Atlanta Streets Alive brings life to neighborhood streets

Warmer weather brings Atlanta into its beloved festival season as we celebrate the pollening after a long winter. All jokes aside, even though our winters are relatively mild, it's always nice to get a stretch of good weather to enjoy all that the city has to offer. You might've heard of the Dogwood festival, the Jazz festival, ONE Music Fest, (RIP) Music Midtown, and so on, but there's a relative upstart grassroots initiative that's finally starting to find its footing.

Atlanta Streets Alive is a monthly street festival during the spring and summer that shuts down several miles of a main thoroughfare on a Sunday afternoon to cars and gives it to the people to walk, run, bike, roller skate, and have a great time on the streets usually closed off to pedestrians. The vibe of each of these events are different, but typically it's a mix of activations by local vendors or community initiatives and three miles of clear pavement to do whatever you please.

It's inspired by the Ciclovia, an open streets initiative in Bogota, Colombia that draws over 1.5 million people to enjoy over 70 miles of car-free streets every Sunday since starting in 1976. Similar initiatives have been tried in nearly 400 cities in 30 countries, including Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York. Atlanta held its first iteration in 2019 along a route that they still use today, a three-mile stretch of Peachtree Street (the main one, I know there are like a gazillion of them in Atlanta) from 17th Street in Midtown to Alabama Street in South Downtown. This route in particular was chosen because it's right in the heart of the city, with seven MARTA rail stations along the path from Arts Center to the north and Five Points to the south.

For such a car-centric city, it's rare for Atlanta to take a meaningful step towards promoting mobility that isn't reliant on the automobile (as recent headlines have made clear this week between Beyonce's Cowboy Carter tour, WWE Evolution, and the MLB All-Star Game taking place in town this weekend and putting a strain on MARTA).

While there are inevitable hiccups, the city of Atlanta and Propel ATL, an organization that promotes initiatives where all can "move safely, easily and sustainably throughout the city" do a great job in ensuring that the event can go off without a hitch while not having drivers too disadvantaged with detours.

June's event was sponsored by Uber & Waymo's new partnership to bring autonomous vehicles to Atlanta (where they promptly end up blocking traffic on a local street) with their presence marked by a massive activation to promote the new initiative with tote bags from legendary Atlanta artist Greg Mike, free water bottles, outdoor board games, and a necessary King of Pops popsicle to cool down on one of the hottest days of the year thus far.

Celebration of Life

Atlanta's known for being a boisterous city shall we say, but one of the perks of living here is seeing the community that forms around having a good time. Streets Alive has been a place for performers of all stripes, mostly amateurs, to take to the streets and put on a show.

It's also such a massive opportunity to people watch as folks live their absolute best lives in the city.

Before I had the luxury and freedom to take myself places, I relied on the views afforded to me while whizzing away in a car. Let me tell you that the asphalt has some of the best viewpoints, and I'm not ashamed to admit that I've stood in a crosswalk or two solely to get a photo. That wasn't needed for four hours as I could just line up a shot straight down Peachtree with the slightly less daunting than usual proposition of potentially getting run over by a scooter or bike.

(Re) Discovering a Neighborhood

I'm a bit ashamed to say that May's Streets Alive event was the first time I've truly explored the West End in the city's southwest quadrant between I-20 and the Downtown Connector that bisects the city. It's a neighborhood that's an epicenter of Black life that tends to get ignored in the tourist guides to this city. I do have to give a special shoutout to Portrait Coffee for really keeping the vibes high with DJs, magazines for sale, and most importantly free cold brew.

After the event formally ended, my walk back to the MARTA station and eventually to the suburbs took me through Summerhill, a neighborhood I know well from my college days at Georgia State University. It's grown tremendously over the last eight years from a smattering of parking lots in the shadow of what was formerly Turner Field into a very hot place to be on a Sunday evening. Folks were grabbing an early dinner or a needed Big Softie ice cream as the reggaeton vibes were bumping on an early summer night. It was the perfect end cap to an amazing day that made me really appreciate what this city has become.

Atlanta Streets Alive hasn't announced when or where in the city its next iteration will be held, but I'll be sure to post updates on the ones I can get to.