November 21st, 2008 I was read­ing an inter­est­ing arti­cle today about the ‘Drive to Lunch Syndrome’, which basi­cally states that most modern Amer­i­can cities are designed in a way that is so car-​centric that some­thing as simple as going to get a bite to eat – even if it’s right down the road – requires the use of a car due the com­plete neglect for side­walks, pedes­tri­ans, and multi-​use facilities. I can per­son­ally attest to how awful things are for pedes­tri­ans in cities. Some­thing as simple as walk­ing across the street to get a coffee is a trau­matic expe­ri­ence.

The walk light has been out for over 2 years, so it’s like a live game of frog­ger just to get across a few lanes of traf­fic. Walk­ing down the road to get food involves cut­ting thru park­ing lots, run­ning around cars, and con­stantly watch­ing out for cars that could be hit­ting you. I under­stand Atlanta is the far­thest thing from a walker’s par­adise, but it is sad how depen­dent we have become on auto­mo­biles to do things as simple as get­ting lunch right down the road.

A lot of cities are suf­fer­ing from what has become essen­tially a third rush hour because of this type of retail design (or lack thereof), and few cities can handle that sort of increased traf­fic and pol­lu­tion every day. It seems like a lot of newer con­struc­tion in the Atlanta area is start­ing to take pedes­trian traf­fic seri­ously, and I hope that the near future brings not only fur­ther retail den­sity, but also more walk­a­ble areas of town. Mixed-​use, dense retail / office spaces not only ensure longer-​term via­bil­ity for both types of busi­nesses, but it decreases pol­lu­tion traffic.

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rick says: November 23rd, 2008 at 12: 05 am We were due to move into the Sov­er­eign until the com­pany issued mass lay­offs. Now we’re stay­ing put. From recent news reports it looks as though that build­ing and many new Buck­head build­ings are having a hard time find­ing ten­ants.

It’s trying to grow too fast. I see some par­al­lels with what’s going on in Miami if Buck­head isn’t care­ful. Daniel says: November 23rd, 2008 at 12: 27 pm Yeah, Buck­head is way over­built, but hope­fully busi­nesses will coa­lesce around the dense area of that part of town, rather than even more sprawl becom­ing the norm.

That area is so over­crowded that it can take 30 min­utes to get from Pharr rd. to 400 when I drive. Leave a Reply Posted on Friday, November 21st, 2008 at 2: 18 pm and filed under Atlanta, Enviroment, Rants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.