GDOT reverses course, approves road diet for Avondale Estates' main street (Atlanta: home, closing)

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by bu2

Its a state highway, not a local road. There's a difference.

I think Decatur's bike lanes on Commerce are a mistake, but they are well within their rights to do it. 278 is a state highway connecting various areas, not just a local Avondale Estates street.

So? Are you suggesting that localities should just bend over and take anything the state tells them to do? Sounds like "big government" to me if there ever were such a thing.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

So? Are you suggesting that localities should just bend over and take anything the state tells them to do? Sounds like "big government" to me if there ever were such a thing.

And that's assuming GDOT even has a desire to run roughshod over local jurisdictions in the first place.

[jsvh]

Also, it appears about half of Commerce Dr in Decatur is part of State Route 155.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

So? Are you suggesting that localities should just bend over and take anything the state tells them to do? Sounds like "big government" to me if there ever were such a thing.

So, if the state highway exists, and a locality builds up around it, they then get to shut it down? That seems like a rather odd way to run things.

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

All the evidence points to the reality that reducing lanes like this does not have not have a serious negative impact on traffic in the area. In fact, it is often a benefit to total traffic volumes in the area.

That's what you said about the 85 closure as well, even though you have been spectacularly wrong.

[jsvh]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

That's what you said about the 85 closure as well, even though you have been spectacularly wrong.

In what way have I been wrong? Traffic has been pretty similar to usual since 85 has closed. People still make it to work, home, and play. I bet safety has improved and overall traffic volumes have gone down since 85 closed, I hope someone is doing a study.

In case you missed it in the other thread, here is typical traffic at 8:15am:



Here is traffic at 8:15am on 3/31:



Here is traffic at 8:15am on 4/10:

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by jsvh

In what way have I been wrong? Traffic has been pretty similar to usual since 85 has closed. People still make it to work, home, and play. I bet safety has improved and overall traffic volumes have gone down since 85 closed, I hope someone is doing a study.

In case you missed it in the other thread, here is typical traffic at 8:15am:



Here is traffic at 8:15am on 3/31:



Here is traffic at 8:15am on 4/10:

I see your images, and raise you one.



In the left image, a typical monday morning at 6:40, which is almost entirely green, with some splotches of orange. On the right, Monday, April 17 at 6:47am which has a lot of red on it. And I drove through it. And it sucked. And I've posted images in other threads as well which disagree with your assessment.

Are you actually so deluded that you believe traffic has not been affected at all? If so, you are beyond help. The reality is that the closure has created a lot of extra traffic volume, much of which is on surrounding neighborhood roads. I know, because I've sat in it. Oddly enough...didn't see too many people walking on the big wide sidewalks...

Every road for miles around that site is affected. Piedmont sucks. Cheshire Bridge is a parking lot. Sidney Marcus is bumper to bumper. Buford Spring connector crawls all day from the early morning. 285 on the north side is ridiculous most of the day. I got stuck last night at 11:15PM in a traffic jam for 15 minutes (yes construction was involved, but traffic was heavy enough to back up four lanes for miles). The round trip to drop our kid off at school has gone from 25 minutes to at least 45 minutes, and we are miles from the site.

You seem to be under the impression that because the city isn't gridlocked over the entire metro, that's proof that this closure did not have any ill effects. You're wrong.

EDIT: I've also found that Google Maps shows different traffic volumes at different zoom levels, so that's interesting.

PS...please size your images down. Those things are huge.

[jsvh]

Yep, people adapt. I am pretty sure I called out people adjusting when they drive as one of the ways the feared "traffic apocalypse" would be avoided multiple times before.

People are nowhere near as "dependent" on our wide roads as you portray. If you close lanes or even just ask people to pay a congestion toll they will adjust with minimal issues.

Of course "traffic" for some has been affected. Especially if you are car dependant and expect to rapidly get through that particular area rapidly. But overall the impact has not been bad. A lot of intown drivers have had it a lot easier because the overall peak volume of traffic has been reduced. More people are taking alternatives like MARTA or adjusting their hours.

