A Green-Space above the Traffic
Atlanta’s Fifth Street
Bridge officially opened
to much fanfare on a cold
December 2006 morning. Local
politicians, members of
the Georgia Dept. of Transportation,
the design teams, representatives
from Georgia Tech, a contingent
from the Georgia Tech Marching
Band, Buzz (the Georgia
Tech mascot), and curious
onlookers attended the ribbon
cutting ceremony for the
city’s newest bridge
and public green space.
Since its opening, it has
garnered praise from the
many students, faculty,
and Midtown workers that
use it to make the trek
across the downtown connector
between the Georgia Tech
campus and Midtown. The
existing bridge was replaced
to include the original
four lanes of vehicular
traffic, but tripled in
width to include a public
park-like space. The bridge,
which spans 15 lanes of
interstate traffic below,
now houses bike lanes, 24-foot-wide
sidewalks, seat walls, lighting
and nearly 33,000 square
feet of planted landscape
areas, of which half is
open lawn for visitors’ relaxation.
Landscape material was specified
to reduce noise from the
traffic below, and to provide
much-appreciated shade,
a 200-foot-long trellis
was added on the southern
side.
The Fifth Street Bridge
project has a long history.
In the late 1990s, Georgia
Tech announced intentions
to expand its campus east
of the downtown connector
and into Midtown. With the
success of the school’s
eastward expansion, it became
apparent that a more cohesive
connection to the main campus
would be beneficial. Originally
proposed by the late Kim
King, the goal of the Fifth
Street Bridge redesign was
to create a public park-like
space to physically and
visually tie the east and
west sides together, provide
space for foot, bike, and
vehicular traffic, and shield
bridge users from the noise
of the interstate highway
below.
The bridge accomplishes
what it set out to do. It
has greatly improved pedestrian
access between the Georgia
Tech campus and Midtown,
and created an unusual park-like
space in the city.
|
 |
