1) A group of Georgia Tech graduate students proposed removing the northern half of Atlanta's Downtown Connector highway and restoring the original street grid, as traffic congestion along the Connector is only expected to worsen. 2) Removing the Connector could create 70 blocks of new developable land in the city, but developers argue there is still plenty of available land and the highway is important for attracting businesses and allowing people to get in and out of town. 3) The proposal would require major investment in public transit and expansion of alternate routes like I-285 before traffic impacts could be properly assessed.

1. 3/4/2015 Disconnecting the Connector - Atlanta Business Chronicle
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/12/11/story6.html?s=print 1/3
From the Atlanta Business Chronicle
:http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/12/11/story6.html
Disconnecting the Connector
Planning officials, Georgia Tech grad students say removing Downtown
Connector may be city's solution to livability
SUBSCRIBER CONTENT: Dec 11, 2006, 12:00am EST Updated: Dec 7, 2006, 10:57pm EST
Ryan Mahoney
Staff writer
Traffic on the Downtown Connector, already Atlanta's most congested corridor, will only worsen
over the next few years.
Expanding the city's major north­south thoroughfare is out of the question due to prohibitive
right­of­way costs. Projects that would add capacity elsewhere won't happen any time soon and
may not have much of an impact.
So why not remove the Connector altogether?
That's the bold recommendation of a group of Georgia Tech graduate students working with
the blessing of new city planning commissioner Steve Cover on ways to improve the quality of
life for thousands of new intown residents expected through 2030.
Their idea: Fill in the northern half of the eight­mile Connector ­­ which a third of a million
vehicles slog through every day ­­ and restore Atlanta's original surface street grid. A new
boulevard could be built in the existing right of way, but there would be no more fusion of
interstates 75 and 85 through town.
And no more direct interstate route for the millions of drivers traveling between Detroit and
Miami.
The interstates would still come together north of 17th Street as they do now, but would
terminate there and empty into local streets instead of cutting through the middle of the city.
They would begin again at I­20 south of downtown.
Anyone wishing to travel north or south through metro Atlanta via interstate would either have
to take those surface streets where the Connector once stood or else go around on I­285. The
result would look a bit like San Francisco or Manhattan, where the interstates and major
highways either bend around town or terminate and pick up again on the other side.
Tech architectural professor Richard Dagenhart, who also contributed to the design of Atlanta's
planned Beltline transit loop, said his students initially looked at covering parts of the Connector
with parks and fountains, expanding on the vision behind the new, more pedestrian­friendly

2. 3/4/2015 Disconnecting the Connector - Atlanta Business Chronicle
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/12/11/story6.html?s=print 2/3
Fifth Street interstate bridge, which opened Dec. 5 in Midtown.
"We were trying to civilize the Connector," Dagenhart said. "That's not the problem. The
problem is the Connector itself. Why should it be in the city in the first place? If it simply tries
to absorb more traffic, people in town won't be able to get around."
Filling in the Connector, which taxpayers put up hundreds of millions of dollars to build in the
1950s and expand in the 1980s, also would create perhaps 70 Manhattan city blocks worth of
new developable land, Dagenhart said.
It's unclear how much money would be needed for the fill­in, but it would probably be less than
the amount required to cover the Connector.
Funding could come from a special tax district similar to the one that helped create Atlantic
Station, as opposed to federal dollars, which are in short supply for such grand projects after
Boston's massive Big Dig interstate­burying plan broke the bank.
With intown development surging, it's a question of whether the new land ­­ ideal for mixed­
use skyscrapers, Tech facilities, green space and lakes ­­ would be more desirable than the
Connector, just as the Connector was deemed more desirable than the land when it was built,
he said.
But even developers say the answer to that question is no.
With so much developable land still available, they say, there's no need to create more.
"The density is not there yet to support a non­interstate system," said Scott Selig, vice
president of Selig Enterprises Inc. "There's definitely value for retail, office and hotels to be
near the interstate. The ability to get in and out of town attracts people. This would be hugely
opposed."
"There is a huge demand for travel through the corridor," said Paul Kelman, executive vice
president of Central Atlanta Progress. Dagenhart's concept "would have almost no chance of
moving ahead."
Dagenhart, whose report describes the Connector as "a 16­lane beast that divides the city,"
admits his idea won't work without unprecedented investment in MARTA and commuter rail, the
development of the Beltline and the Peachtree streetcar, and other transit projects, many of
them unfunded.
I­285 would need serious expansion to handle the extra load, perhaps even a second deck, as
would city streets.
Tech transportation expert Michael Meyer said Dagenhart's idea has merit as a way to reclaim
intown Atlanta ­­ especially if a proposed alternate route, a toll tunnel from Georgia 400 to I­
675, is built ­­ but its potential to make traffic even worse must first be ruled out through
further analysis.
Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall, who represents the business districts and neighborhoods
around the section of the Connector that would be filled in, plans to introduce legislation in

3. 3/4/2015 Disconnecting the Connector - Atlanta Business Chronicle
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2006/12/11/story6.html?s=print 3/3
January that would fund such a study.
"We need to push the idea of what we can do to prevent a total bottleneck," Hall said. "More
roads won't solve our problem. This conversation needs to be started."
The dialogue may not get very far, though. The state, not the city, owns and controls the
Connector, and state transportation board chairman Mike Evans isn't too enthusiastic about the
concept.
"You'd have to have a pretty persuasive argument to convince me," Evans said.
Reach Mahoney at rmahoney@bizjournals.com.