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Freeway capacity has grown by next to nothing since 1999.
Pretty true. I did a little map searching, and went through historical imagery. Here is what I found. I looked at the connector, 285 (two locations), 400, and each spoke of interstate. Each spoke was checked about halfway between the split and 285. I have not yet looked up OTP freeways. I also checked how many MARTA stations were open each year. Here is what I found:
Since, 1999, metro population has grown 40%. Almost no new interstate lanes have been added since then, and MARTA has increased by only two stations, North Springs and Sandy Springs. No new MARTA stations have opened in over 16 years.
But the bigger surprise is between 1988 and now. A period of almost 30 years. More than double the metro population growth, only 400 added, most interstates have gained only one lane if any, and MARTA has opened only 9 additional stations.
That's pretty psychotic when you think about it.
EDIT: Apparently, city-data likes to add random spaces into the data above. I cannot get it to line up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh
Also, I don't think there is a single major freeway in the metro that hasn't had lanes added since 1999.
Feel free to prove my data above wrong. But it's what I seemed to find.
Think more of lane expansions have happened OTP, yet traffic is better ITP vs OTP (I guess that is an opinion that I have just heard from most, not sure how you quantify that).
I'd be more interested in how places like 75N just outside 285 have expanded over the years (Its what, 18 lanes at Windy Ridge now?) yet it is still probably the worst section of highway in rush hour traffic.
Discusses how bad the one freeway closure was here in Atlanta where there is little redundancy:
"...More intriguing was how the I-85 closure shifted congestion. Since travelers could not take I-85 to downtown, they detoured to I-20 or I-75. Drivers traveling through the region chose Atlanta's perimeter or beltway, I-285, instead. Commutes on I-20 took three times as long as before the collapse; commutes on I-285 took twice as long. Some chose arterials such as US 78 Scott Blvd, which had mile-long backups through Decatur. Travelers on Piedmont Avenue, which travels from Sandy Springs to Atlanta, encountered 5-mile backups.
Clearly congestion in Atlanta got worse. In fact instead of turning into some kind of Nirvana, commuting resembled rush hour traffic in Los Angeles. What happened? First, a closure of a facility cannot be compared to a multi-month shutdown. Most folks don't work during the weekend, so they don't have to go anywhere. They might want to check out a new restaurant or see a baseball game. But those trips are discretionary and can be made on another weekend. Second, Minneapolis has 8-10 different expressways that travel north-south in the region; Atlanta has 4. If one Minneapolis expressway is closed, travelers can easily choose another one. But if one of Atlanta's expressways is closed, travelers are stuck in congestion. The fact that Atlanta's congestion got noticeably worse while Minneapolis' did not shows the importance of building a robust network of expressways and arterials.* Finally, the biggest problem resulting from the I-85 collapse was not congestion but economic harm. Trucks were stuck on I-285 for hours, disrupting the delivery patterns of businesses. The severe congestion caused residents to avoid social gatherings and sporting events. This leads to real economic harm to the grocery stores that cannot get fresh produce in time and to the vendors at the half-full sports arena, not to the mention the public as a whole. What Cortright should be measuring is not just congestion, but whether commuters have quit making the trip because it is simply too hard to get someplace. That definitely happened in Atlanta, but it likely happened in Minneapolis as well, which is why the idea that a collapsed bridge is merely a minor inconvenience is just plain wrong."
That is bad for an infrastructure problem, but the state is not alone in the southeast. Tennessee has a series of dams badly in need of infrastructure repair and in serious danger of breaking - very hazardous situation for those downstream. Threats found in major dams in Tennessee
Also, I don't think there is a single major freeway in the metro that hasn't had lanes added since 1999.
Where are you getting that information?
I-85 from the Airport all the way to Mall of GA hasn't had a single lane added since 1999.
I-20 East AND West has not been TOUCHED since 1999 and I mean from Douglasville all the way to Covington and those collector lanes at I-285 don't count, that was only done to remediate a bottle neck between I-285 and Wesley Chapel, not to increase capacity.
I-75 has also not been touched throughout the entire metro... They Widened I-75 much further in central and south GA, but nothing has been done to I-75 in the metro.
nor has U.S. 78.
I-285 again has also not been widened... the 10 lane highway you see today between Dekalb and Cobb was completed before that.
