Mad Man Traffic

I read a story in the AJC that Forbes magazine ranks Atlanta’s commute as now the worst in the nation. The news should not be too surprising in light of what I told you late last year when we got word from federal transportation people that Atlanta was the “poster child” for bad traffic in the nation. Our area is so bad, according to Forbes.com, we’ve qualified to share in over a billion dollars of federal money to find ways to improve our congestion. I’m encouraged to see that many of the ideas follow my mantra, “manage what you got.”
What I’m having a hard time managing is this drive towards making drivers pay to drive the roads, we already paid for, during peak driving times. I understand why planners might like this idea. With the DoT dollar crunch it makes dollars and sense, to them, to plow the money back into the system to keep the infrastructure from crumbling. But to me it’s like being taxed twice for the same thing.
Another idea I really like is allowing single occupant vehicles to use the HoV lane. Yeah, they would pay. But that’s different. That’s a privilege on top of a privilege you’ve already paid for. Personally, I like the idea of express lanes. HoV lanes really are ineffective. Go ahead and make em’ express lanes and let people go! Then vigorously enforce traffic by making sure slower moving vehicles are kept out of the way.
One more thing. We need ALL local government jurisdictions thinking one way on this. Too many cooks spoil the broth. And we’re already stewing in our own juices now in America’s poster child for bad traffic.