Mad Man Traffic

I was talking to a friend of mine Monday who works for the city of Roswell. I was trying to get some things clear about road closures after I got copies of some city notices about them. Hardscrabble Road (one of my favorite names) is closed until the end of the month so they can realign the intersection with Crabapple. He was telling me it’ll work much better because of the odd way Rucker Road comes in near there. Then we were talking about Hembree being closed at Foe Killer Creek and Old Roswell Road being closed over the creek so they can replace the bridges. Both projects taking at least the rest of the year. And there’s the rub. Turns out by closing down those 2 roads it leaves only one way to cross the creek. Highway-9. Alpharetta Highway. And it’s causing problems for rush hour commuters coming and going through Alpharetta and Roswell. Remember if there’s a big wreck on 400 Highway-9 can only handle, at best, 1 in 5 cars that come off the big road.

Meaning gridlock. Lots of it.

I’m not sure what happened here during the planning process but I wonder if these traffic considerations were, well, considered?!? If you live, work or play around there how will you get around? Let me know at art@madmantraffic.com and help me bridge the gap!

Quo Vadis? Wither goest thou? Thursday on the Top End Perimeter there was a huge truck fire on 285 westbound between Chamblee Dunwoody & Ashford Dunwoody roads. The flatbed had been carrying bails of hay that caught fire. The driver managed to get his burning rig over to the side. Unfortunately the fire spread to the nearby trees. It took firemen hours to douse all the hot-spots. Part of the flatbed literally melted. They had to bring in cranes and front-loaders to help clean it up. And that heavy equipment got caught in the heavy delays, delaying the heavy lifting until later. Traffic backed up for almost 11 miles all the way down past the Stone Mountain Freeway! So whaddya’ do? Where do you go? I-285 across the top of the Atlanta doesn’t give you many choices. You’ve got to know your side streets. And yesterday that didn’t help because those surface streets were flooded with drivers bailing off trying to get around thus creating more gridlock. So in a case like that where do you go? All you can do is go with the flow.

Nightmare on 14th Street
Thursday 08-28-2008 6:57am ET
IT’S GOING TO BE A NIGHTMARE OVER THE LABOR DAY WEEKEND ON THE DOWNTOWN CONNECTOR. ONLY THIS TIME WE CAN BLAME THE 14TH STREET BRIDGE REPLACEMENT PROJECT AND NOT THE CONNECTOR REPAVEMENT PROGRAM. AS A MATTER OF FACT, FOR ALL INTENTS & PURPOSES, THAT’S DONE! OVER 2 MONTHS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!
NO. THIS TIME THEY HAVE TO REMOVE WHAT’S LEFT OF THE BRIDGE AND PREP THE AREA FOR THE NEW, LONGER & TALLER BRIDGE OVER 75 AND 85.
SO, THAT’S GOING TO MEAN MULTIPLE LANE CLOSURES HEADED INTO TOWN ON A WEEKEND WHERE THERE’S GOING TO BE OVER 150-THOUSAND ADDITIONAL PEOPLE HEADED INTO TOWN!
INTERSTATE 85 WILL BE CHOPPED DOWN TO JUST 2 LANES HEADING INTO THE CONNECTOR. THE REDUCTION WILL BEGIN AROUND GEORGIA 400. INTERSTATE 75 WILL BE CUT DOWN TO JUST ONE LANE HEADING INTO DOWNTOWN WITH THE TAPERING BEGINNING AROUND THE HOWELL MILL/NORTHSIDE EXIT.
THEY’VE SHIFTED THE MERGE OF 75 & 85 ALL THE WAY DOWN BY 10TH STREET IN ORDER TO ACCOMPLISH THIS PROJECT. ONCE PAST THERE THE CONNECTOR WILL BE WIDE OPEN. THE PROBLEM IS GETTING THERE. IT’S GOING TO BE A MESS. IF YOU’RE COMING DOWN 85 YOU NEED TO BAIL NO LATER THAN THE PEACHTREE EXIT AND TAKE THE BUFORD/SPRING CONNECTOR. IF YOU’RE CLOSER TO SPAGHETTI JUNCTION THEN IT’S THE EASTSIDE PERIMETER TO I-20. ON 75 YOU REALLY DON’T HAVE MANY CHOICES EITHER. THE WESTSIDE PERIMETER WILL BE THE BEST BET. OTHERWISE YOU’LL HAVE TO WAIT YOUR TURN ON NORTHSIDE DRIVE.
THERE’S NO GETTING’ AROUND IT. IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE. IT’S GOING TO BE BAD. BUT, ACCORDING TO THE PEOPLE AT THE D.O.T. IT WAS EITHER THIS OR SOMETHING LIKE THIS FOR THE NEXT 4 OR 5 WEEKENDS. AND WITH BRAVES, FALCONS, TECH AND OTHER EVENTS RAMPING UP IN SEPTEMBER THEY DECIDED TO JUST GO AHEAD AND MAKE CLEMSON AND ALABAMA FANS PAY FOR OUR PROGRESS.

