$5 billion express lanes will alleviate metro congestion, GDOT says (Atlanta: transfer, live)

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by architect77

But GDOT obviously is loathe to buy land and build new highways.

Welcome to right-of-way costs in urbanized areas being incredibly high.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by architect77

I agree. I’d love to see truck only lanes especially if they bypassed Atlanta altogether.

But GDOT obviously is loathe to buy land and build new highways.

The truck only lane which will be built in one direction only tries to stay in the existing right of way as much as possible. The staging costs and construction costs are exponentially higher than building on acquired land away from an active corridor.

Their decisions sometimes are puzzling. Cramming express lanes along 285 in existing right of way is part due to no other choice after not expanding 20 years ago but we all suffer from some of the compromises resulting gym their decisions….

Such as their implementation of narrower lanes 11’ versus 12’.

Two inner lanes on I-85 are only 11’ making it less comfortable and more dangerous due to the HOV lane painted into existence in the 90s. It was 5 luxurious lanes prior.

And believe it or not, they will constrict some general purpose lanes to 11’ on 285 East wall when express lanes are added in Dekalb.

I contend that shade from trees is a good way to lower energy consumption but we continue to lose trees here and Atlanta’s heat island is getting worse and worse. 80 degree nighttime low temperatures are already here for a couple of weeks every summer. That’s alarming when AC is necessary 24 hours a day.

Its just too logical to get many of those trucks off by building an eastern and/or western bypass.

[T Block]

Well, Sugar Hill to Cumming to Canton to Cartersville to Rockmart to Villa Rica could handle South-bound trucks headed West or East-bound trucks headed North.

But trucking has paperwork and so any truck with a delivery more than 500 miles beyond Atlanta could be required to get on a train until on the other side of Atlanta. It would be a metro train system for tractor-trailer trucks.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by T Block

Well, Sugar Hill to Cumming to Cartersville to Rockmart to Villa Rica could handle South-bound trucks headed West or East-bound trucks headed North.

What you are talking about sounds exactly like the erstwhile-proposed Northern Arc and Outer Perimeter, which has been a deeply unpopular concept with the Georgia voting public anytime it has been mentioned in Georgia politics.

Originally Posted by T Block

But trucking has paperwork and so any truck with a delivery more than 500 miles beyond Atlanta could be required to get on a train until on the other side of Atlanta. It would be a metro train system for tractor-trailer trucks.

The truck-to-train/train-to-truck intermodal freight transport system that you are talking about already exists in the Georgia Inland Ports system that has locations in Bainbridge in South Georgia, Murray County in Northwest Georgia, and Gainesville in Northeast Georgia.

There are also a few privately-owned and operated train/truck intermodal terminals in the Atlanta metro area, including the CSX Fairburn Terminal in South Fulton County, the NS Inman Yard in Northwest Atlanta, and one of the largest train/truck intermodal terminals in the world at the NS Whitaker Intermodal Terminal in Austell in suburban West metro Atlanta.

But even with a network that includes some of the largest intermodal facilities, it is not possible to take every truck off of the roads.

That’s especially with a large major metro region like Atlanta being home to so many (hundreds, if not thousands of) large warehouses and distribution centers, and with Atlanta being a massive national logistical hub and nexus that generates a massive amount of freight truck traffic.

And that’s also with it just simply not being legally or logistically possible to ban through freight truck traffic (including freight trucks traveling more 500 miles) from an Interstate superhighway system that was specifically intended to handle large volumes of freight truck traffic for the sake of supporting our economy, furthering our economic prosperity and supporting a high quality of life by helping to generate an increased and maximized level of economic activity.

It likely is much more prudent to continue to engaging in the traffic congestion reduction approach that has been happening on a larger societal-wide scale since the start of the pandemic with a significant amount of local and regional commuter traffic being taken off of the roads because of more people working from home, freeing up more road space for the freight trucks that help to propel our economy and sustain our prosperity.

[T Block]

As far as I know the Inman Yard system takes containers off trucks or puts containers on trucks. I was suggesting putting the entire standard tractor-trailer on a train for a 30 mile trip to the other side of the metro. But then if a train loading was required, when trucking through Atlanta and continuing on for more than 500 miles, just ship by railroad in the first place. So then forget the new type of train loading system and just not allow trucks to pass-through if they are continuing on for more than 500 miles.

Can't do it ? It would just be Federal legislation that applies to specified metros. Well, the Interstate highways, in many metros, are close to failure because of long-haul trucking.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by T Block

As far as I know the Inman Yard system takes containers off trucks or puts containers on trucks. I was suggesting putting the entire standard tractor-trailer on a train for a 30 mile trip to the other side of the metro. But then if a train loading was required, when trucking through Atlanta and continuing on for more than 500 miles, just ship by railroad in the first place. So then forget the new type of train loading system and just not allow trucks to pass-through if they are continuing on for more than 500 miles.

