GA 400 has been described as ‘the scar that will never heal’ because of the way that it divided Buckhead when it was built in the early 1990s. Two decades later, the GA 400 corridor is being transformed into PATH400, a 5.2-mile multiuse trail that will unify and improve the community, and that also forms the backbone of a visionary plan for increasing parks and greenspace in Buckhead.
Identified as the spine of Buckhead’s future parks system in the Buckhead Collection, the PATH400 trail offers the community the opportunity to leverage lands in public ownership to develop a community amenity that will provide local recreational and social opportunities including walkable and bikable connections to local schools and the commercial business district as well as to the Atlanta Beltline. The PATH400 trail project will reinvent the GA400 corridor by reconnecting a community previously divided in half by the highway.
Working toward the mission laid out by Atlanta City Councilman Howard Shook and undertaken by a partnership comprised of Livable Buckhead, the Buckhead Community Improvement District and the PATH Foundation, the GA400 trail brings together some of Buckhead’s most notable community leaders with the Southeast’s most notable and experienced trail builders with a single unified vision.
During the summer of 2012, Livable Buckhead met with stakeholders, including residents, civic associations, commercial property owners and community leaders to gain feedback for the trail design. That feedback, as well as experts’ advice, was integrated into the final design for the tail.
Public Engagement has been a key part of the trail throughout all stages of its development from the identification of the project, to the input informing the design, to communications regarding construction to ongoing maintenance needs. Through direct one-on-one conversations, media relations, presentations to neighborhood associations, social media and website techniques, Livable Buckhead continues to provide information and receive input from the community.