Humans have moved and migrated for thousands of years, but it's only been in the last century we've mastered traveling thousands of miles in mere hours, and truly since the 1960s its become commonplace to fly for business and leisure and commute in a single-passenger car every day to work (except during COVID-19 'cause teleworking). Atlanta traded its reputation as the rail capital to the sky capital, being home to the busiest airport in the world (sadly, not pictured here, although the airport has been around since 1925!)

 

Less and less do people, especially in Atlanta, rely on public transportation or even walking as their means of getting somewhere. On the Walk Score website, Atlanta is identified as a "Car-Dependent city" noting that "most errands require a car," and our scores for the categories Walkability, Transport, and Bike are all less than 50 on a scale of 100. 

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Yet it wasn't always this way and didn't begin shifting this way until the Interstate system was constructed in the late 1950s and early1960s. This section of the photo series is best analyzed chronologically, so we can identify the changing point at which time humans and citizens of Atlanta abandoned the environmentally-conscious means of movement and opted for driving their cars from the stretches of the Metro Atlanta Area into the city each day.

 

In all of the pre-1950s photos in the series, streetcars and pedestrian traffic are plentiful in the major downtown areas depicted. Further, the "Public Throughfare" image captured just before the turn of the century in 1895 demonstrates a trinity of transportation options including walking, horse-drawn buggy, and streetcars with names of their respective stops listed, coexisting harmoniously at a single intersection with no traffic lights in sight. In contract, the 2020 counterpart has become a four-lane road and the direction where the majority of the traffic in the historical image are heading, is cut off from traffic and now houses only a concrete park.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Although the comparison "Streetcars" proves streetcars still run in Atlanta, it only first became widespread in 2019 after MARTA received a large grant that the mode of transportation became an option for Atlantians again, expanding its reach to 29 miles of light track. Prior to that, the Atlanta Streetcar System first began operating in 2014 and covered a mere 2.7 miles. 

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A major hub for traffic even since the city's founding (the first mayoral elections in 1848 were actually held on the spot of the building in the left-hand corner of the present-day image), Five Points in 1914 is another premier example of various methods of traffic operating in synchronicity, although there are arguably small street lights now installed and hanging from the wires across the roads. The 29-miles of the MARTA Streetcar doesn't reach to this part of town, and citizens once again rely on their cars, or Ubers/Lyfts, to take them where they want to go. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Not too far east of Five Points is Broad Street, formerly a hustlin' and bustlin' part of town by the looks of the traffic backed up in 1925. Cars are becoming more prevalent in the traffic scenes, but streetcars and pedestrians also still make up a large portion of the roads. Nearly 100 years later, however, the tracks of the streetcars and any other signs of them have completely vanished, leaving only a hollow shell of a once busy area. This and the second photo below "Jones Avenue Bridge" substantiate a more negative side to the Atlanta transportation development, in so far as they show once busy areas practically abandoned. The Interstates are mostly to blame for these dilapidated and forgotten town centers, as wealthier type people migrated North to the suburbs in the 1960s and 1970s and these areas became obsolete in the eyes of city planners. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And so the construction begins. Despite not being affiliated directly with The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, the Downtown Connector marks an important time for Atlanta as she becomes more interconnected and reliant on personal passenger vehicles. A few years later, and the Connector would serve to connect the Interstates 75 and 85,  essentially slicing the city in half. The AJC photo from 1949 shows the demolition crews removing massive amounts of earth before beginning the construction of the actual, concrete expressways, which today spans seven lanes in each direction. The Georgia Institute of Technology dorms stand strong in the background. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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With the completion of the expressway, Atlanta is intertwined with three lanes ready for traffic. The citizens of Atlanta over-delivered and the same stretch of highway 60 years later now hosts seven lanes on each side. Atlanta traffic ranked 10th in 2019 as the worst traffic in the United States. In 2016 the total Georgia roadway deaths totaled 1,554, the fourth most in the country). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Even if our CO2 emissions are not growing from past years, we still need to work as a city to reduce them to liveable if not completely neutral sums. By receiving the $2.8 million grant for streetcars Atlanta has made a step in the right direction, but to fully evolve beyond massive highways and horrible commutes, we must promote the expansion and revamping of public transportation entities, such as MARTA, to make it easier and normalize taking the bus or the train into the city from the suburbs.

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