April is here! Spring has sprung and so has record pollen counts. Despite the green layer, hopefully everyone has been able to get out and enjoy our beautiful weather lately.
The Urban Connector monthly newsletter looks back on the best of the previous month as well as ways to get involved in the coming month. Please make sure you sign up below to have these delivered straight to your inbox and follow on YouTube, Twitter, BlueSky Social, and Instagram.
March Content
The Spur Trail Ride Along: Ride along one of the newest segments of trail in the Upper Westside linking the Westside BeltLine Connector Trail to Marietta Street.
Georgia Tech Bike Infrastructure Tour: Georgia Tech deserves an award for the amount and quality of bike infrastructure they’ve installed lately. Ride around some of the best in my latest video.
Urban Thoughts: Too small for an article, too big to miss
- BeltLine Rail walked back (?), canceled (?), delayed (?), pivoted (?) who knows what’s the right word at this point! I’ll have more thoughts in the coming weeks but for now, here’s some smart folks thoughts on it: Saporta Report, Urbanize, ThreadATL.
- I respect everyone’s hustle but the Substack era among urbanists in particular is getting out of control! We’re still a mildly up and coming subset of people and I believe that there’s strength in numbers. We need to be getting as much quality content to as many people as possible – especially those that may not be in tune with with the future of cities. Hiding content behind paywalls not only limits who sees it to diehard supporters who in all likelihood don’t need any convincing, but also adds up quickly subscription cost wise.
Developments that Excited Me
Pittsburg Yards Movement
It seems like things have been very slow moving around here. However, a recent presentation hinted at several blocks of the massive site becoming home to a mix of apartments, retail, and light industrial. These will have affordability components and offer direct access to the adjacent Southside BeltLine Trail.
Southside Mega Development
Continuing with the theme of false starts along the Southside Trail, movement on a much larger scale may be coming to a largely vacant site just South of Murphy Crossing. 3000 units and a massive amount of retail is planned according to a recent DRI (Development of Regional Impact) submittal. These are the types of investments we need to be making now in our mobility rich areas – especially along the Southside BeltLine where plentiful relatively blank-slate land opportunities exist. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be taking a high level look at the Southside Trail and sketching out areas of opportunities.
South Downtown, Centennial Yards, The Center, Entertainment District
What a month for this part of Downtown! From leasing and tenant announcements, new bike lanes I helped work on, rapid progress on Centennial Yards, new visions and renderings for the Center, to a new Entertainment District proposal on an underutilized green space, things are looking up! Like I always say, a region is only as good as it’s core.
Jackson Street Bridge, FINALLY! In another project I helped work on many moons ago, the Jackson Street Bridge upgrades have finally been advertised for construction bidding.
Get Involved, Atlanta!
| Date | Event | Notes |
| 4/1 | GDOT Stitch Open House | 4:00 – 7:00 PM |
| 4/4 | 404 Day | All Day |
| 4/14 | Housing Commission | 10:00 AM |
| 4/21 | City Council | 1:00 PM |
| 4/28 | Zoning Committee | 11:00 AM |
| 4/30 | Transportation Committee | 10:00 AM |
| 5/5 | City Council | 1:00 PM |
| 5/9 | Propel ATL Blinkie Awards | 7:00 PM |
Raleigh folks, I miss y’all! Make sure you’re keeping up to date with the great people at Raleigh Forward, WakeUP, Oaks and Spokes and The Downtown Raleigh Community.
What I’m working on this month (and probably later)
- South side BeltLine infill concepts
- Updates to earlier drawings of the Reconnecting Communities sketches
- More suburban spotlights
- InPhil Designs ideas
I’m sure this newsletter will evolve as time goes on. Comments or suggestions? Let me know!
Phil Veasley is a Professional Engineer and CNU-Accredited Professional member working to design safer multimodal infrastructure in cities throughout the US.
My goal is to create cities that are safe and effective for all people to move about outside of cars. To achieve that we have to focus on creating equitable, dense, and vibrant cities full of walkable neighborhoods with a various mix of housing choices, schools, restaurants, and services. We cannot have safe multimodal infrastructure without the density to support it and we cannot have equitable density without safe multimodal infrastructure. Outside of designing safe streets, my passions are sketching ideas for infill neighborhoods, floor plans, urban photography, and exploring our cities on foot or bike. Please check out the menus above for all of my ideas and also check out my YouTube, Instagram, BlueSky Social, and Twitter accounts.
Opinions and insights are my own and are not representative of my employer or any organization.
Phil Veasley 