Look up on almost any block of downtown Atlanta and you will see one: an enclosed walkway crossing the street two or three stories above the sidewalk, connecting one building to the next. There are roughly 35 of them across the city, most concentrated in the downtown core, with additional structures in Midtown, Buckhead, and the northern suburbs. They are as much a part of Atlanta's visual identity as the Peachtree Street skyline itself.
Most were designed by John Portman, the Atlanta architect whose career reshaped how American cities thought about interior space. Portman's vision was practical: allow pedestrians to traverse downtown without leaving climate-controlled environments, above the noise and heat of street-level traffic. In a city where summer temperatures regularly exceed 90 degrees and afternoon thunderstorms are a daily possibility, the logic was intuitive.
The Trade-Off
The skybridges solved one problem and created another. By moving pedestrians above the street, they drained the sidewalks of foot traffic — the very thing that makes urban streets feel safe, active, and worth investing in. Matt Terrell, an assistant professor of communications at Kennesaw State University, describes them as representing "a different approach to urbanism that's very closed off."
Critics have called them "gerbil tubes" and "human Habitrails" — labels that capture the claustrophobic experience of walking through a narrow, fluorescent-lit corridor while the city moves below. Many of the skybridges crossing Peachtree Street are now completely inaccessible. Others are in disrepair. AmericasMart, which operates several, declined to provide access information when asked.
A New One Under Construction
Despite the criticism, Atlanta is still building skybridges. A $10 million pedestrian walkway connecting the Georgia Capitol to a new legislative office building across the street is under construction, with partial completion targeted for June 2026 — timed to the FIFA World Cup — and full operation expected by October. Historic preservationists and some lawmakers opposed the addition, arguing it conflicts with contemporary urban design principles that favor street-level activation.
Context Matters
In cities like Montreal, Edmonton, and Minneapolis, elevated or underground walkway systems exist out of necessity — winter temperatures that make outdoor walking dangerous for months at a time. Atlanta's skybridges were a lifestyle choice, not a survival one, which makes their persistence more interesting and their critics more vocal.
But they are here. They are part of the skyline. And for anyone walking the blocks between Peachtree Center, the Hyatt Regency, and the AmericasMart complex, the skybridges are as distinctly Atlanta as the red clay beneath the pavement.
Original reporting by GPB News, Georgia Public Broadcasting, June 4, 2026.