eat near Peachtree Center, and a young woman asked us if we had health insurance and offered us a pamphlet on our benefits under the new health insurance law.  We wandered through the army surplus store, which was offering a discount to bicyclists with helmets. There were food trucks on the bridge over the interstate but no ice cream until we got to Colony Center and by then we'd had popsicles.  

At several points along the route we saw Atlanta police officers having to deal with cars that somehow had gotten on the street even though the street was closed.  I imagine that the drivers were confused and incredulous.  They weren't supposed to be there?  What?  

It was just four hours on a Sunday afternoon that the street was turned over to pedestrians and bicyclists.  It is amazing what 50,000 people and no cars can do for a street.

If you missed it, there's another chance coming soon.  On October 6, Atlanta Streets Alive is coming to Highland and Boulevard.  Don't miss it.