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The Embarcadero was a deadend freeway. Milwaukee is shrinking. Seattle hasn't removed their freeway. They are building a tunnel to replace it. Not aware of a Portland freeway, but its possible.
The comments on that article speak for themselves, and all of us. Pretty much no one agreed with the writer.
The Embarcadero is hardly comparable to I-85. It was barely 4 miles long, and was pretty pointless as far as an actual commuting route. Note that the actual interstate still goes right through the middle of town.
There’s no question I-85 is a major artery for the city; about 250,000 vehicles use it on a daily basis. But it’s important to note that the traffic apocalypse predicted after the collapse never happened. That’s because when major freeways are removed, drivers simply find new routes to their destinations. This is what’s happened in other cities, and it could absolutely happen in Atlanta.
Already he's starting off with factually incorrect information. Maybe if you look at areas away from the site of the collapse, it holds true, but no one ever said the ENTIRE metro area would be badly affected. But traffic congestion drastically increased on surface streets as far away as Memorial drive, and on I-285 from I-75 clockwise back around to at least I-675 if not I-75.
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But that’s just the thing. Atlanta’s now doing a great job building out those alternatives to personal vehicles.
Emphasis on BUILDING, as in, we haven't BUILT those alternatives yet. They aren't there. People can't use something that doesn't exist.
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When I-85 collapsed, ridership on the city’s public transit system, MARTA, went up by 20 percent, proving that trains and buses are a viable way to get around. And the city’s also investing heavily in walking and biking infrastructure: Last November, voters approved one measure to improve walkability to all its public schools and rail stations and another $2.6 billion to expand and upgrade MARTA service.
In fact, Atlanta is the home to the crown jewel of American transportation innovation: a 22-mile ring of walking and biking paths around the city named the Beltline. The most recent expansion of the trail, announced just this week, will feature a segment that travels under an I-85 overpass.
Uh...no, we aren't. That ring isn't completed yet, and it's still pedestrian-only, the transit component isn't there, and won't be useful for general commuting until it is.
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Imagine if, instead of fixing the damaged I-85, the city used the highway’s massive footprint to expand the capacity of the nearby Beltline. Imagine if, instead of spending almost $17 million to repair a highway, the city poured all that money into developing another Beltline.
This guy is woefully uninformed. $17 million buys you maybe 3 miles of trail...without the transit. As near as I can tell, the 3 mile westside trail was funded by a $18 Million TIGER grant. $17 Million doesn't come close to "developing another beltline."
Already he's starting off with factually incorrect information. Maybe if you look at areas away from the site of the collapse, it holds true, but no one ever said the ENTIRE metro area would be badly affected. But traffic congestion drastically increased on surface streets as far away as Memorial drive, and on I-285 from I-75 clockwise back around to at least I-675 if not I-75.
Indeed. Somewhere, someone assumed that everyone predicted an entire city-wide shutdown because of horrendous traffic everywhere. I'm sure someone said that, just as someone said that the closure wouldn't have any affect at all.
But to pretend that it didn't really cause any issues is asinine at best. Every drive I made was impacted heavily. Even dropping the kid off at school became a headache...and the end point was still 1.5 miles from the closure.
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Emphasis on BUILDING, as in, we haven't BUILT those alternatives yet. They aren't there. People can't use something that doesn't exist.
This is the part I don't get with some of these arguments. "Yeah! Yeah! We can close the highway and build new transit options!!" Yeah, options that won't even start to be available for a decade at best. Closing what you have before you even begin to build the alternatives is patently stupid.
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Uh...no, we aren't. That ring isn't completed yet, and it's still pedestrian-only, the transit component isn't there, and won't be useful for general commuting until it is.
Minimum 20 years out. That is not a solution to anything yet. Very little of the trail is open as a viable commuting option.
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This guy is woefully uninformed. $17 million buys you maybe 3 miles of trail...without the transit. As near as I can tell, the 3 mile westside trail was funded by a $18 Million TIGER grant. $17 Million doesn't come close to "developing another beltline."
Seriously...look in the other thread for cost analyses. $17 million would possibly buy about 1/3 mile of light rail at best, which could be available in several years. Saying we should not repair one of the most heavily-used interstates in the southeast and instead use that money towards something that would probably take five years to develop and wouldn't even get you from Five Points to Centennial Park, might well be the dumbest thing I've read in...well, since the previous page of this thread.
