Tuesday, the Buckhead Community Improvement District unanimously approved a budget of about $820,000 for a new Buckhead Uptown Connection shuttle program at its monthly board meeting at Tower Place. It is a three-year contact with a right to cancel.

Denise Starling, executive director of the Buckhead Area Transportation Management Association and Livable Buckhead, said new shuttle bus changes would go into effect July 1. Aside from being repainted and re-branded, the shuttle stops will have QR codes, enabling people to snap pictures of them with smart phones and immediately find out when the next bus is arriving.

“We’re taking technology we’ve had in place for a year and putting it in place where users have more access,” Starling said.

Additionally, she said the association has worked extensively on timing the buses to cater to commuters’ convenience and it is launching a brand new website this week, which Starling said will be much better than the old one. It will be simple with “key info on routes” but is more “proactive” and will change more frequently, she said.

Starling said the Ga. 400 Trail construction drawings and plan are projected to be completed in May. Representa-tives of Livable Buckhead, the nonprofit planning the bicycle/pedestrian trail, will be meeting with the city of Atlanta July 13 to “get everything ironed out for everyone to agree and sing ‘Kumbaya’ and move it forward,” Starling said.

On the topic of wayfinding signage throughout Buckhead, decisions to implement them are being put on hold for at least a couple of months as there is some skepticism on whether or not it will serve the community.

The Buckhead Coalition last month offered $55,000 to install nine wayfinding signs pointing to public places throughout Buckhead.

“I don’t have enough comfort to just take what the coalition has done,” said district Executive Director Jim Durrett. “I need to be a little more convinced with some other heads looking at it.”

Durrett said he plans on getting a group together and forming a recommendation regarding the wayfinding signage and determining whether or not the district wants to help fund a more “robust program.”

“We have to figure out what the law allows but we want to be thoughtful about this and make sure whatever stake we put in the ground, we can build upon it,” Durrett said.

In other action, the district’s board of directors unanimously approved a proposal to levy an ad valorem taxation rate of 3 mills, which is unchanged from last year.