Thanks to everyone who came out last Saturday for the Atlanta BeltLine’s Earth Day clean-up put on by Keep Atlanta Beautiful!! Group 4 did an incredible job of clearing out underbrush and trash along the BeltLine tracks from Lake Avenue (near Studioplex Lofts) south to Edgewood! Check out the map here of the area our group cleared! I pinpointed Studioplex, so just go east a bit to where the railroad tracks cross Lake Avenue. Kevin Cregan (of Kudzu Studios, who does all the printing and merchandise for the BeltLine) and I were team leaders together for group 4, which cleaned and cleared from Lake Avenue on to to where group 5 started at the Edgewood bridge. Group 5 cleared kudzu off of a very long length of fence that runs from the Edgewood bridge to the DeKalb Avenue bridge. To the north of us, volunteers stretched all the way to Freedom Parkway! Another team leader, Brad, brought his group down and merged with ours to form a very long stretch of people clearing brush and trash.
Overall, the BeltLine clean-up had over 200 people registered at 8 a.m. and had dozens more show up to help out. When we first gave our group the overview of the ambitious projects for the morning, I don’t think anyone had any idea how much we would accomplish. Our volunteers were amazing! We even had a girl walk up the tracks halfway through the morning and said she’d read about it and asked how she could help. And my Dad was out in full force (as he usually is to help out with volunteer events) and I eventually had to coax him to put down the pruning shears and come eat.
The goal of this clean-up was to make the BeltLine tracks more walkable for people to check out and envision the greener future of Atlanta transportation. This clean-up came on the heels of a major effort last fall to clean up from Freedom Park to Piedmont Park, so now the tracks and trail are visible from DeKalb Avenue and Inman Park all the way up to Piedmont Park in Midtown. You should definitely check it out! And come out to volunteer with the Atlanta BeltLine anytime by clicking here! We’re still in need of volunteers to help with the BeltLine booth for the Sweet Auburn Festival, Go Green Get Rewards Festival, and Virginia Highland Summerfest in the next six weeks!
BeltLine progress! The photos on the left are looking south down the BeltLine from Lake to Edgewood, showing the growth over the second track, our group cutting and sawing, and me sitting on the tracks at the end. The right side shows another team cleaning kudzu off of the fence between Edgewood and DeKalb Avenue; cleaning up the bridge under Edgewood; and Gerard, Zack, Angel, and me hanging out at the after party (and Dad stopped for a minute to take this photo of us).
