Atlanta mayor to create new city transportation department

VIDEO: Learn more about the highlights of the Atlanta mayor's speech on city accomplishments and goals.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Thursday announced that she was creating the city’s first Department of Transportation.

“Transportation is the lifeblood of our city,” Bottoms said at her annual State of the City speech at the Georgia World Congress Center in downtown.

Bottoms said the new department would coordinate with the public works department, which repairs the city's roads, the planning department, which designs them, and Renew Atlanta, which makes long-term investments in the city's transportation infrastructure.

“These departments do a good job, but to do a great job they need to operate from the same playbook,” Bottoms said.

She said her administration will introduce legislation creating the new department to the city council next week.

Visit ajc.com at 1 p.m. for more details from the mayor’s speech