INFACT
There are only two roads that I'm aware of that HAS had an increase of lane capacity and they are:
- GA-400 / US-19 between Holcomb Bridge and McFarland Rd..and that was only adding 1 additional lane each way and for awhile the Southbound side right lane was moronically designed as an exit only lane FOR EVERY SINGLE EXIT.. Thank god GA-DOT wizened up and re-mediated this.
- I-85 between Newnan and Fulton
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gulch
How?
2000: 4,112,198
2016: 5,789,700
So where are you going to put new freeways?
Most metro areas design "certain" arterial roads with the feasibility and possibility of upgrading them to freeways should the time and need ever come to past.. Atlanta metro completely omitted this step.
Peachtree Ind Blvd to Sugarloaf Pkwy with optional tolled overpasses over intersections would be a great start.
Tara Blvd to someplace south of Jonesboro at the very minimum would also help alot
GA-316 to Athens
A truck bypass and urban core bypass between I-85 Mall of GA area to I-20 just east of Covington and again to I-75 / McDonough area. Same for I-75 except starting north of Woodstock heading west meeting I-20 west of Douglasville and I-85 just barely north of Newnan, north of Fayetteville / Atlanta Motor Speedway, and finally meeting I-75 again in the McDonough area.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jsvh
Think more of lane expansions have happened OTP, yet traffic is better ITP vs OTP (I guess that is an opinion that I have just heard from most, not sure how you quantify that).
I'd be more interested in how places like 75N just outside 285 have expanded over the years (Its what, 18 lanes at Windy Ridge now?) yet it is still probably the worst section of highway in rush hour traffic.
Per lane expansions see my previous comment, almost none have happened within the last two decades. what HAS happened is remediation of certain interchanges like GA-316 and I-85, Pleasant Hill / Holcomb Bridge / Ashford Dunwoody and Windy Hill (and all 4 of these are RELATIVELY recent remediation's in comparison where as the earliest of all of those mentioned happened around 2011)
As far as traffic ITP ? I am doubting that. Everytime I come by the connector maybe two times of the ten times I go through it I don't end up in a cluster of traffic. Even the HOV Lanes don't help anymore ITP. I don't even think about taking surface streets like Roswell Rd. Piedmont and Peachtree are both a crunch. Same for Ponce. In the suburbs its less dense so neighborly roads don't get quite the pinch but instead our arterial roads are a complete mess but this is a design flaw.. not a suburban explosion issue. BUT.. for the benefit of a doubt.. lets say that the traffic ITP WAS better than OTP.. ITP has one major advantage that there is sufficient mass transit as long as you're staying INSIDE of I-285... but.. I am not of the belief that MARTA is making a major impact on the actual cars that drive even ITP.. I am of the belief that the people who really use it either
A.) Don't own a vehicle or
B.) are going to an event and don't want to deal with parking.
For me personally, after having actually used MARTA and needing the system to get around.. the only way I would ever use it again is if I absolutely had no other choice... I'm not condemning it by any means.. it's just.. I would MUCH prefer to privacy and freedom of my own vehicle than MARTA and I'm about 95% sure most of the drivers ITP feel the same way which is another reason the system hasn't been expanded in decades.
Last edited by Need4Camaro; 08-14-2017 at 04:12 AM..
Think more of lane expansions have happened OTP, yet traffic is better ITP vs OTP (I guess that is an opinion that I have just heard from most, not sure how you quantify that).
I'd be more interested in how places like 75N just outside 285 have expanded over the years (Its what, 18 lanes at Windy Ridge now?) yet it is still probably the worst section of highway in rush hour traffic.
Jsvh,
Be careful at drawing stereotypical conclusions when you weren't here previously.
We had the freeing the freeways program through the 80s with finding that dried up in the early 90s that gave us added expansions just before the Olympics. That was a major expansions and we had been dumping lots of money into freeway and transit in that era.
We've had some expansions but far more limited than you'd think. We really stopped spending money and went in a ultra-conservative streak across the board.
I
Most expansions has been creating ITS corridors.
He's using data from when we just expanded our Max before population growth caught up with us.
Sadly I'm back out on the job and can't get the internet speeds I need travelling to research much.
The original data I had found was about how much overall space in the built environment goes to ground transportation.
I'm not sure how this old third party study operationalized arterial roads. LA has far more than we have for sure. Many of us are still the same design from when they were country back roads.
