Atlanta City Council considers closing Peachtree Street to cars on Sundays

ATLANTA - A popular Atlanta event may soon have a more permanent home.

Six members of the Atlanta City Council drafted an ordinance to authorize the closure of three and a half miles of Peachtree Street every Sunday afternoon for what they call "the next era of Atlanta Streets Alive."  

Since 2010, the Atlanta Bicycle Coalition has hosted Atlanta Streets Alive events on different roadways all over the city.  

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"The street is shut down to cars so people can walk, bike, play in the street, scoot, skate," explained Margaret Mullins, the coalition's operations manager. "After we would host the Atlanta Streets Alive three to four times a year, people would say, 'We really need this to happen more often.' And we believe that it is really a way to show people what our streets could be."

According to Councilman Amir Farokhi, the events would begin September 18, 2022 and run every Sunday from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. for a year. The city would close Peachtree Street from Trinity Avenue downtown to 17th Street in Midtown.  

"Looking at the success of these in Atlanta and across the country and the world, some of the more successful ones are in the same place every week and we thought what better place to do it than our marquis street, Peachtree Street," Farokhi said.

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The Atlanta Bicycle Coalition wants people who support the idea to contact city council members.  

"I think you'll see some folks maybe who live in the area worry about access," said Councilman Farokhi.  "I think one of the reasons Peachtree Street works really well is you have parallel streets on either side that move traffic along North-South and you'll still be able to cross Peachtree Street at most intersections as you normally would.  There'll be police officers out making sure that folks are safe, but the reason this works so well is that it brings the city alive in a way that I think people really love and hopefully this becomes a permanent fixture in the city."'

The council's Transportation Committee is set to discuss the proposal at its next meeting Oct. 27. If they approve the ordinance, Farokhi said it would then go before the full council the first week of November.  

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