Q&A with Rebecca Serna, Executive Director of Propel ATL
- David Melton
- Jun 30
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 3
Tell us a little about yourself and how long you’ve lived in Atlanta.
I grew up in DeKalb County and currently live in Kirkwood. I have three kids, and we’re a one-car household. We try to be car-light and use other modes of transportation. It helps that we live in a walkable community—which we chose intentionally—but it took a long time to get here.
I’ve always believed that great cities need sustainable, accessible transportation options. That belief has grown stronger as my kids have gotten older and started navigating the city on their own. We’re not trying to create more drivers, so we’re not teaching them how to drive until they get older. We see it more like a skill, like learning how to chop wood, but not something they need to do all the time.
So, part of how we’re raising them is teaching them how to navigate the city sustainably. They get a bike, a skateboard, a MARTA card, and some knowledge. Other parents will sometimes call us and say, “I saw your kids riding the bus—can you tell us how to do that?”
Who is Propel ATL and what is your mission?
Our mission at Propel ATL has evolved over time. We began very focused on bike commuting and building a bike network—that's still my main mode of transportation—but a lot of neighborhoods don’t have sidewalks, safe places to wait for the bus, or safe ways to cross the street. So many issues come up when you talk about mobility and affordable transportation in Atlanta and we are trying to address more of those problems. The bike is a great tool, and it works for some, but we needed a bigger toolkit to solve broader transportation problems.
What are you most excited about right now at Propel ATL?
We’ve had a program for a few years called Walk ATL that helps neighborhoods create their own pedestrian safety plans. They come up with an infrastructure project—like a tactical walk lane—that they can build themselves. We’ve provided microgrants to two neighborhoods to support those plans. Neither project has gotten off the ground yet, but Oakland City just submitted theirs to the Atlanta DOT for approval, and we’re hopeful it will get built this fall.
Another initiative that really motivates me is the launch of a local chapter of Families for Safe Streets. It’s a national movement where people who have lost loved ones or been seriously injured in traffic crashes become advocates for changes to prevent further tragedies. We’re currently in training with the national group to establish our chapter. It’s incredibly powerful—these individuals can’t undo their loss or injury, but they’re choosing to help others by improving the physical environment. I’m really excited to support that and be a part of it.
Tell us about Atlanta Streets Alive. How did it start, and how’s it going?
About 20 years ago, I was living in Colombia where many of the streets are closed to cars on Sundays. It was so quiet—you could walk freely, and people biked everywhere. That was my first experience with Ciclovía, the original open streets initiative that began in the 1970s. It’s really beautiful how fully incorporated into society and culture it is now that it’s 50 years old.
Inspired by Ciclovia, we started Atlanta Streets Alive in 2010. The goal was to spark curiosity and help people see streets as more than just conduits for cars. I was giving talks back then and people would say, “Don’t you have to be like Lance Armstrong to bike in Atlanta?” My response would be, “Well, I rode here in this dress and these shoes, so… no.” But I also acknowledged—it’s not like we’re making it easy. So that was the genesis of Streets Alive, just trying to drop a spark in the barrel and get something to light up.
I try to keep a long-term perspective in the ups and downs of our small program. In Bogotá, Ciclovía runs every Sunday from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., covering 75 kilometers, and in just the past two years, progress has accelerated dramatically. They finally got political leadership willing to act—even if it meant controversy—because they recognized that 80% of residents don’t own cars. That obviously shifts the political decision making process.
I recently got to go back and experience Ciclovia again and it was wild how much development has happened around it - huge 20 story apartment buildings, tons of grocery stores, shops, and at the same time, very little parking. And they had recently taken a lane on both sides of a very wide boulevard street and created a cycle track, and they are doing that all over the city. I try to take encouragement from that because I want to have progress happen faster here.
You’ve spent 20 years advocating for active transportation in Atlanta, a city largely designed for cars. What keeps you motivated, and what progress have you seen?
I really love this city. I like a place with some grit and challenge—why be an advocate if it’s easy? I also think it’s crucial to change Sunbelt cities like Atlanta. They were originally designed around trains but later reshaped around cars. If we can’t shift that trajectory, I think we’re in trouble, because car-centric design just isn’t sustainable long-term. Also, we can’t limit transit use to the big cities. We need people in suburbs and smaller cities to have non-car options too. That’s why I’m really interested in the concept of “retrofitting suburbia,” that Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones has written about. Atlanta, in many ways, is a suburban city.
Housing and transit are inseparably linked. What are your thoughts on housing as it relates to active transportation?
I have a strong interest in housing. Transit doesn’t work at the densities we have in Metro Atlanta. People blame remote work, but ridership is recovering in other cities and in Atlanta it’s not. To have a reasonable level of ridership, we need to bring people to transit with more housing in any form—from ADUs to large Transit Oriented Developments. That should be a Metro-wide priority, not just something the City of Atlanta or MARTA tackles. Each community needs to be doing whatever they can to prevent the storage unit facility from going in across from the transit station (unless, of course, it's to serve a high-density housing next door).
And the housing that is being created needs to consider mobility in their development. Many traffic deaths are occurring in places like South DeKalb, where new housing is being built on massive state roads like Memorial Drive. In our annual crash report, Memorial Drive was the deadliest corridor in the MARTA service area. There’s decent transit—like Kensington Station—but you have to cross 7 to 10 lanes of high-speed traffic to access it. Thankfully, GDOT is more receptive now than it used to be to safety concerns. When we pushed for improvements on Memorial, they responded with, “Yeah, we don’t need all these lanes.” That’s progress.
How can the ATL ADU community get involved with Propel ATL?
We’re a small nonprofit with a staff of six, so we’re always in need of volunteers and donations. The changes at the federal level are trickling down and negatively affecting us, so we’re in the middle of a fundraising drive right now and donations absolutely help.
We also work with a lot of skilled volunteers. For example, our crash report wouldn’t be possible without them. So if people have specific expertise, we’d love to find ways for them to plug in. More broadly, we’re always trying to empower residents to become advocates in their communities. A big first step is getting to know your elected officials and learning how to effectively engage with them.
Also, e-bike rebates were a huge success in Atlanta last year. We’re working with the City to get a second round of funding, and the Atlanta Regional Commission has a backend mechanism that would allow other cities and counties to offer the program too. So if you’re outside the City of Atlanta, talk to your elected officials about bringing e-bike rebates to your area.
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