Once again, my acute powers of observation and empirical evidence gathering have led me to another possible answer to the question of how to solve some of our traffic problems. GET OUT OF THE LEFT LANE! I cannot believe the number of vehicles that ride in the “hammer” lane with a screw loose. I drove up to Athens, TN., Sunday to go scuba diving with my crew from Atlanta Scuba. On the way up & back I was taken aback by how many times I would get caught in the back of a line of cars only to find that it wasn’t congestion it was just a slow moving vehicle that needed to be in the right lane to let faster traffic pass by. This lack of situational awareness is appalling. It causes other vehicles to swerve and dodge trying to get around. When it’s not necessary! GET OUT OF THE LEFT LANE! And, once again I’m not just going to point the finger of blame, or another finger I think I might have used a few times Sunday. I think it’s time law enforcement enforced the laws. Not just speeding, but violations like impeding the flow of traffic. I found out that Gwinnett County used to do it. If a GCPD officer spotted a vehicle on 85 on the left side with more than 2 vehicles behind it the lead vehicle would be pulled over and ticketed for impeding the flow. It’s time to go back in time and bring that initiative back. Otherwise the back-ups will just keep getting worse.

Well it looks like we’re getting another town in Atlanta. Like we need one. Residents of Dunwoody voted for secession from DeKalb this week. They think they can do a better job. The problem is drivers along the Top End Perimeter between I-85 and Georgia 400 already have their hands full of local cops and will get jobbed by even more. If you drive that stretch of highway you know it’s chock full of the law. Or they could be better characterized as revenue agents. And the Dunwoodians are all about the taxes, or lack thereof, passing all kinds of rules about not raising taxes on the fine citizens. So, that means another layer of law out on 285 trying to pay the bills! The argument that if we slowed down, etc., then we wouldn’t have to worry about the police performing their duties is nuthin’ but noise. They’ll find other ways. License plate brackets. Blinking taillights. Window tint maybe a little too dark, etc. Then they’ll heap the court costs on ya’, etc., and maybe throw in a fuel surcharge too. It’s time the Georgia state legislature steps in and bans local jurisdictions from interstate highways. Other states have done it already. Now it’s our time. Let the Georgia State Patrol work the interstates. That’s their job. And the state can cut a deal to allocate a portion of the ticket revenue to the local jurisdiction. That frees up officers to do what they took an oath to do. Protect and serve. Not cash and carry.

I’m not just “the Madman” in name only. Today, I really am mad! But I don’t know exactly where to direct my madness. Thursday a private sub-contractor digging a hole on Peachtree at Spring Street puts one of those ubiquitous metal plates over it when they wrap up. What they didn’t wrap their heads around was the plate wasn’t big enough. So, later, it fell into the hole. Then so did a coupla’ cars before someone finally put some barrels and tape around it. That kind of irresponsibility is maddening in and of itself. But the city’s response is even worse. At first they didn’t want to even do anything about it because it wasn’t there fault. It was a private contractor. WHO CARES?!? FIX IT! Then go after the contractor. If you say, well, the law says… Change the law. It can be done. Peachtree is a major artery in the heart of the city. Peachtree at Spring is a major commuter crossroad. Atlanta is a major city. We have a major problem when the people that run things around here fail to grasp that concept. It’s almost as if they have their collective head…in a hole!