Safety and quality of life should come first. Being able to fly through all neighborhoods in Atlanta at 50+mph for free at any time of day does not trump that.

Of course there were ill effects. But there were positive effects too. And the net effect was really not that bad.

And that is really what it comes down to. First off, how bad are they negative effects really, and are those negative effects not worth the positives of lives saved, more economic prosperity, and improved quality of life for residents. The answer more often than not, is that is a trade that is well worth it.

No one would suggest a deliberate closure of a few hundred feet of the 12+ lanes of I-85 alone would be a good idea. It is really about the worse case. But the negatives even of that closure have not been that bad on the whole. So we should be more ready than ever to reevaluate other, more deliberate closures like giving lanes to bikes and peds in a historic downtown. And thankfully even GDOT seems to be coming around to that idea.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

I love how some of our resident conservatives are coming out firmly against local control.

Avondale Estates has every right to keep its residents safe with this road diet. Commuters who don't like that are more than welcome to find an alternative route.

Originally Posted by bu2

Its a state highway, not a local road. There's a difference.

I think Decatur's bike lanes on Commerce are a mistake, but they are well within their rights to do it. 278 is a state highway connecting various areas, not just a local Avondale Estates street.

Originally Posted by toll_booth

So? Are you suggesting that localities should just bend over and take anything the state tells them to do? Sounds like "big government" to me if there ever were such a thing.

Originally Posted by Gulch

And that's assuming GDOT even has a desire to run roughshod over local jurisdictions in the first place.

Originally Posted by samiwas1

So, if the state highway exists, and a locality builds up around it, they then get to shut it down? That seems like a rather odd way to run things.

toll_booth makes an excellent point that an incorporated city like Avondale Estates has every right to attempt to keep its residents safe (and attempt to make its small village-like downtown and its city as a whole more livable) with this road diet.

bu2 makes an excellent point that the street/road in question, North Avondale Road, is a state-owned/maintained highway (U.S. Highway 278/Georgia Highway 10).

But (particularly seeing as though it runs within/through the boundaries of an incorporated city in Avondale Estates) this state-owned/maintained highway (like many other state-owned/maintain highways in Georgia) also doubles as a local road (North Avondale Road) and an urban street.

Because the road in question (the state-owned/maintained U.S. Highway 278/GA Highway 10) doubles as a local road (North Avondale Road) and an urban street that runs through the village-like downtown area of the incorporated city of Avondale Estates, it is a road that has to be able to accommodate a multitude of transportation uses from single-occupant automobile motoring to bicycling to pedestrian movement to transit.

GDOT has for decades worked with cities and towns in rural areas to lower their speed limits on stretches of state-owned/maintained roadways that run through incorporated areas with increased amounts of non-automobile traffic, often as two-lane city streets and roads with local names.

By allowing an incorporated city like Avondale Estates to lower the speed limits and execute "road diets" on state-owned/maintained roadways inside their corporate boundaries and by working with other incorporated cities like Atlanta, Decatur, Doraville, etc, to make state-owned/maintained roadways more accommodating to non-automobile modes of transport, GDOT is actually just staying consistent with the practices that they have allowed throughout other cities and towns (particularly smaller cities and towns throughout the entire state) during the agency's existence....Which is to allow incorporated cities and towns to set and enforce lower speed limits along stretches of roadway which are often only two lanes in width and experience increased amounts of pedestrian (and non-automobile) traffic.

[fourthwarden]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

So, if the state highway exists, and a locality builds up around it, they then get to shut it down? That seems like a rather odd way to run things.

What are you on about? State (and U.S.) highways run through the center of towns all the time, with the explicit intention of supporting and serving those towns, not only for commuters into the town, but also for locals.

There are plenty of places where the highway is the main street. Emphasis on street. The road isn't being shut down, it's just being treated like the downtown main street that it actually is for Avondale.