The ambitious effort to establish a year-round community pool on Atlanta Public Schools property in Virginia-Highland has definitively concluded, serving as a stark illustration of The High Cost of Free Parking. Despite a critical need for public aquatic resources and the glaring absence of swim teams in the densely populated Atlanta Beltline area, the project's failure stemmed from intense neighborhood opposition over on-street parking and a fundamental breakdown in communication. While vocal residents feared losing perceived 'free' parking spaces, the Virginia-Highland Civic Association (VHCA) ultimately withheld support for the necessary pre-development agreement, seeking detailed plans upfront that the all-volunteer Pool Association (VHPA) could only generate after securing that initial authorization. This 'chicken or the egg' dilemma, coupled with a lack of direct collaboration, led to APS ending the proposal, leaving the community to continue grappling with a vital unmet public need.

Amidst a city-wide lack of public pools and tragic child drowning statistics, a parent-led effort to build a year-round community pool on APS land in Virginia-Highland has stalled. The primary objection? Concerns over creating too much demand for free on-street parking. This article explores how this conflict highlights urban planner Donald Shoup's concept of the "High Cost of Free Parking," pitting neighborhood convenience against a potentially life-saving community resource.

Atlanta’s kids don’t have a safe way to bike to school, so two neighborhood groups are teaming up to use tactical urbanism to add protected bicycle infrastructure along Virginia Ave to bring a decade old plan to life.

For the past 5 months, the Midtown Neighbors’ Association worked with ATLDOT’s Tactical Urbanism team to design, permit and install a project to increase safety for pedestrians crossing Monroe Dr at Greenwood Ave. This temporary project uses $1,000 worth of Home Depot paint and flex posts to extend the curb and create a pedestrian haven in the middle of the road. Pedestrians’ exposure to cars decreased by 50% (22 feet) while demonstrating to the city and the community the potential of long-term change for this crossing.

BIKING to school is essential for creating strong, healthy, independent children. The best biking routes to school minimize or remove our children’s exposure to cars, making the BeltLine the best path to school for many neighborhoods around Atlanta.

Unfortunately, most of Virginia-Highland Elementary’s 5 to 11-year-olds and the new school do not have safe access to the BeltLine. That’s despite the BeltLine passing less than a block from the facility.

Having the safest biking infrastructure in the world is useless if our most vulnerable cannot access it. 

You can self monitor a wired home security system and avoid spending a bunch of money on a monitored system while using the existing infrastructure.

When will the City of Atlanta enforce speed limits for all vehicles using geofences?

Atlanta is headed for a future of congestion, deadly roads, and inequality. How did we get here?

Atlanta is headed for a future of congestion, deadly roads, and inequality. This is what we can do to avoid it.

MARTA is a radial grid that focuses all of its movement to an empty downtown and lacks the vital circle lines that allow people to get to the activity centers spread around the city. To the vast majority of City of Atlanta residents, MARTA is only useful if you work downtown and the occasional event or jury summons. With More MARTA’s current prioritization, MARTA will continue to offer no relief to Atlanta’s overloaded roads as the city’s population grows by 140% in the next 20 years.

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