The controversial “skybridge” connecting the State Capitol with a new legislative office building will move forward after a vote by the Atlanta City Council on Monday, June 16.
The council voted 10-2 to approve right-of-way and air rights to construct the $10 million enclosed pedestrian walkway across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive.
The Atlanta City Council’s Transportation Committee had voted on June 11 to hold the piece of legislation, with Council members Amir Farokhi and Jason Dozier pushing back on the project. They were also the two no votes on Monday.
State officials stated that the walkway is designed to enhance security and accessibility, but council members and preservationists disagreed.
Dozier said the skybridge flies in the face of the city’s attempt to bring people back to Downtown and its streets.
“I’m a big believer that these hamster tubes don’t do anything to get people on the street or to patronize businesses,” Dozier said at the June 11 meeting. “They don’t bring vibrancy.”
Dozier compared the skybridge to the series of elevated walkways connecting Peachtree Center and AmericasMart, which he said have been detrimental to street-level business.
“Thousands of people in Downtown aren’t interacting because they aren’t on the streets, but in these tubes,” Dozier said. “I’m opposed to it.”
Farokhi voiced similar opposition to the plan, saying the skybridge made the Capitol complex less accessible to those making decisions under the Gold Dome.
“Downtown has long suffered from a paucity of street life because of decisions made in the 1960s and ’70s for pedestrian bridges in Downtown,” Farokhi said, deeming the skybridge “bad public policy.”
Atlanta Preservation Center Executive Director David Y. Mitchell said construction of the skybridge would forever alter the facade of the circa-1885 Capitol.
“The Capitol Building is significant architecturally, historically, politically and socially,” Mitchell said after the council approved the bridge. “It has been the symbolic anchor of Georgia politics since Reconstruction. Now it will have a “skybridge” – the only Capitol in the nation to have one – and will visually affirm that vexing fear that we place our emphasis on business and not civics. ”