Can't do it ? It would just be Federal legislation that applies to specified metros. Well, the Interstate highways, in many metros, are close to failure because of long-haul trucking.

Shipping more freight by train is not at all a bad idea... Which increased shipping by rail is what is occurring now, particularly with the significantly increased demand for consumer goods purchased online during the 2010’s and especially since the start of the pandemic.

Though, we seem to be approaching the maximum limits of how much can be shipped without some long-overdue upgrades to our freight rail infrastructure so that freight can move much more efficiently by train.

I don’t know if putting entire tractor-trailers on trains would be a viable idea, if only just simply because many logistics operations (including trucking companies) very likely would not want to put their needed trucking equipment on trains for 500-plus miles.

Also, trains likely would not be able to handle all of the very long-distance freight that moves through the Atlanta (particularly through the I-75 anchored major north-south transcontinental shipping corridor that connects the major population centers of the Great Lakes and the Upper Midwest to the major population center that is the state of Florida by way of major population centers and industrial hubs like Atlanta, Nashville, Louisville, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, etc.).

Trains can handle a lot of long-distance freight, but trains can’t handle all long-distance freight and are not intended to handle all long-distance freight in our free market transportation system which depends heavily on roads, planes and water shipping in addition to trains.

Plus, not all entities (from large corporations down to private individuals) will want or even can have their items and goods shipped by train. Many entities want and/or need their items and goods to be shipped by truck for various reasons.

Some items and goods are good for being shipped by train, while other items and goods may be best shipped by truck. And mandating that all items be shipped by train over long distances might have the danger of adding to shipping times and shipping costs... Increased shipping costs which would passed along to the consumer.

Mandating that all items being shipped more than 500 miles be shipped by train likely would be disruptive to the market and the economy and most likely (if not most assuredly) would generate much pushback from various powerful entities, including many large and small corporations across numerous industries (who might conduct much long-distance shipping by truck), not to mention, the trucking industry itself, which has extremely powerful lobbies at the state and federal levels.

Banning trucks from not traveling through a large major metropolitan area like Atlanta (or any major metropolitan area) if they are traveling more than 500 miles very likely (if not most assuredly) would not be viable because of the extreme disruption to interstate commerce and the economy that such an act would entail.

If multiple large major metros were able to ban trucks from traveling through their areas, it would basically have the effect of destroying a large part of our entire economy because so much of our economy (and our collective prosperity and our way-of-life) depends on the movement of items and goods between numerous various points, including by truck.

[SEAandATL]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

What you are talking about sounds exactly like the erstwhile-proposed Northern Arc and Outer Perimeter, which has been a deeply unpopular concept with the Georgia voting public anytime it has been mentioned in Georgia politics.

GA SR-20 is about the closest thing to that, which is currently under a widening project to 3 lanes on each side with limited stops and truck turnaround spots.

[T Block]

There's less railroad shipping of coal but I don't know about current freight capacity. There's less railroad shipping of cars from Atlanta but I don't know about cars shipped through Atlanta.

But if it's 200 miles to Atlanta and then trucks not allowed through Atlanta if traveling more than 500 miles farther, then that's a 700 mile metric. Essentially, East of the Mississippi River, trucks traveling more than 700 miles would required to use trains.

But this is a proposed Federal legislation and the legislation could be adapted to what is currently possible
.

[architect77]

Originally Posted by Gulch

Welcome to right-of-way costs in urbanized areas being incredibly high.

We're not talking about in town land. Suburban land with homes already on them are easily afforded by other states.

Georgia's truck lane in one direction tries to not purchase any rural land and triples the complexity, staging, and amount of concrete required just to avoid a handful of properties with old convenience stores, etc.

On the other end of that NC probably buys and razes 100-200 properties per highway project.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by T Block

There's less railroad shipping of coal but I don't know about current freight capacity. There's less railroad shipping of cars from Atlanta but I don't know about cars shipped through Atlanta.

But if it's 200 miles to Atlanta and then trucks not allowed through Atlanta if traveling more than 500 miles farther, then that's a 700 mile metric. Essentially, East of the Mississippi River, trucks traveling more than 700 miles would required to use trains.

But this is a proposed Federal legislation and the legislation could be adapted to what is currently possible
.

It doesn’t seem like anything would be possible at the federal level because what you are suggesting amounts to banning interstate freight truck traffic from the Interstate system.

... An Interstate system that (along with being built for large volumes of automobile traffic and civil defense) was built for the purpose of carrying large volumes of interstate freight truck traffic as a means of fostering increased economic activity.

Outside of some type of civil emergency, federal officials (including federal legislators and the President) most likely are not going to be willing to back any type of federal legislation that potentially could be so adversely disruptive to the nation’s economy like the legislation that you are suggesting that would allow long-haul freight trucks to be banned from traveling through large major metro areas like Atlanta.

It just does not seem to be a viable or realistic solution to traffic congestion.