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The Juniper Street bike lanes stretch from 14th Street to Ponce De Leon Avenue and had been in the works since 2010.
ATLANTA — An urban mobility project that’s been in the works for 16 years has officially opened in central Midtown Atlanta.
The Midtown Alliance announced on Wednesday that the Juniper Street bike lanes are officially open southbound between 14th Street and Ponce De Leon Avenue, a roughly one-mile stretch through the heart of Midtown.
“All traffic, ped + bike signals are operating. While the lane is open, there could be temp closures as contractor is still working to address punch list items. Thx for hanging in there,” the alliance posted Wednesday on X.
The opening of the bike lanes was met with some frustration about congestion and traffic flow, with a lane (or two, depending on time of day) of car traffic eliminated over the course of the project. The Midtown Alliance, in turn, said “we did run traffic modeling studies and conducted years of community engagement to earn a permit from the City” and found in a safety study that there had been more than 620 crashes on Juniper involving motorists, cyclists and pedestrians in the five years before construction started.
Planning for the project first began in 2010, and after years of reviews, funding steps and planning approval, construction began in 2023.
11Alive’s Grace King went to Midtown on Thursday and spoke both to drivers and cyclists about the evolution of the Juniper corridor.
One resident, Paul Haberstock, said he’d lived in the area for a couple years and noticed the congestion through construction of the lanes.
“I feel like this, Juniper, has always been a little bit of a gridlock road from rush hour — which in Atlanta is all the time — but like anywhere really from 3-6 (p.m.), so I was definitely a little bit worried about the road going from 3 to 2 (lanes),” he said. “It’s a little early with the bike lanes so I’m not sure, but I was definitely worried about that.”
Some of the other drivers who weighed in on the debate on social media expressed concern about the ability of emergency vehicles to navigate Juniper, while others noted there’s other construction still ongoing in the area so the full impact is still hard to assess.
One biker who spoke to 11Alive, Cooper Marx, said he felt far safer now navigating Midtown with the protected lanes in place.
“I’m a student at Georgia Tech, which is nice because I don’t have a car, I ride to the Highlands and to restaurants in Midtown all the time, and it’s great to have the bike lanes. I feel like it’s kind of a fight for your life on the road if you don’t have them,” he said. “I’ve had some close calls on the sidewalks and just with cars in general.”
As for the outcry among drivers, Marx felt like it was something that would sort itself out in the long run.
“I feel like there’s gonna be traffic no matter what, and I feel like more people should be riding their bikes anyway,” he said. “I feel like they’ll get over it eventually.”
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