THE GEORGIA STATE PATROL ANTICIPATES OVER 2-THOUSAND WRECKS OVER THE HOLIDAY WEEKEND AND AS MANY AS 19 TRAFFIC FATALITIES. WITH THAT IN MIND THE GSP..ALONG WITH DEPARTMENT Of PUBLIC SAFETY (DPS) UNITS AND THE CAPITOL POLICE SERVICE WILL BE OUT IN FULL FORCE..CONDUCTING ROADBLOCKS AND SATURATED PATROLS ON AND OFF INTERSTATE HIGHWAYS THROUGHOUT THE STATE. IN ADDITION, LAW ENFORCEMENT THROUGHOUT GEORGIA HAS KICKED OFF THE ANNUAL “CLICK IT OR TICKET” CAMPAIGN. THAT MEANS EVEN MORE ROADBLOCKS TO MAKE SURE YOU’RE BUCKLED UP.
AND THE SUMMER “HEAT” PROGRAM IS BACK. “HEAT” STANDS FOR HIGHWAY ENFORCEMENT Of AGGRESSIVE TRAFFIC. I ALWAYS WONDERED WHAT THOSE LETTERS STOOD FOR ON THOSE BLACK CROWN VICS. IT ALSO MEANS ADDITIONAL POLICE FROM ALL JURISDICTIONS WILL BE OUT CONCENTRATING ON D-U-I’S.. SPEEDING..AND SEATBELT ENFORCEMENT.

Tuesday evening’s storms resulted in the usual back-ups because of Atlanta’s innate fear of rain and trying to drive around the drops. But once again I have to get on my soapbox about something that just drives me crazy in bad weather. People who drive with their hazard lights flashing! STOP IT! It’s ineffective and it’s a dangerous distraction. If you’re that concerned about the road hazards that you have to hit the flashers then you become the biggest road hazard of them all. No one can try to anticipate where you’re going, a cornerstone of defensive driving. You need to pull to the side of the road or just get off the highway. Especially the interstate. I think the automakers should redesign vehicles whereby the hazard switch will only work if the vehicle is stopped. That’s the only way I can think of to stop hazardous people who rain on our commuter parade!

Apparently they’re laying more than asphalt at the Department of Transportation. It’s not just roads they’re paving! Seems state transportation board chairman Mike Evans was the DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham’s HERO unit on the road to romance! Now Evans has done the right thing and resigned after disclosing he’d been fishing off the company pier. Abraham’s fate is yet to be determined. Only a few months into her new job and it may become her old job. Even though Governor Sonny Perdue has given her his vote of confidence the state board of transportation could confidently vote her out. She got the job on the slimmest of margins when they voted her in. And now we come to discover she’d been working under Mike Evans in more ways than one!

I’ve been reading, with obvious interest, about the recently disclosed money woes of the Georgia department of Transportation. Then a story pops up about truck-only lanes and toll lanes not being good ideas. I found that interesting because those ideas had been heavily pushed by lobbyists. Put these stories together and you begin to see what appears to be an emerging change at the DoT. For one of the first times I can remember a state DoT engineer stated the obvious (backed up by research, not “feelings”). You create space more people will jump on the interstates to take advantage of it, thus filling everything up again, boxing out the trucks and creating additional congestion. It’s a dilemma alright. That takes me back to my 2007 mantra, “Manage What You Got.” Use no-cost or low-cost options to move traffic better throughout Atlanta. That means things like better traffic incident management. And that means some first response agencies are going to have to be dragged kicking and screaming into this new century whether they like it or not. You’d be surprised how much better your commute would be. That beats a billion dollar funding surprise in my book.