ATLDOT broke ground July 22 on the $18.5 million Monroe Drive Safe Streets project, converting the corridor from 8th Street to Piedmont Circle from four travel lanes to three (one lane each direction plus a center turn lane), with 11-foot lanes to still fit MARTA buses and trucks.
The redesign adds 29 marked crosswalks, two new pedestrian hybrid beacons, six rapid-flashing beacons, bulb-outs, and AI-assisted signal timing, and is projected to cut crashes by roughly 30%. Four lanes stay in place near Ansley Mall at Piedmont Avenue. The project traces to the 2016 death of 14-year-old Alex Hyneman, struck by a driver while cycling near 10th and Monroe; her father Thomas Hyneman co-founded Atlanta Families for Safe Streets and pushed the redesign for a decade.
Construction runs roughly two years, with the full project targeted for completion by 2028. Some neighbors, including the Yorkshire Townhomes HOA, argue the road is already too heavily traveled for a lane reduction; no bike lanes are included due to insufficient road width.
Why it matters
It closes out a decade-long safe-streets campaign born from a fatal crash, and it is a real-world test of how much a road diet costs and how residents react once shovels are actually in the ground.
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