Atlanta’s $23,000,000 Pedestrian Bridge

This pedestrian bridge crosses Northside Drive at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It is one of the most controversial and irksome pieces of infrastructure in the city of Atlanta. The short version is that the city created a special infrastructure tax with proposed projects back in 2016. This was one of the first projects to be completed because they had a Super Bowl deadline. At first, it looked like like this project ended up soaking up way more budget than expected. It turned out to be fairly on-budget. And yet…it was still a $23,000,000 single bridge for special events, not daily life. Partly due to this, other project sequences, and poor planning & cost controls, the city ended up having to cancel a lot of other projects like sidewalk improvements and bike lanes in parts of the city where people actually live rather than out of towners attending games. I will say that it does look very cool. It’s a cool project. It looks great, but I am still quite salty about it.