The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign and some residents from Buckhead neighborhoods filed sought an injunction March 14 to halt what they described as “the destruction and elimination of a designated and established bicycle route on East Wesley Road and the construction and installation of dangerous traffic calming devices.”
The Atlanta Bicycle Campaign announced that the emergency petition had been filed in the Fulton County Superior Court. Founded in 1991, the group is the city’s largest non-profit bicycle advocacy organization with a mission to promote bicycle transportation and use in the metro Atlanta region.
The petitioners claim that the project design, which is now under construction on East Wesley, removes “a designated and established bicycle route in violation of federal, state and local law, including the city of Atlanta’s own ordinances, comprehensive development plan and commuter on-street bike plan, and endangers both motorists and non-motorists.”
Atlanta’s Commuter On-Street Bike Plan designates East Wesley Road as a designated bicycle route.
The petition asks the court to “suspend further construction until the project design can be modified to preserve the already established bicycle route on East Wesley, provide a safe thoroughfare for motorists and non-motorists and eliminate the hazardous aspects of the project that interfere with the public’s ability to use the road.”
The East Wesley Road project, in the Garden Hills neighborhood of Buckhead, which was written about in the Feb. 23-March 5 issue of the Buckhead Reporter, is part of a traffic calming plan to slow motorized traffic.