By David Pendered

Dec. 9 – Birmingham is soon to start retooling 2.5 miles of roads and sidewalks in its Civil Rights District in hopes of sparking economic renewal.

Plenty of redevelopment opportunities exist in the neighborhood surrounding the 16^th Street Baptist Church, where four girls died in a terrorist bombing in 1963, and the nearby Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. On the Sunday afternoon after Thanksgiving, few folks were out walking around the tidy neighborhood where mid-rise buildings appeared to be shuttered and shops were closed.

Birmingham officials intend for future renewal in the Civil Rights District to eventually connect with the vibrant area to the north, anchored by the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex.

The Birmingham Urban Trail and Multimodal Corridor is a centerpiece of this plan. In 2024 it received its 2013 award of $21.7 million from the federal RAISE program, which funds roads, rail and transit projects deemed to meet a national objective. Two objectives in Birmingham are to address an area of persistent poverty and a historically disadvantaged community.

The project is to make the travel corridor, meaning streets and sidewalks, safer and more pleasant for all the users – cars and buses, pedestrians and cyclists. The concept is known as Complete Streets and the U.S. DOT has provided a full description here. These amenities are intended to foster economic renewal.

Atlanta has achieved success with a similar project. By the time the private sector was ready some 20 years ago to develop in the area that’s become the 35-acre Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park, Atlanta had plans and infrastructure in place to accommodate much of the growth. Land that once was vacant or with buildings that were underutilized have be redeveloped with mixed use developments and commercial centers.

Birmingham civil rights Complete Streets

CommonFutureATL