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house at the Buckhead Theatre to discuss the project with residents.

Wayne Morgan, who lives in Buckhead, walked on Peachtree to the theater for the presentation. He said it was the first time he’d walked the busy street.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “You can’t drive in urban areas at 50 miles an hour. The traffic has to be slowed down.”

After examining the maps, Gordon Certain, president of the North Buckhead Civic Association, said the proposed changes should help slow traffic. “I’m glad they’re paying attention to it,” Certain said. “I think it’s going to be a lot calmer for pedestrians.”

The first two phases of the overall Peachtree project have been completed, the CID says. The work already done covers Peachtree from Maple Drive to the Buckhead CID boundary at Roxboro Road.

The new designs will cover segments of Peachtree from Maple Drive to West Shadowlawn Avenue and then from Shadowlawn to Sheridan Drive.

Construction is to begin this summer on the Shadowlawn-to-Sheridan segment. Work on the Maple-to-Shadowlawn segment is scheduled to begin in 2015, the CID says on its website.

“Fairly often I walk from here to the [Buckhead] Village,” Durrett said during an interview in his office in a high-rise near Peachtree and Piedmont roads. “It’s not that far, but with the quality of the walking experience right now, it feels like it’s a long way.”

Work done on future phases of the project will differ from the work already done, in part because there is less space between buildings and the roadway, Durrett said.

“[On the north end], we were able to widen Peachtree. You’re not going to be able to widen Peachtree down there,” he said. “You’re not going to have seven lane cross-sections with huge landscaping and huge sidewalks. People should not expect that. It’ll be scaled down.”

Poncey-Highland could have easily been a casualty of Atlanta’s love of building freeways, but determined residents banded together with other neighborhoods in the 1980s to preserve their community.

Former President Jimmy Carter proposed a “Presidential Parkway” to connect Downtown to his new Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, but the road would have continued into Druid Hills. The GDOT demolished more than 500 homes, but the project was curtailed and we were left with Freedom Parkway.

Poncey-Highland, named for the intersection where Ponce de Leon and N. Highland avenues intersect, contains many of Intown’s most historic buildings, not to mention favorite businesses and landmarks.

The circa 1939 Plaza Theatre continues to show indie and new films, while you can slide into a booth at Majestic, which has been serving up diner food since 1929. Manuel’s Tavern is still a favorite haunt of politicos and journalists, while Blondie still works the pole at Clermont Lounge, the city’s oldest strip club. And if you haven’t given in to Netflix, Videodrome has DVDs and videos to rent.

For more about the neighborhood, visit ponceyhighland.com.