Some pretty good news on Atlanta traffic (Washington, Boston: transfer, buy)

[arjay57]

We come in no. 12, which is really not bad.

We are right in there with our peer cities, and well ahead of transit meccas such as NYC, Boston, San Francisco and Washington DC.

Maybe that should be our new slogan: "The ATL -- it just works."

Or does somebody already have that?

http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/n...hronicle%29#i1

[primaltech]

Not sure, but I don't think this factors in the especially spread-out sprawl of metro Atlanta. Around here, it already takes you 30 minutes to get from one side of town to the other, even without traffic. or 45+, if you live more than few couple miles OTP, which many do. So, even just moderate rush hour congestion levels can leave many sitting there for an hour and a half plus.

Also the other big left-out factor here: having other commute options. Around here, most of us pretty much HAVE to sit in the car traffic, to get from a given A to B. Because our regional transit system is basically a complete joke. If you're lucky enough to even have bus service at all both where you live and work, it can take multiple, crawl-slow bus routes and transfers, and hours of your time to try to make any use of it. And the train is extremely stunted, goes almost nowhere.

Whereas, New York's and Chicago's transit alternatives are amazing. Traffic-clogged DC's train system is way more effective than ours. And Seattle's pumping $50 billion in to massively expand theirs, even Denver is heavily investing, while we're still stuck in the 1950's, kicking the can, dragging our feet.

Sorry, but this is not a topic that we need to be looking at the bright side at, or feeling in any way satisfied. No matter what we do with roads, no matter what we do with transit- that traffic figure is only going to go up, as population increases. So, we need some options and ways to bypass the traffic, so we can get our average commute times more under control. Sitting there in your vehicle in traffic every day, is a waste of time, health, life.

[Atlwarrior]

Ranking means nothing in reality.

[Atlmike]

I AGREE 100%. In reality atl has some of the most dysfunctional traffic in the country when you consider all factors and options other big metros have. The constant wrecks(mostly fender benders and one-person screw ups) that tie up entire interstates here are ridiculous.

[fieldm]

Like I have said dozens of times....most of the people that think Atlanta has the worst traffic arent well-traveled

[Atlanta Scientist]

Agreed. I know that it doesn't bring anyone solace sitting in traffic on the connector that we are ranked 12th but Atlanta is far from the worst. According these stats, the cities with the better transit than Atlanta have worse commute times. Atlanta is a better city for those who commute buy automobile while those cities are better for those that commute by public transit. I'd like for Atlanta to expand its transit options. I'd hate for traffic to get like Chicago's before the metro start's to plan for other options.

[arjay57]

It's hard to see how public transit has much effect on traffic. Cities that have dumped gazillions of dollars into it are significantly worse off than we are.

[primaltech]

Originally Posted by arjay57

It's hard to see how public transit has much effect on traffic. Cities that have dumped gazillions of dollars into it are significantly worse off than we are.

It doesn't, at all. Not the point. It gives people options to bypass the traffic. It affects average commute time, which is the vital stat.

[Go Blue 99]

Let's face it, traffic is bad pretty much everywhere in big cities. I was on a finance message board where someone was considering moving to Seattle, and multiple Seattle residents were warning him about how bad the traffic is. That's one city that I've never heard traffic problems about.

[ATLTJL]

I'd say it's not as much good news for us as it is terrible news for the cities worse than us. Perspective.