The Buckhead Coalition, an organization of business leaders, is opposing a state plan to add bike lanes along a portion of Peachtree Road in Buckhead.
In a letter to state Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry, Coalition president Sam Massell wrote that “we respectfully urge the state, our city, and our CID to discontinue any further consideration of adding any such bike lanes on this public right-of-way,” the coalition said in a press release Nov. 23.
Massell said he and the organization had supported expanding bicycle use in the past, but that “from our members and from the general public, it appears that the argument we face concerning adding bike lanes now to part of Peachtree separates at about age 30 for those in favor against those opposed.
“On a popular vote, we believe that would calculate to as many as 63 percent being in opposition.”
Massell copied his letter to Gov. Nathan Deal, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, Atlanta City Council President Ceasar Mitchell, Buckhead City Councilmembers Howard Shook, Yolanda Adrean, and Mary Norwood, and Buckhead Community Improvement District Chairman David Allman.
The state Department of Transportation is considering a controversial plan to add a central left-turn lane on Peachtree Road from Deering to Pharr roads and to add bikc lanes along a portion of Peachtree south of Peachtree Battle Avenue.