Basic Infrastructure in Atlanta’s 4th District
Infrastructure. That is a word thrown around a lot across the country. But what does it mean in the 4th district of Atlanta? Making sure we have enough Stop signs, street lights, speed bumps, and sidewalks, but also making sure we don’t have POTHOLES, hazardous trees, and powerlines dangling in pedestrians’ ways! That's to name a few. My question is, why is none of this being addressed? With the rise in uncapped development, people often overlook that along with climate change - the developers are also contributing to the ongoing crippling infrastructure problem.
See these images of the powerlines? This problem has been there for months. Does it seem like a hazard? That’s because it is one. Right next to this intersection is Westmont Road. You park your car for 10 minutes on that street and you will notice it is essentially a mini highway. People walk through there, walk their dogs, but cars go highway speed with no regard to pedestrians. Speedbumps and sidewalks with appropriate lighting would be nice. But that process alone is difficult and requires the constituent to do all the work. One must collect signatures of 70% of the street homeowners to get a speedbump. I know because I tried on my street. The problem I ran into? The owners listed are developers and it’s almost impossible to get in touch with any of them. We need to lower barriers such as these that get in the way of keeping our communities safe and intact.
We are going through an affordable housing crisis that doesn’t seem will be addressed anytime soon with the urgency it deserves. But in order to provide solutions we need to get a grip on infrastructure first.
Now, going back to potholes, I stumbled upon this response to a post I made about our basic infrastructure needs on a neighborhood app.
The pothole issue has cost this person a lot of money. During mass unemployment in a pandemic the government should be doing everything in their power to reduce these types of cost by providing accessible streets and more.
This problem is present across the whole district. Our community needs BASIC infrastructure to be addressed ASAP. We deserve clean and walkable sidewalks. We deserve cross walks that are pedestrian friendly. We deserve roads that won’t cause physical damage to your car resulting in more out of pocket spending. We deserve speedbumps to keep our citizens and our children safe while walking. We deserve this and a lot more. We cannot wait for one more fatality to lead to change. Atlanta needs to take care of their constituents.
