If you walk anywhere in Atlanta, you have stepped around one: an open water meter box, a missing manhole cover, a hole in the sidewalk that has been there long enough to become scenery. Since April, an anonymous Atlantan operating the social media account Fix-ATL has been covering those holes with hand-built plywood patches, painted and stained, placed without the city's permission. The account is about to lay down its 40th patch.
The person behind it asked SaportaReport to withhold their name over concern about legal consequences; the outlet identifies them only as "Z." The project started as art, not activism. A water meter lid had been missing for years in Z's neighborhood, across from the high school, and Z, who has woodworking experience, built a cover for it as a "secret garden" piece. The plan was to make more of them for spots that were unkempt rather than dangerous. "But after that first patch, that's when it became clear this was a systemic issue," Z said. "Because when you see that one hole, it leads to noticing a lot of other ones in the neighborhood."
The official route is ATL 311, which routes reports to the Department of Watershed Management for a lid replacement. Z and other volunteers tried it and described the results as "relatively abysmal in terms of wait times and efficacy." Some 311 staff asked for a street address, others for coordinates. Z offered a documented list of holes and was told the agency would only take a few at a time. Replacements that did arrive were sometimes the wrong size, since the city uses several meter lid diameters.
So Z started building. Each patch uses three-quarter-inch plywood with supports glued underneath to take downward force, and most are sealed with paint and wood stain. They are bright by design, some with site-specific artwork, including a cover near the Plaza Theatre painted to mimic its marquee. An orange flag often sticks up from the top. "Ultimately, our goal is to pressure the city to fix the infrastructure with art, and secondarily, to introduce more accountability," Z said, adding that "a piece of wood is only good for garnering attention."
Watershed Management is not on board. In a statement, the department acknowledged the "important role community members play" in spotting damaged or missing covers, then said it strongly discourages anyone from installing temporary or homemade covers on water meters, manholes or other utility infrastructure, warning that unauthorized modifications can create new hazards, interfere with maintenance, block accurate meter readings and violate city code as tampering with utility equipment. Residents should keep using ATL311, the statement said. Z expected that answer: "I think that the likelihood of injury is significantly lower compared to the negligence the city has allowed to exist."
Z says the city has not reached out, and suspects Fix-ATL "hasn't been annoying enough" yet. The Instagram account has about 4,500 followers, and residents now send in holes they have been stepping around for years. For now the focus is water meter boxes and manhole covers, both quick swaps; sidewalk potholes and what Z calls "unknown drainage holes" would need real planning and money, and are the longer-term target. The argument underneath the plywood is a downtown one: "If we want to become a true metropolis, one of the leading cities in the world, we need to make it a place where everybody can see all of the great parts of Atlanta without a car."
Original reporting: SaportaReport (2026-08-07)