Atlanta Traffic Bad, Be Prepared if Moving Here!! (Dallas, Boston: homes, live in)

[grindin]

Traffic? In Atlanta? Really?

In other news my friends, water is wet and fire is hot.

When you have a city of 5.5 Million, but was "designed" for 2.5 million, there are going to be problems with traffic. Add in a hilly, heavily wooded area with no room for a decent grid system, so there are no decent alternatives to the freeway system, + a series of freeways that converge into one area, so you have thousands of people pouring in from out of town to get somewhere else + overall bad urban planning that thinks more about lining the pockets of developers = Utter disaster on the roads.

[neil0311]

Of course, if people didn't drive like maniacs and tailgate, you wouldn't get little fender bender (or worse) type crashes on dry sunny days that tie up multiple lanes of traffic. I've seen many times where the only problem is a small crash on the side that draws rubberneckers and slow traffic from blocked lanes.

[thedudewiththeplan]

I've heard several people I know say the two cities you really have to plan on avoiding during certain times of the day when traveling on the east coast are DC and Atlanta. Though this might not have much of an affect on those traveling though the city, what the Atlanta area really lacks in comparison to many other areas its size is a commuter rail system for the surrounding suburbs.

[DeaconJ]

So there is no need to avoid rush hour traffic in Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, and most any other city? All large cities have heavy traffic during the morning and evening rush - Atlanta is barely in the top 10. What Atlanta does have that most other cities of similar size don't...a heavily-used rail tranist system.

Funny thing...many cities that DO have commuter rail have as bad or worse traffic than Atlanta, so it doesn't seem to relieve traffic congestion all that much. I am for commuter rail whenever it can become a reality, but it's not going to change much of anything other than offering an alternative to commuters.

[thedudewiththeplan]

No, they still have traffic issues, but DC and Atlanta are the main ones people actually adjust their trips around to keep from hitting rush hour (mainly due to how far out the traffic in these metro's starts to build). And yes, I know that traffic is just as bad in many of these cities with commuter rail, the thing about it is it allow those who don't want to rely just on a car to find an alternative way to work. Heck, if it were up to me, cities in the U.S. would follow metro Tokyo's path and having a car would not be needed in any of the metro areas.

[Future Trooper]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

Fridays are absolutely the worse and that isn't just in ATL but in most major metro areas that have traffic issues.

not in Indianapolis. traffic up here is very very light and manageable. considering Indianapolis is a city of 800K+ people.

[Legs1357]

The problem too is that the terrible traffic spills over onto every major road in the area. Because there is no grid system whatsoever there is generally only one way to go places without it being waaaaay out of the way so thus...major backup.

[atlantagreg30127]

Originally Posted by thedudewiththeplan

No, they still have traffic issues, but DC and Atlanta are the main ones people actually adjust their trips around to keep from hitting rush hour

I wish someone would relay this helpful info to all of the 84 year old drivers who always seem to schedule their doctor's appointments for 5pm on a Friday, and are out on the roads going to their appointment around this time.

[grindin]

Originally Posted by gdude

not in Indianapolis. traffic up here is very very light and manageable. considering Indianapolis is a city of 800K+ people.

Thats partially because there are 2 million people in Metro Indianapolis vs. 5.6 Million in Metro Atlanta. You have to compare the metro populations with each other.

[grindin]

Originally Posted by thedudewiththeplan

No, they still have traffic issues, but DC and Atlanta are the main ones people actually adjust their trips around to keep from hitting rush hour (mainly due to how far out the traffic in these metro's starts to build). And yes, I know that traffic is just as bad in many of these cities with commuter rail, the thing about it is it allow those who don't want to rely just on a car to find an alternative way to work. Heck, if it were up to me, cities in the U.S. would follow metro Tokyo's path and having a car would not be needed in any of the metro areas.

DC is pretty damn bad during rush hour. We've been stuck on I-95 from Richmond to Maryland for hours. All those people going to and from Florida to New York and vice versa, no viable alternative to the Capital Beltway (unlike Atlanta, DC's freeways that were supposed to go through the middle of the city were canceled, but they got the Metrorail system instead), and bottlenecks such as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Even though DC's public transportation is way better than Atlanta's, the suburbs are still very auto dependent, and even though DT DC is a much more highly concentrated and centralized workplace center, a good deal of the jobs outside of DT DC are in Northern VA, so you have a huge mass of commuters coming in from MD to work in NoVA. Add all this up with thousands of people coming up the East Coasts "Main Street", and you have a recipe for disaster.

And yes, before I lived in Atlanta, we made a very concerted effort to avoid driving through there during rush hour. My dad still does.

So there is no need to avoid rush hour traffic in Miami, Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, and most any other city? All large cities have heavy traffic during the morning and evening rush - Atlanta is barely in the top 10. What Atlanta does have that most other cities of similar size don't...a heavily-used rail tranist system.

1) Miami is at the "end of the road" so to speak. The only ones that are passing through are heading down to the Keys, and you can use the Turnpike to really avoid I-95.

2) Philly can be easily bypassed by taking the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the NJ Turnpike.

3) Balto-Take one of the Tunnels or the Key Bridge.

4) Charlotte is not that bad during the rush. It's nothing like Atlanta.

My point? DC and ATL, unlike those cities have no viable alternatives to bypass what they have, and their both located on very well traveled freeways with people going from point A to point B and having to go through cities notorious for their congestion.

I've seen plenty of top 10 lists of congestion in which ATL is either #3 or 4 or somewhere up top. And MARTA isn't all that useful outside the Perimeter, which is where the vast majority of people in the metro area live.