Traffic is generally better itp than otp except for the connector. The reason is simple, when traffic hits 285, so many cars use that vs going intown. But there is only one free going northwest, inly one going northeast, etc... The capacity constraint exists where traffic from 285 and I town merge together going further out. That constraint exists because of the lack of major expansions since the '90s. The freeing the freeways program when Atlanta was far smaller was built with he assumption that cars were going intown. Perimeter center, Alpharetta, peach tree corners, and even Buckhead weren't what they are today as job centers. They were far smaller.
Back then itp was worse. With rising congestion office space moved to the suburbs.
That was apart of our epa smog mandates too. We created multi-nodal city so traffic travelled in multiple directions from each place, rather than just in one direction.
It largely worked, but it made us less intown-only centric.
Think more of lane expansions have happened OTP, yet traffic is better ITP vs OTP (I guess that is an opinion that I have just heard from most, not sure how you quantify that).
Well, this would be somewhat obvious. If you have a road that is 12 lanes wide, and then cut it down to 8 lanes wide, the 12-lane portion will become congested as people have to merge down. Once they are on the 8-lane part, it will start moving again.
Quote:
I'd be more interested in how places like 75N just outside 285 have expanded over the years (Its what, 18 lanes at Windy Ridge now?) yet it is still probably the worst section of highway in rush hour traffic.
Hard to say. At Windy Ridge, it's currently 4 lanes each way, with ramps entering and exiting from 285. How you want to count that, I don't know. Right where the ramps from 285 merge and split is 7 lanes northbound, and 6 lanes southbound. At Windy Hill, it becomes 9 lanes northbound and 7 lanes southbound. But all of that is just a byproduct of two major interstates intersecting and other roads intersecting shortly after. By the time you get to Delk Road, it's 12 lanes. Once it passes the Marietta Loop, it's 10 lanes. So, 75N goes from 9 lanes to 5 lanes in five miles. Any question why it's "the worst section"?
In 1999, 75 at the 285 merge/split was 7 north and 6 south, so not any bigger now. At Windy Hill, it was 9 lanes north and 7 lanes south, so not any bigger now. At Delk, it was 12 lanes, so not any bigger now. And past Marietta Loop, it was 10 lanes, so not any bigger now.
In 1993, the imagery is a little blurry, but it appears that 75 was 10 lanes at the Marietta Loop, so not any bigger now. It also appears that at Windy Hill, it was 9 lanes north and 7 lanes south, so not any bigger now.
So, it would appear that at least for 75 on the northside, no new lanes have been added in 24 years. They've been moved around numerous times, but not added.
In 1993, I-85 south of Jimmy Carter appears to be 6 lanes each way. It is now 7. So, one lane each added in 24 years.
Looking at 400 north of North Springs...it is now 4 lanes each way. In 1999, it appears to also be 4 lanes each way. In 1993, it appears to be 4 lanes each way, but hard to tell.
So, in the end...in 24 years, the population of Metro Atlanta has more than doubled, with a heavy concentration of that in the North, and we have added one interstate lane and a couple of train stations on one line. So, it would appear all that tripe about how we just keep adding lanes and they just keep filling up is false. We have added almost no high-capacity lanes or trains in decades while the population has exploded.
So, in the end...in 24 years, the population of Metro Atlanta has more than doubled, with a heavy concentration of that in the North, and we have added one interstate lane and a couple of train stations on one line. So, it would appear all that tripe about how we just keep adding lanes and they just keep filling up is false. We have added almost no high-capacity lanes or trains in decades while the population has exploded.
So...where is the room to construct these additional lanes and freeways without massive disruption of neighborhoods?
So...where is the room to construct these additional lanes and freeways without massive disruption of neighborhoods?
Did I say there was? I don't believe so. That should have been thought about several decades ago.
I'm just pointing to two things:
1. No, we have not added freeway lanes willy-nilly only to watch them fill up again. So, the induced demand hype has just not really happened.
2. We have done almost nothing to expand our transportation network in almost 25 years, while the population has doubled.
You all can point to cars and suburbanites as the problem, but the problem is that the metro has not expanded its transportation to meet the needs of a growing metro. Thus, I think we have plenty of reason to start building new transit now, and without needing tons of new additional density first.
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