Athens in Motion lays out data-driven prioritization for bike-and-ped corridors

Staff presented the draft Athens in Motion (AIM) prioritized network and explained the scoring system that will guide which bike-and-ped corridors get staff advocacy and capital funds. The methodology assigns points for safety (high-injury network), connectivity to community destinations and barriers, equity measured by a transportation access index, and public survey input; those components are weighted at 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% respectively.

"So that's how even though there's only 100 points here, you can have scores that are over 100 because they're basically multiply," staff said while walking commissioners through the interactive map and criteria. Commissioners asked staff to clarify how multi-jurisdiction corridors (GDOT vs. locally owned segments) are shown and whether contiguous segments should be merged into corridor-level projects.

The draft ranks Lexington Road, West Broad and Atlanta Highway among the highest-priority corridors; staff proposed producing a one-page project sheet for each priority corridor with maps, extents, funding status and delivery options (pilot, road diet, capital project). Commissioners debated whether long corridors should be merged to reflect corridor character and to make funding pitches easier, or kept as smaller, more achievable subprojects for clarity and phasing.