The Midtown Neighbors’ Association does not support the current plan for the Music Midtown 2014 festival in Piedmont Park this weekend.
The Music Midtown representative, Melissa Laurenceau, has worked tirelessly to address the Midtown Neighbors’ concerns over the past two months and has been able to effectively answer a number of our concerns. We greatly appreciate her efforts.
We continue to have concerns with the increasing scale of these events and the repeated damage to Piedmont Park — particularly the increased stress on Oak Hill, which has been noted by the Piedmont Park Conservancy and Atlanta’s Parks Department. These concerns are exacerbated by the apparent lack of city monitors capable of managing and minimizing the damage inflicted on the park during these massive set-ups and break-downs.
However, the historic Midtown neighborhood is most directly impacted by traffic and parking and associated safety concerns, which we feel have not been adequately addressed over the past four years.
Zone 5 police Cmdr. Maj. Wayne Whitmire has stated that “the best chance we have, in my opinion, is to promote this as a green event with all event information encouraging attendees to ride MARTA or a bicycle. … This green promotion should be the standard for all events in the future.”
In principle, the MNA supports promoting green events that support a more sustainable and walkable Midtown. But we believe this promotion will have minimal impact on the increased parking and traffic on our residential streets. Additionally, we know the district does not have sufficient supplemental parking to handle the projected 75,000-plus daily attendance even if half ride MARTA, bike or walk.
As for the most recent traffic plan, Midtown Neighbors is still opposed to closing 10th Street for this or any other festival, as there really is no viable alternative routing. The latest plan calls for closing 10th east of Myrtle Street for the two days of the festival, diverting all festival traffic onto Myrtle and directly into the historic Midtown neighborhood.
The preferred plan is to divert the traffic at Piedmont Road and keep the traffic on appropriate collector and arterial streets, using Piedmont and Monroe Drive around the north end of the park. Festival goers should also be warned that parking is not available to the north beyond 14th Street, and all festival traffic should be diverted west at 14th Street into the Midtown Improvement District, where there is at least a modicum of public parking lots.
Our other major concern, which has been an issue throughout these discussions, is the massive amount of festival parking in our neighborhoods. Regardless how much we advertise a “green event,” we must recognize that festival goers — with a history of parking in historic Midtown, Ansley Park and Virginia-Highland — will continue to attempt to park in our neighborhoods. If they are parking legally, that’s fine. However, as we all have seen, this is not always the case.
This is a major safety concern as street after street is made impassable by tens of thousands of festival goers. This creates real concerns about vandalism, theft, reduced residential parking (many residents have only on-street parking options) and limited access for emergency vehicles.
Maj. Whitmire said he wants to see more towing as a deterrent. He has stated Atlanta police will “request that Park Atlanta have additional officers and wreckers available … to increase enforcement.” We agree this is the best possible deterrent, and it should help keep the streets passable for emergency response vehicles. But this can only work if we actually see follow-through with an increased presence of tow trucks and towing.
Should the city keep the current plan of routing 10th Street traffic directly into the neighborhood via Myrtle, we should also accept this will invite more parking problems within historic Midtown. We request that APD officers take greater responsibility to ensure no illegal parking for at least two blocks surrounding the locations where they are stationed.
Hosting large, Class A festivals in a park surrounded on all sides by residential neighborhoods is problematic, and these problems continue to grow as the festivals grow. The city must address the effect unrestricted amplified sound has on residents and reconsider the existing noise ordinance exemption. The city must also find better traffic solutions and sufficient parking for the size of the event.
Terry Bond is president of the Midtown Neighbors Association.