The Embarcadero was a deadend freeway. Milwaukee is shrinking. Seattle hasn't removed their freeway. They are building a tunnel to replace it. Not aware of a Portland freeway, but its possible.
Those are excellent points about the examples of urban freeways removed in the Curbed article.
None of the examples of freeways removed were mainline two-digit Interstate superhighways (and major transcontinental transportation routes) like I-85 is through Atlanta.
The urban freeways that were removed in San Francisco and Milwaukee were short-distance three-digit Interstate spur routes, the urban freeway that is planned to be removed in Seattle is being replaced with a tunnel (as bu2 stated) and is paralleled seven blocks to the east by major transcontinental superhighway route Interstate 5, and the urban freeway that was removed in Portland was a state-maintained local arterial highway that was replaced with a local inner-urban freeway loop that carries two Interstate superhighways (I-5 around the east side of Downtown Portland and I-405 around the west side of Downtown Portland).
It is a very unfortunate thing that many very viable inner-city neighborhoods were destroyed to construct freeways through urban areas like Atlanta. I also share the desire of many (particularly urbanites) to improve quality-of-life in major cities like Atlanta in multiple ways that include removing urban freeways and replacing them with urban parks, greenways and high-density urban development.
But because of the critical importance that an urban freeway like I-85 serves to the economies of the city of Atlanta, the greater Atlanta metropolitan region and the state of Georgia as a major transcontinental Interstate superhighway route that serves multiple crucial purposes, it is unfortunately not feasible for an urban freeway like I-85 to be removed at this point in time.
(...I-85 serves as a crucial transcontinental logistical link between the industrial markets of the Gulf Coast and the major population centers of the Piedmont and the Northeastern U.S., and serves as a crucial local/regional logistical ground transportation link between the world's busiest airport and economic/activity centers like Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead and Perimeter Center, etc.)
The continued presence of I-85 through the City of Atlanta is not just about transporting automobile commuters between the Northern suburbs and the job centers of Central Atlanta. The continued presence of the section of I-85 in question through Central Atlanta is also about facilitating the type of robust economic activity that has turned the city of Atlanta, the Atlanta region and the state of Georgia into (and sustained them as) economic powerhouses.
It should also be pointed out that contrary to what was written and implied in the Curbed article, it is not the Atlanta city government's decision whether or not to rebuild the section of I-85 in question, it is the decision and the responsibility of both the Georgia state government and the U.S. federal government to rebuild I-85.
That's because I-85 is a federally and state-funded and maintained Interstate superhighway whose maintenance, operation and existence is the responsibility of the Georgia state and U.S. federal governments.
And even if the Atlanta city government is not financially and/or legally responsible for the continued maintenance, operation and existence of an urban freeway like I-85 Northeast, the Atlanta city government most assuredly is not going to object to the expedited reconstruction of the roadway by the Georgia state and U.S. federal governments because of the critically important role that the freeway plays in sustaining the robust level of economic activity in the city of Atlanta.
Even though the construction of its freeway system through viable urban neighborhoods was unfortunate and even tragic, Atlanta's status as an international economic powerhouse has been built up largely (if not mostly and/or completely) around the presence of its freeway system which carries three major transcontinental Interstate superhighway routes through the city and the metropolitan area (Interstates 20, 75 and 85).
Love 'em or hate 'em, those urban freeways that many urbanites understandably might dislike (if not detest) have been the pillars of Atlanta's explosive economic growth and continue to be the pillars of Atlanta's continued smashing economic success.
It is because of their critical importance to this city's economic well-being and economic viability (as well as their critical importance to the economic well-being and viability of the Atlanta metro area and the state of Georgia) that the aforementioned urban freeways most likely are not going anywhere anytime soon.
Some sections of urban freeway potentially might be buried and/or covered with high-density urban development and greenspace/park space, but total removal will be out of the question for the foreseeable future.
I agree. I don't think we will ever see I-85 closed in my lifetime. Nor do I think it makes sense any time soon.
