Metro Holiday Traffic (Redan, Tucker, College Park: college, legally, moving)

[Need4Camaro]

So I was heading from Gwinnett to Newton and I made the stupid mistake of getting on I-85 .. Normally I take GA-20 and GA-81 but I wasnt thinking and jumped on GA-316. I bypassed most of I-85's traffic using the HOT lane but I got to Spaghetti Junction and it just shut down..it took about 20 minutes to crawl from Pleasantdale to Chamblee Tucker, where using Google Maps (Android Auto) I found I-285 was red all the way from Spaghetti Junction to I-20..and I-20 was red all the way to Evans Mill Rd so I got off at Chamblee Tucker and made a left and followed it all the way to Lavista and ended up on Idlewood then cut across U.S. 78 and took some backroads to Mountain Industrial which was moving fairly well but I then made a left on Rockbridge and ended up taking streets I never even knew about to Redan and eventually wound up on I-20 at Lithonia Industrial Blvd and got on at Evans Mill.. after that it got congested one more time through Conyers .. I forgot how stressful it is driving (in any major city) during the Holidays. Anyone else having fun out there?

[samiwas1]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

So I was heading from Gwinnett to Newton and I made the stupid mistake of getting on I-85 .. Normally I take GA-20 and GA-81 but I wasnt thinking and jumped on GA-316. I bypassed most of I-85's traffic using the HOT lane but I got to Spaghetti Junction and it just shut down..it took about 20 minutes to crawl from Pleasantdale to Chamblee Tucker, where using Google Maps (Android Auto) I found I-285 was red all the way from Spaghetti Junction to I-20..and I-20 was red all the way to Evans Mill Rd so I got off at Chamblee Tucker and made a left and followed it all the way to Lavista and ended up on Idlewood then cut across U.S. 78 and took some backroads to Mountain Industrial which was moving fairly well but I then made a left on Rockbridge and ended up taking streets I never even knew about to Redan and eventually wound up on I-20 at Lithonia Industrial Blvd and got on at Evans Mill.. after that it got congested one more time through Conyers .. I forgot how stressful it is driving (in any major city) during the Holidays. Anyone else having fun out there?

Traffic map now is very green, especially 85N.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by samiwas1

Traffic map now is very green, especially 85N.

Yeah i noticed. quite surprising.
This happened around 2pm though.

[Need4Camaro]

Went out again today, this time to South Fulton. I noticed alot of cars on the shoulder of the highway while going south on I-85 all the way from N.Dekalb to College Park. Avoiding the connector I came back via I-285 and quite a few cars on the shoulder there too. Most had Georgia tags so I doubt they were lost. I hope noone is out there throwing nails on the highway.

Most of the highways were free flowing today asside from the connector which incurred a minor slow down.

[Need4Camaro]

I personally think the HOT lanes on I-75 south was a stupid idea... They really needed to add one more lane each direction on that route between I-675 and Tanger Outlet mainly because this is not just regional metro traffic, but inter-regional traffic heading to and from Florida. The HOT lanes just cannot serve anywhere near enough people to make them efficient in this region. They would have done better further north, like between I-675 and I-285 (on both I-75 and I-675)

On the flip side however, I am betting there are alot of Florida drivers with sunpass or ez pass that don't know they can legally use the lanes.

[PKCorey]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

On the flip side however, I am betting there are alot of Florida drivers with sunpass or ez pass that don't know they can legally use the lanes.

They usually show on the sign for Sunpass and NC Quickpass that they can use it.

[cqholt]

I guess it's too much to ask that drivers do research before long distance traveling.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by cqholt

I guess it's too much to ask that drivers do research before long distance traveling.

Well truthfully, I'm pretty sure 95% of inter-regional drivers probably aren't even aware that the lanes exist or what their purpose is thus they wouldn't really know to research about them to begin with. Then atleast 50% of the ones that do will not even have the opportunity to use them since they are reversible, require a peach pass, sunpass, nc quickpass and only operate in one direction at any given time. Even in Florida not everyone has a sunpass as not everyone uses the toll roads down there and MOST of the traffic is coming from the Midwestern states and do not have any of these passes thus are confined to the GP lanes. Georgia doesn't offer a removable transponder like EZ-Pass states do so in general these lanes will have at a VERY optimistic level .. maybe 3% affect on Holiday travelers.

[PKCorey]

Originally Posted by Need4Camaro

Georgia doesn't offer a removable transponder like EZ-Pass states do so in general these lanes will have at a VERY optimistic level .. maybe 3% affect on Holiday travelers.

I'm hoping with the opening of the NW HOT lanes, they will convert to the transponder system like NC did last year. The interoperablility with EZ Pass is taking forever.

[Need4Camaro]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

I'm hoping with the opening of the NW HOT lanes, they will convert to the transponder system like NC did last year. The interoperablility with EZ Pass is taking forever.

Would be nice but I highly doubt it will come to past unless Georgia starts building alot of toll-roads. They would have to revise the entire system and it just wouldn't really be worth it just for a few inter-regional drivers using the express lanes. There was an article somewhere as to why Georgia isn't apart of the EZ Pass system but in short they use different transponders and technology thus the entire system would have to be revised. NC has the best of both worlds and I think they did a pretty good job at keeping things flexible given you can use their pass for everything on the east coast.

If we had a tolled outer-bypass (yes I know its a sin to bring this up) I think that would give them enough cause to merge though.