Atlanta freeway revolts

The longest and most famous examples of Interstate opposition were against I-485 and the Stone Mountain Freeway through Intown Atlanta, lasting over 30 years, from the early 1960s until the final construction of Freedom Parkway on a small portion of the contested routes in 1994.

[7] In 1981, ex-President Carter revived the idea of a highway along the east-west route to serve his planned presidential library and policy center on Copenhill.

The road would connect the new Carter Center with downtown on the west, and to Druid Hills (and thus access to Emory University) to the east.

CAUTION, Lieutenant Governor Pierre Howard (D-Decatur), Mayor Maynard Jackson, and a majority of councilpersons were opposed, as well as elected officials at the county, state and federal levels.

Governor Howard and DOT Commissioner Wayne Shackleford was reached to build the road as it exists today, and to the choice of the name "Freedom Parkway", in theory because it links the Carter Center with the Martin Luther King historic district.

This photography show was supported by a grant by the City of Atlanta Bureau of Cultural Affairs and the Dept of Planning.

Langford Parkway, originally called the Lakewood Freeway (I-420) – now part of Georgia 166 – was to be built eastwards past its current terminus at the southern end of the Downtown Connector to connect to the north-south I-675 route, and then to meet I-20 near Gresham Park in south DeKalb (map of proposed route).

In 2010 a freeway to link GA-400 at Lindbergh with I-675 at the southeast Perimeter, again appeared on GDOT's list of potential projects, this time in the form whereby the intown portion would be in a 14.6-mile-long, 41-foot-wide tunnel.

The Reason Foundation had first advocated for such a tunnel in 2006, proposing that it would be paid as part of larger plan to reduce congestion via tolls.

[12] Rep. Pat Gardner held a meeting at Rock Springs Church in Morningside on January 4, 2010 with GDOT and Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) leaders, Mayor Kasim Reed, city councilmembers and assemblypersons.