From today's Bill Torpy at Large column:

In the pursuit of journalism, I tried to interview some cycling commuters during morning rush hour to discuss the plan to remove a lane of traffic and add bike lanes to Peachtree Road. But bicyclists are quick, nimble, a bit wary and generally hard to pin down.

I tracked one in my minivan for nearly four miles, from the heart of Buckhead to Midtown, watching his cantaloupe-sized calves furiously pump as he headed south. Stoplights, of course, were merely a suggestion. He ultimately lost me at 17th Street when a loading truck stopped traffic cold, enabling him to chug through the midst of the idling cars.

In the other camp, the driving public, there's the middle-aged man I spoke with at a shopping center, who called the bike-lane plan a nightmare.

“This is a highway with thousands of cars and they want to change everything for a few bicyclists while the rest of us are working 60 hours a week?!”

Today's Bill Torpy at Large column appears in full on our premium website, MyAJC.com.

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Amy Bielawski, who runs Hare-Brained Productions, prepares to work at a Fall Festival in Stone Mountain on Oct. 4, 2025. Bielawski is worried she may not be able to afford health care through Georgia Access when subsidies expire. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC