Difficult to understand a safety issue here.
Stopped motor traffic at Olympic should *cautiously* and safely enter the intersection at College when school children are present. Unless, of course, motorists have something better to do than operate their 3,000-pound conveyance in a safe and cautious manner. I am sure that is not you, however. Always vigilant and always cautious, surely.
To be clear: roadway traffic signals are a *safety* device not a license to drive as if others are simply “in the way” or in need of containment. The first safety device is the operator. Caution, that is, is always an option.

Also, crosswalk signals should be at about the bottom of city roadway priorities. It would be difficult to find any study showing added safety via crosswalk signals.

p.s. I regularly use this crosswalk and have noticed exactly zero danger being posed by those a-foot. The deadly danger posed by motorists, however, is imminent and inescapable.

I would encourage you to look more closely at what happens at this particular intersection: while motorists who live on Olympic do understand what limited visibility we have coming off the street and do use caution, the motorists who are too impatient to wait for the left turn onto Atlanta Ave from College, turn into Olympic, turn around and wait in the shorter queue to travel across the tracks do not. Additionally, pedestrians fail to take into consideration that they need to stop when the lights for College AND Olympic are red because there is occasional thru traffic that crosses the tracks on Atlanta Ave and travels onto Olympic; these motorists also have limited visibility if a pedestrian has just stepped into the crosswalk as they are coming through the intersection and continuing on Olympic.

I flagged this as a safety issue because the traffic patterns at this particular intersection are confusing to those adults not familiar with the intersection and totally baffling to children who use that crosswalk without so much as a glance across the tracks to confirm the absence of oncoming cars to Olympic!

John Maximuk has been on Olympic and observed the dangers posed by this intersection first hand. The residents of Olympic are encouraged by the involvement of the City, but we hope to keep the issue at the forefront of the City to ensure pedestrian safety at this particular intersection.

And if unfamiliar with the light pattern there is no way for pedestrians to anticipate how much time they have for crossing before the light for Olympic place turns green and they can be caught inn the middle off the intersection.
Yes drivers should be careful nobody is suggesting otherwise, but I think that misses the fundamental point that a 5 way intersection that is designated as a safe route to school for multiple surrounding schools, on a busy state road, should reasonably at a minimum have walk signals in all cross walks.

This intersection does have unique challenges and this is why we have studied modifying both sides of this intersection. In order for me to better understand your concern, would you please call me, David Junger, 404-377-5571?

Your time is appreciated,

David

Both traffic signals at W Howard & Atlanta Ave is malfunctioning - they are shorting and only show a yellow light for a couple of seconds. No red or greens.

This intersection will be addressed as part of the Atlanta Ave RR crossing project.