City starts $3.8M resurfacing of key northwest Atlanta corridor
For some northwest Atlanta residents, driving along Perry Boulevard and West Marietta Street is a test in dodging potholes. Some point to it as the worst road to travel in Atlanta City Council District 9, and a longtime headache for commuters.
Starting Monday, the city will launch a $3.8 million effort to resurface the corridor from Hollywood Road to Marietta Boulevard. All of the work will occur at night to minimize impact.
“This resurfacing project will improve safety, enhance mobility and provide smoother commutes for thousands of drivers each day,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said of the project.
Council member Dustin Hillis, who represents the area, has been vocal about his frustration over the slow completion of promised infrastructure projects by the city’s transportation department.
“We cannot support all the other things that the city needs if we don’t have the infrastructure to support it,” he said at a candidate forum in June.
“It is up now for ATLDOT (Atlanta Department of Transportation) to deliver on those projects,” he said.
The nighttime schedule for the resurfacing follows the city’s recent efforts to speed up improvements along the Cascade Road corridor in southwest Atlanta.
The increased pressure to address infrastructure improvements may hint at leadership’s efforts to appease voters who are fed up with dilapidated roadways in their neighborhoods.
Hillis faces a challenger in the upcoming November election, and southwest Atlanta Council member Marci Collier Overstreet is also in a heated race for the Atlanta City Council president’s seat.
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Council president candidates lean on allies
The city is about seven weeks away from the November election, where the mayor’s office, Atlanta City Council president’s gavel and all 15 City Council seats are up for grabs.
And like-minded candidates are starting to team up to rally voters around their campaigns.
In the Inman Park neighborhood this weekend, City Council President candidate Rohit Malhotra and Council District 2 candidate Kelsea Bond pooled resources to canvas the area.
Bond is a democratic socialist candidate for the Midtown neighborhoods and Malhotra is a former progressive policy nonprofit founder. Both campaigns are working to see if they can rally more left-leaning Democrats who skew younger.
“The way that progressives win is by staying outside, staying on the ground, talking to voters, making sure we are listening just as much as we are talking,” Malhotra said of the canvass on social media. “That’s how we win.”
His opponent, Overstreet, a two-term council member, is continuing to leverage her strong alliance with Dickens to bring in donations to fuel her bid.
On Friday, the mayor hosted his second fundraising event for Overstreet at The Electric Room in West Midtown — a popular venue for the city’s high-profile politicians and lobbyists.
“Some people will lead you to believe that you don’t have to know anything about City Hall to lead — it’s not true,” Overstreet said at a previous fundraiser. “You can’t have great ideas and a whole bunch of rhetoric without the results. And you can’t break it down just to build it up.”
We’ll be interested to see how much both candidates raise in the upcoming campaign contribution disclosure reports due in a couple of weeks.
As of the June disclosure reports — before election season was in full swing — Malhotra had actually outraised Overstreet by around $33,000.
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Got tips, tricks or just want to say hello? Email me at riley.bunch@ajc.com.
About the Author
Riley Bunch is a reporter on the local government team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covering Atlanta City Hall. She covers the mayor and Atlanta City Council while also keeping an eye on the city’s diverse neighborhoods.
