Driving in Atlanta GA 7-30-24

Metro Atlanta is plagued by driving obstacles and it’s getting worse. The addition of Multi-purpose trails next to roads is the latest piece of sabotage offered by the Georgia DOT and Regional Commission. The trails are ostensibly for bikes, as the bike lanes failed to be wide enough to be safe. Nobody rides bikes except biker clubs. Few walkers use sidewalks available on main roads, but most walking takes place in subdivisions that have no sidewalks. This is safer because neighbors are near. Atlanta residents use their cars to grocery shop and commute to work and that is not likely to change. 

Atlanta was rebuilt after the Civil War with narrow streets. Politicians continued to keep this model even after the US Highway System was built in the 1950s. We arrived in Atlanta in 1983 when the population was about 3 million. Driving became more difficult as the population swelled to 5 million. The outer belt for I-75 and I-85 was I-285 and it was too small and was stuffed with interstate truck traffic that ran through the center of the City of Atlanta. The first HOV lanes appeared in 1994 to encourage car-pooling. In 2007 a bus carrying a baseball team took an HOV lane and crashed through the guard rail killing 7 people. HOV lanes are hard to navigate and seldom used. They were finally replaced by “express lanes” where the DOT partnered with outside fee collecting companies. These too are hard to navigate.

The population of Metro Atlanta in 1950 was 688,200. I-285 was planned in 1954 and the first segment was dedicated in 1971. The population of Metro Atlanta was 1,387,865. I-285 was finished in 1981 and the population of Metro Atlanta was 1,625,000. In 1990, the population of Metro Atlanta reached 2,184,000.  In 2000 the population of Metro Atlanta was 3,522,000. The population of the Atlanta Region includes 28 far-flung rural counties and has a population of 6,307,261.

GA-400 was planned in 1984 to allow for growth of suburbs and exurbs north of Atlanta. It was completed in 1991 and is completing its connection with I-285.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_State_Route_400#History

Now, GDOT is proposing express lanes on GA-400 to charge users a fee. These express lanes were installed on I-85 to replace the failed HOV lanes. This adds further confusion to navigating the highways. If you inadvertently move to an express lane, you will be charged the fee. The express fee scheme is a private-public partnership aimed at raising revenue for GDOT by sharing the fee with a private company that signs up to fund part of the addition. It also makes navigating these highways more confusing and difficult. We avoid using the highway system whenever possible. The GDOT redesigns for highways and intersections are confusing and deadly.

The solution to Metro Atlanta’s traffic problem is to shrink the population. This will happen eventually as more drivers are killed on the roads. It could also happen when manufacturing returns to the US, offering jobs in rural counties.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader