Let's Leave I-85 Closed (Atlanta, Jersey: transfer, place to live, cost of)

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by arjay57

Good maps, jsvh.

Typically our traffic isn't all that bad -- you see an awful lot of green and orange on these maps even at rush hour.

Yes, the top end Perimeter gets hammered, as do the main routes leading to it.

But once you get ITP it's pretty smooth sailing. The main exception I see in the city itself is the central North-South corridor from Buckhead to around Lakewood, and we already have exceptional mass transit there. I-20 east could also use some help.

On the whole we're in pretty good shape.

Typical ATL Traffic

Arjay,

That is typical because people drive in all directions.

People driving on the spur routes hit 285 and then split up into multiple directions with each direction having fewer cars by themselves.


What I would spot out is 285 is taking the brunt of this and you can see it in the comparisons between typical and live above.

More green ITP is because drivers are avoiding those stretches, but they are also diverting to 285 and bypassing more

[jsvh]

Isn't that exactly what 285 / bypasses are supposed to be for?

I am not trying to deny suburbs their highways. Y'all go ahead and widen 285 to 30 lanes or build the norther arc if you think it will help (spoiler: it won't). We just need to scale them back in the city to reduce cut-thru traffic. Atlanta needs real reduced / no car living options in the city. That is hard to do with all these giant 10+ lane highways cutting the city up and making it dangerous & less livable.

[cqholt]

We will never see another freeway built in metro Atlanta. You'll get 1-2 HOT lanes, but that's it.

[cwkimbro]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Isn't that exactly what 285 / bypasses are supposed to be for?

I am not trying to deny suburbs their highways. Y'all go ahead and widen 285 to 30 lanes or build the norther arc if you think it will help (spoiler: it won't). We just need to scale them back in the city to reduce cut-thru traffic. Atlanta needs real reduced / no car living options in the city. That is hard to do with all these giant 10+ lane highways cutting the city up and making it dangerous & less livable.

Well your argument switches between people needing options and you trying to dictate a anti-freeway only approach.

People still need to drive to the city. Some people still work in downtown, midtown and Buckhead.

Part of the approach we have had at fixing our traffic since the early 90s when we have more than doubled in size, while making only limited freeway expansions, was to encourage job developments and commuter patterns that have people drive in different directions.


So that doesn't solve anything really. It would just choke business development intown, increase costs for those trying to make that commute and likely deter some of the growth we have had.

It would also be detrimental to southside growth and southside commuters as they would have less capacity to get to job's on the northside.


Also the bypass is a single road. It provides for 2 routes North and South and 2 routes east and west on a shared loop.

We still have 1 route N/S through the city and 1 route E/W. (not 'all these' 'giants'... There are just 2 main routes... that is why they are so wide. The more you don't built multiple routes... the more eggs are being dumped into one basket)

You can't remove one and not mess with the other. This is why 285 is much worse with the I-85 section gone.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

Arjay,

That is typical because people drive in all directions.

People driving on the spur routes hit 285 and then split up into multiple directions with each direction having fewer cars by themselves.


What I would spot out is 285 is taking the brunt of this and you can see it in the comparisons between typical and live above.

More green ITP is because drivers are avoiding those stretches, but they are also diverting to 285 and bypassing more

I agree. The argument could be made that I-285 is the ATL's new Main Street.

[arjay57]

I'm okay with putting I-85 back together. It's there and the communities have already knit themselves around it pretty well.

But I have to agree with jsvh that we don't need anymore traditional-style freeways in the city proper or its closest suburbs.

That doesn't mean we can't have new arterial streets, but I'd like to see them more along the lines of Montreal's Bonaventure urban boulevard project.

https://medium.com/projexity-blog/5-...s-7c167da03e7b

https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/mon...ure-expressway

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Sam, you can refuse to believe the headlines if you want, but the maps don't lie. Traffic is not significantly worse with this major section of interstate missing. In fact, there is more green ITP. Now lets see what happens next week.

The maps do lie. I travel many of the roads in the "typical traffic" map you posted at the time you posted, and they are almost never backed up the shows. 75 South at 8:15 is not that slow, ever. I use that almost every day to go to work. Northside drive, which we pass to take the kid to school every morning, all orange? Please. And a real look at your map does show much worse traffic in key areas. No one, anywhere, said the entire city would go into gridlock. But don't try to pretend that 285 isn't much worse off.

And again, you keep acting like this week is normal. It's not.

The argument that we are not even allowed to discuss removing lanes and closing roads is on very weak footing.

We lost a single section of 85 and have sections open around it. You're talking removing entire spans. That is not the same thing. You look at one thing and assume that 100 times that one thing is the same thing. What would removing a lane from a highway accomplish for you? Why would it make you happy? What is the end result that you are looking for? To "make" more people consider transit or living somewhere you'd prefer them to live?

Here is what it looked like last Friday (before Spring Break) at 8:12am:

You mean the day a massive number of people took off work, and an entire county's worth of public schools were closed? Jesus. You don't even try any more.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

Isn't that exactly what 285 / bypasses are supposed to be for?

I am not trying to deny suburbs their highways. Y'all go ahead and widen 285 to 30 lanes or build the norther arc if you think it will help (spoiler: it won't). We just need to scale them back in the city to reduce cut-thru traffic. Atlanta needs real reduced / no car living options in the city. That is hard to do with all these giant 10+ lane highways cutting the city up and making it dangerous & less livable.

Are you blind? Atlanta has much, much larger swaths of land between freeways than almost any other major city in the US. The entirety of NYC midtown and manhattan fits in the small sliver bounded by the connector, I85, I285 on the east side, and what Freedom Parkway/Highway 78 would be. That's a tiny sliver ITP, and it's as big as the most dense city in our country. All five boroughs could fit in what is bounded by I285 on the east and I-85, with only one highway dividing it. How many highways are there in the boroughs of NYC?

You absolutely could have what you want. What you are failing to see is that most people just don't want that here, or it would happen. I don't want NYC. I can't stand NYC. Highways running through the city are not what is holding back your dream.

Originally Posted by arjay57

I'm okay with putting I-85 back together. It's there and the communities have already knit themselves around it pretty well.

But I have to agree with jsvh that we don't need anymore traditional-style freeways in the city proper or its closest suburbs.

That doesn't mean we can't have new arterial streets, but I'd like to see them more along the lines of Montreal's Bonaventure urban boulevard project.

I have seen very few, if any, people arguing for more freeways to be built. We do need more arterials.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

Well your argument switches between people needing options and you trying to dictate a anti-freeway only approach.

People still need to drive to the city. Some people still work in downtown, midtown and Buckhead.

Part of the approach we have had at fixing our traffic since the early 90s when we have more than doubled in size, while making only limited freeway expansions, was to encourage job developments and commuter patterns that have people drive in different directions.


So that doesn't solve anything really. It would just choke business development intown, increase costs for those trying to make that commute and likely deter some of the growth we have had.

It would also be detrimental to southside growth and southside commuters as they would have less capacity to get to job's on the northside.


Also the bypass is a single road. It provides for 2 routes North and South and 2 routes east and west on a shared loop.

We still have 1 route N/S through the city and 1 route E/W. (not 'all these' 'giants'... There are just 2 main routes... that is why they are so wide. The more you don't built multiple routes... the more eggs are being dumped into one basket)

You can't remove one and not mess with the other. This is why 285 is much worse with the I-85 section gone.

Sorry. I don't buy it. Lots of major international cities don't have freeways cutting through the core the core (London, Paris, Vancouver, etc). Their city centers are strong as any. If anything this I85 closure will make even more companies and people consider moving closer in.

We do not need to force the closure of highways on anyone. Only ask them to people to pay the full costs. We should put congestion tolls on all our highways. Only those roads that fail to collect enough revenue to pay for themselves should be downsized / closed. But I doubt many of the inner highways would survive in their current obscene form. The land is too valuable as other uses. But if suburbanites do want to pay for them, go ahead. This would be done in conjunction with limiting the design speed of all surface streets to ~30mph design speed to improve safety / quality of life. So you can even still get most anywhere in the city by car without paying a toll if you want, it will just take you as long as it would to bike there.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

The maps do lie. I travel many of the roads in the "typical traffic" map you posted at the time you posted, and they are almost never backed up the shows. 75 South at 8:15 is not that slow, ever. I use that almost every day to go to work. Northside drive, which we pass to take the kid to school every morning, all orange? Please. And a real look at your map does show much worse traffic in key areas. No one, anywhere, said the entire city would go into gridlock. But don't try to pretend that 285 isn't much worse off.

And again, you keep acting like this week is normal. It's not.

Yes, it is. On any given day you can find some stretch of road that is worse off than it is on other days. That is hardly the apocalypse we have been promised from people like yourself. That have been fear-mongering the worse if we ever dare attempt to close a major highway.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

We lost a single section of 85 and have sections open around it. You're talking removing entire spans. That is not the same thing. You look at one thing and assume that 100 times that one thing is the same thing.

Ok, we can do the closures a single section at a time. It would probably happen that way anyways.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

What would removing a lane from a highway accomplish for you?

Improve safety and quality of life for those the choose to live in the city (And those out there on the road).

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Why would it make you happy?

People deserve to be safe and have good, minimal-car, urban, lifestyle options available to them in Atlanta. I personally find happiness in such a life style.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

What is the end result that you are looking for? To "make" more people consider transit or living somewhere you'd prefer them to live?

Nope. Let people in the suburbs do their own thing and live how they want. We just need to give people fair choices. Scale back the lopsided subsidies / incentivization in favor of suburban life. I have no problem with it, just stop making those of us in the city sacrifice our safety and our wallet for your benefit.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

You mean the day a massive number of people took off work, and an entire county's worth of public schools were closed? Jesus. You don't even try any more.

Alright Sam. We will reschedule your apocalypse for next week then.