However, that article is still right. Induced demand is real. Strategically scaling back the size and scope of roads has repeatedly been shown to be successful at reducing overall traffic volumes and result in a more prosperous area.
We do need to be seriously looking at adding congestion tolls and reducing the number of lanes it is in the long term.
Unfortunately federal law currently prohibits tolling existing freeway lanes. But reversing that might be the one good thing to come out of the Trump administration.
Atlanta former undisputed logistics hub for entire southeast adding billions to state economy now 2nd most dreaded & avoided if possible, place in the US.
Food, raw materials, commodities, and amazon packages won't ever take MARTA to delivery to millions of homes & businesses.
Freeways are needed to get food to your table, and taken in the scenery of our big country.
Adding capacity with widening projects and building new alternate routes accomplish their goal of more capacity for millions of additional residents and increased connectivity.
No one thinks solving or ending congestion is goal of highway construction and even if was could be temporary with growing population.
The reasons behind anti-cars & anti roads are less signifcant with each passing day. When hydrogen cars are ubiquitous emitting water vapor, what's left to rallly against?
If people enjoy spending hours in gridlock and aren't damaging the environment, then let them do it & pay per use or per mile.
Induced demand could be argument against spending $1 billion for more lanes on downtown connector, people must stop applying somewhat obscure concepts to everything that's even loosely associated.
Very similar to our political enviroment where no one has listened to Trump's positions on anything after forming an opinion 2 years ago. And nothing that took place during Obama's presidency could be good in any way in minds of Republicans too childish to acknowledge any successes by Obama like normal, sane, people that feel obligated to do.
If people enjoy spending hours in gridlock and aren't damaging the environment, then let them do it & pay per use or per mile.
Agreed.
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Originally Posted by architect77
Food, raw materials, commodities, and amazon packages won't ever take MARTA to delivery to millions of homes & businesses.
Freeways are needed to get food to your table, and taken in the scenery of our big country.
But as part of that statement, "free"ways are not "needed". We should let paid demand dictate how massive our roads should be. And I think we would find many of ours are over-sized.
Atlanta former undisputed logistics hub for entire southeast adding billions to state economy now 2nd most dreaded & avoided if possible, place in the US.
Food, raw materials, commodities, and amazon packages won't ever take MARTA to delivery to millions of homes & businesses.
Freeways are needed to get food to your table, and taken in the scenery of our big country.
Adding capacity with widening projects and building new alternate routes accomplish their goal of more capacity for millions of additional residents and increased connectivity.
No one thinks solving or ending congestion is goal of highway construction and even if was could be temporary with growing population.
The reasons behind anti-cars & anti roads are less signifcant with each passing day. When hydrogen cars are ubiquitous emitting water vapor, what's left to rallly against?
If people enjoy spending hours in gridlock and aren't damaging the environment, then let them do it & pay per use or per mile.
Induced demand could be argument against spending $1 billion for more lanes on downtown connector, people must stop applying somewhat obscure concepts to everything that's even loosely associated.
Very similar to our political enviroment where no one has listened to Trump's positions on anything after forming an opinion 2 years ago. And nothing that took place during Obama's presidency could be good in any way in minds of Republicans too childish to acknowledge any successes by Obama like normal, sane, people that feel obligated to do.
Induced demand is primarily fiction as used in arguments. Yes, if you increase capacity, more people will use it. But the vast majority of those extra trips are simply moved from somewhere else.
There will be some number who take separate trips instead of combining trips or go somewhere instead of staying home or cease being one of the 3-4% who use mass transit and drive instead. But those numbers are small. And maybe there will be less mileage driven on those trips, but that is still minor.
Atlanta is experiencing what the Houston MTA used in its ad to pass its plan, "What if we didn't build it and they came anyway?"
The way I see it the only way you can somewhat mask the effects of urban freeways in Atlanta is to cap some of them and build parks on top of them. We could do what DC did and route I-85 or 75 around the city on to 285 but that really hasn't done much for DC either. Maybe we can extend I-675 north to connect to I-20 or extend Ga 400 south via tunnel to Freedom Pkwy, both would be incredibly expensive. Expanding MARTA to connect to Cumberland and Gwinnett Place Malls seems like the best possible and long term solution to the areas transportation issues and even that would be scratching the surface.
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