Downtown Atlanta infrastructure built to keep cyclists and pedestrians safer picked up national recognition to start 2024: PeopleForBikes, one of the country's largest cycling advocacy groups, ranked the new Martin Luther King Jr. Drive Cycle Track No. 14 on its list of the 20 best new U.S. bike lanes of 2023 — the same list that recognized Georgia Tech's PATH Parkway back in 2017.
Completed in fall 2023, the two-way protected cycle track runs along the south side of MLK Drive between Forsyth Street and Capitol Avenue. Future phases call for extending it into Vine City, the BeltLine, and directly to downtown's biggest venues — Mercedes-Benz Stadium, State Farm Arena, and the Georgia World Congress Center. PeopleForBikes credited the project as part of "an unprecedented surge in safer, more comfortable places to ride" nationally in 2023, alongside additions in New York, Seattle, Chicago, and Jackson, Mississippi. The group noted that while no U.S. city has yet matched the "truly bold citywide" bike-network plans of places like Paris, Bogotá, or London, a wave of new federal funding is fueling thousands of similar projects across the country.
The MLK track was a joint effort between the city's Department of Transportation and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District, with advocacy group Propel ATL pushing for it along the way — part of the broader Downtown Atlanta Master Plan's push to improve safety and accessibility in the city center. District 4 Atlanta City Councilmember Jason Dozier, who championed the project as part of the city's Vision Zero safety initiative, called it just the start. "The MLK is the centerpiece of a brand new protected bike grid that didn't exist a year ago," Dozier said, "and will soon connect downtown Atlanta to Mechanicsville, Midtown, Old Fourth Ward, and the BeltLine."
Original reporting by Josh Green for Urbanize Atlanta, published January 2024.
