Road work on Interstate 75 heading into Atlanta.During her annual State of the City speech, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms announced that she plans to create a city Department of Transportation to help address potholes and traffic, AJC reports.
Councilman Andre Dickens said he plans to introduce legislation creating the new department to the city council right away.
Dickens came up with the idea of creating the department a few years ago when Mayor Bottoms was a city councilwoman, but he credits Bottoms for putting some of her top staff members on the issue six months ago.
“Together we charted a path forward and presented it to the mayor last week,” Dickens said, according to the news agency. “She has all along agreed that this was good work to do. We were right there together.”
During her speech, Bottoms said the new department would coordinate with the public works department, the planning department, and Renew Atlanta, which makes long-term transportation infrastructure investments in the city.
“These departments do a good job, but to do a great job, they need to operate from the same playbook,” Bottoms said, according to the news agency.
