FEATURE ARTICLE, JULY 2006

MORE THAN A BRIDGE
The redevelopment of the Fourteenth Street Bridge in Atlanta aims to connect communities as well as streets.
Peter Drey

Drey

Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow, an architecture, engineering, site development and urban design services firm, is responsible for planning the lengthening and widening of the Fourteenth Street Bridge, which is largely underwritten by the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) with help from the federal government and the Midtown Alliance, a non-profit, community improvement corporation that administers Atlanta's Midtown Improvement District, a tax allocation district.

The overall project cost is $80.4 million, consisting of $32 million for construction and $48.4 million for right-of-way acquisitions. Construction, scheduled to begin in September, is expected to take 42 to 48 months. The existing bridge would be out of service for 16 to 18 months during this period.

For civic leaders, the project's overarching goal is to enrich urban life in Atlanta. The bridge aims to introduce motorists to Midtown Atlanta through a new, pedestrian-friendly gateway that reconnects in-town neighborhoods split years ago by construction of the expressway itself.

Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow, an architecture, engineering, site development and urban design services firm, is responsible for planning the lengthening and widening of the Fourteenth Street Bridge in Atlanta.

Like in many cities, the influx of new residents into Atlanta's old neighborhoods has increased from a trickle to a flood in recent years. The movement is being propelled by various social and cultural changes, coupled with motorists' desire to elude the gas-guzzling and time-wasting tedium of traffic jams.

Working with Atlanta’s top urban planners, the Midtown Alliance looked nationwide for urban lessons that could be applied locally. It assessed what made cites livable —how a concentrated population can live and work productively in close proximity — and how amenities can support a vital and worthwhile urban experience. Using Midtown as their milieu, these local leaders began laying the foundations for a livable city by orchestrating infrastructure, architecture and the physical environment.

The Midtown Alliance documented its approach in the late 1990's by publishing “Blueprint Midtown,” which enumerated ways to adapt for new growth and construction. It also set design guidelines for sidewalks, streetscapes, buildings and other elements to help keep streets safe, comfortable and functional.

Working with community groups, GDOT, USDOT, the City of Atlanta, and Fulton County, the Midtown Alliance and GreenbergFarrow have developed a bridge design that speaks to this re-linking, while incorporating basic functionality and design elements reflecting the bridge's context and era.

Construction of the Fourteenth Street Bridge is scheduled to begin in September and estimated to take 42 to 48 months to build. The project cost is $80.4 million, consisting of $32 million for construction and $48.4 million for right-of-way acquisitions.

Once complete, the new Fourteenth Street Bridge will introduce motorists to an enhanced green boulevard lined with shade trees at thirty-foot intervals linking east and west. The bridge will grow from 223 to 389 feet in length, and will widen from 80 to 115 feet. Fifteen-foot pedestrian zones will line its two sides. Traffic will move along six travel lanes divided by a 13-foot-wide, landscaped median that can be removed as future demand dictates.

As Fourteenth Street falls downhill toward the expressway conditions reveal a divided urban landscape. Years ago, construction of the expressway — followed by frequent subsequent expansions — and construction of the underground MARTA tunnel required demolition of numerous homes and buildings.

This activity severed connections between the city’s neighborhoods: Midtown and Ansley Park to the east, and Home Park, Georgia Tech and Midtown West to the west. The highway became a formidable wall. Circulation between neighborhoods was reduced to a few bridging cross-streets, the Fourteenth Street Bridge among them.

In essence, the community needed to repair a rift between the two sides of the expressway. While largely disengaged from one another today, neighborhoods on both sides have adopted master plans emphasizing "pedestrianization," interconnectedness, support for transit, and traffic calming.

GreenbergFarrow tackled the "pedestrianization" challenge by determining that the bridge's edge needed to be defined just as storefronts help define a pedestrian environment. Through both real-world and abstract analysis, the edge of the bridge alternates between solid and void, using a pattern that would accommodate people moving across and occupying the pedestrian space created on the bridge. The design also incorporates elements used in historic bridges of the past.

Edges are screened with die-cut aluminum screens four by ten feet tall, perforated in an abstract foliage pattern echoing similar historic ornaments in Piedmont Park. The edge will be subdivided into thirds by upright light standards at each end and at the "third” points, de-emphasizing bridge length and easing pedestrian flow. Ornamental fencing thus replaces customary, government-mandated, wire fence “missile barriers.”

The bridge will have a pedestrian environment that includes ten feet of sidewalk and a five-foot furniture zone against the curb. Furniture zone design elements also de-emphasize span length. The median will be planted with ornamental shrubs and flowers. Tall stands of shade trees function as a contemporary substitute for bridgeheads and accentuate the threshold to the city.

The redesign of the bridge is happening at exactly the right time and place in Atlanta. To the east of the connector lies Peachtree Street at Fourteenth Street, Midtown's principal intersection. The surrounding neighborhood has experienced an extraordinary turnaround during the past two decades. Intensive development peaks include the city’s Woodruff Arts Center, which stands a block north; the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's proposed new home is half a block west; and three blocks east is the western gate to Piedmont Park, Atlanta's premier open space.

In-town resurgence has also penetrated formerly dormant neighborhoods west of the expressway. Redevelopment of a former steel plant as Atlantic Station, a mixed-use development, boosted the west side’s prospects, as did the spread of Georgia Tech-related businesses. At Fourteenth Street’s western terminus, city officials may transform a waterworks facility into a park astride a planned greenway and transit corridor.

Smaller mixed-use development is appearing along Fourteenth Street between the bridge and Howell Mill Road. The White Provisions Building terminating the western vista will be renovated as shops, offices and residences. Other parcels anticipate new construction.

Another major step to reconnecting the neighborhoods is aesthetically unifying the entire length of Fourteenth Street. GreenbergFarrow is also under contract to various community organizations to manage streetscape design work from one end of fourteenth Street to the other, a route extending more than three miles from Howell Park Road straight through to Piedmont Park. This plan shapes a visually consistent environment along the entire street.

This is not the only American bridge to unify a split neighborhoods, such as the park built above Interstate 5 in downtown Seattle, nor in Atlanta, with a park-like span being constructed for the new Fifth Street Bridge, which is south of the Fourteenth Street Bridge.

The emergence of the east side of Fourteenth Street in Atlanta as a national urban showcase — and the stabilization and strengthening of the west side — have set the stage for a dramatic experiment in urban design. GreenbergFarrow's bridge-building project will enhance traffic flow while energizing local civic culture. A new infrastructure will spawn a healthy relationship between two bifurcated communities. Motorists and pedestrians — along with residents, commuters, tourists, visitors and vendors — will all benefit from a new streetscape that invites — and unites.

Peter Drey is director of urban design with Atlanta-based GreenbergFarrow.

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