ATLANTA — A lawsuit may bring about change for a dangerous stretch of road for pedestrians in downtown Atlanta.
The family says they’ve given the city a year to make this street safer. Now they’re suing for negligence and $12 million.
“My mom called me and said your father has been hit by a car,” said Puja Jabbour, who told Channel 2’s Eryn Rogers she’ll never forget the worst day of her life.
“He would come down almost every day and cross at this very crosswalk to come over here to the Hub at Peachtree Center and get him and my mom lunch,” she said.
She told me her parents have had a showroom at America’s Mart for more than 20 years.
Then on Feb. 11, 2025, a truck hit Pradeep Sood just as he was crossing the center line.
“What used to be the crosswalk has now been resurfaced,” Jabbour said.
The city put in a mid-block crosswalk back in 2021 as part of a pilot program to make the street safer but removed the program in 2022.
“You can always see people crossing the street over here, and it’s just a dangerous environment for pedestrians,” said Satya Bhan with Atlanta Families for Safe Streets.
After Sood’s death, the city council voted to replace the crosswalk that had been fading ever since.
“What’s been frustrating is that after council passed the resolution that we did in March of 2025, we received a verbal confirmation from the department of transportation that this would be done by the end of June. We’re now halfway through February,” said Councilman Matt Westmoreland, Atlanta City Council Post 2 At-Large.
Rogers reached out to Atlanta DOT to see what’s causing the delay of putting a crosswalk there.
The agency’s statement reads in part:
<b>The Department of City Planning (DCP) will lead public engagement sessions to ensure meaningful community input along this vital corridor. These sessions will take place in advance of the safety improvement installations tentatively scheduled to begin in Fall 2026.</b>
— Atlanta Department of Transportation
But Westmoreland told Rogers, it shouldn’t even take that long.
“It’s not a funding issue. It’s not a design issue. Honestly, can’t tell you what the issue is,” he said.
That’s why Sood’s family say they are now suing the city.
“Saying something is going to happen, promising to make something happen, is just not enough anymore. We need to see action,” Jabbour said. “Whatever happened to my dad as unfortunate as that was, it is going to happen again if nothing happens, and the city does not respond, and it breaks my heart.”
The city council is set to re-introduce a resolution for the crosswalk at their meeting Monday.
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