ATLANTA — McLendon Avenue is constantly filled with pedestrians, dogs and cars — including some that drive a little too fast. That's why Safer McLendon launched a plan to better protect them.
"There's a lot of foot traffic," said Naoya Wada, the infrastructure chair for the Candler Park Neighborhood Organization (CPNO). "Making sure that people feel safe is a huge, important thing for us."
The Candler Park and Lake Claire neighborhoods voted on the safety plan and pitched it to Atlanta City Councilmember Amir Farokhi. In January, the new year kicked off with new signs.
"I live on one of the streets that actually has one of the stop signs on it and I could immediately tell when I was walking my dog how easy it was to cross the street," Wada said. "Everyone's still getting used to it, but it was a noticeable difference."
Within days, three of the signs disappeared. A blog post from CPNO said the crimes occurred overnight between January 5 and 6.
"Just pure disbelief. It's very shocking... I saw a car run what I thought was a stop sign, but then I saw that it was missing," Wada said. "It's very confusing when you have stop signs one day and they're missing the next day."
He said the Atlanta Department of Transportation replaced the stop signs almost immediately. He said CNPO is working with the Atlanta Police Department to see if they can determine who did it.
APD said that no official reports have been filed with its department at this time. However, Zone 6 commanders have been coordinating officers to conduct extra patrols throughout the neighborhood because of the stop sign concerns.
"This is not just one person's effort. This is an effort of both of our neighborhoods of Lake Claire and Candler Park," Wada said. "We put a lot of effort into this. We'd love to make sure that we do this and give it justice for everyone involved."
He said this is just the first phase of a larger project to improve safety along McLendon Avenue.
"This is something that we're super, super excited about," Wada said. "We have a lot of tactical urbanism implementation that we're going to be looking forward to in the coming years."