Atlanta intercity visit — epilogue
- April 12, 2024
- Posted by: Jacob Rigg
- Category: Blog
RTA members,
In addition to the RTA tours that we host from time-to-time, RTA members and other colleagues have the opportunity to attend the intercity visits of our member chambers from Raleigh, Durham, Cary, Chapel Hill, Garner, Wake Forest, and others.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Raleigh Chamber Intercity Visit and Leadership Conference of Atlanta. It was extraordinarily well-attended, with around 175 people visiting Georgia’s capital city.
The multi-day event included a visit to the Battery mixed use development around the new Atlanta Braves stadium, and how the site accommodates access to a major destination from multiple points using their multimodal freeway system. RTA and our partners will be grappling with questions about enhancing access to major destinations in our region in the upcoming weeks and months.
A highlight was a trip to the “Beltline”, which does not resemble I-440 in any way, but is instead a spectacular urban greenway promenade with significant, context-appropriate development including adaptive reuse sites.
Related highlights were the multiple sessions with public policy debates around the future of the Beltline corridor — in particular whether/how to incorporate transit — which were an excellent opportunity for attendees to experience the give-and-take about policy tradeoffs, and how perspectives change over time with new information (i.e., after a major piece of infrastructure opens).
Kudos to our Raleigh Chamber colleagues for a truly outstanding trip to a home run location! It provided wonderful content and cemented new and stronger relationships with RTA members, other business community partners, and key elected and government officials.
There are upcoming trips from our fellow member chambers within the next six months: Cary (Nashville, in May), Durham (Minneapolis and St. Paul, in September), and Chapel Hill-Carrboro (Ann Arbor, in September). Please contact those chambers if you are interested in attending or learning more.
Each of the more than 25 chambers of commerce in the RTA confederation of member chambers provides valuable focus, insights, and perspectives on mobility, and not just in their immediate service areas. We are grateful for their leadership and their ongoing service on the RTA Regional Leadership Team.
Let’s get moving,
Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA executive director
RTA is the voice of the regional business community on transportation
