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Whenever I see these leaders planning how to force people out of their cars, I almost never see anyone who works an 8-5 schedule and has to deal with peak hour traffic or has to deal with arranging picking up kids. And of course, they don't use mass transit. In Atlanta even school district chiefs have drivers.
You'd have to be nuts to cross Buford Highway in Atlanta mid-block. The driver wasn't punished because the kid ran in front of his car. There was nothing he could do.
First streetview I found of Buford Highway... parent pushing a stroller through mid-block
The epic traffic jam in Atlanta was not only caused by the addition of inclement winter weather (snow and ICE) to the Atlanta metro region's sprawling development patterns.
The epic traffic jam in Atlanta was also caused by the addition of inclement winter weather to sprawling development patterns (or overdevelopment and overbuilding patterns) on an Atlanta metro region road network that is very-sparse and very-limited for the very-large metropolitan population that it is trying to serve.
Atlanta is basically a large metro region of 6.3 million people that is attempting to use a road network that was only 'designed' to handle the logistical movements of a metro region with a much-smaller population of only about 2.5 million people tops.
What's worse is that the Atlanta region is attempting to use that very-sparse, very-limited and wholly-inadequate road network without the use of an adequate transit option.
Just as much of the Atlanta metro region outside of I-285 Perimeter remains highly-averse to the concept of transit, much of the Atlanta metro region outside of the I-285 Perimeter also remains highly-averse, if not downright hostile, to the concept of expanding the road network on a large-scale out of an intense fear that the metro region's notorious (and politically-dominant) land speculation and real estate development community will gleefully use that large-scale road network expansion to create yet even more traffic congestion-generating sprawl and overdevelopment.
Atlanta's limited road network already struggles mightily to handle traffic and often teeters on the brink of total gridlock during normal rush hours on dry and sunny days (both on weekdays and weekends).
Add in some rain, snow, ice or even something as simple as a very-light mist and the Atlanta region's road network often goes completely over the edge and quickly devolves into total gridlock or even outright chaos as happened last week when every automobile commuter (virtually all in single-occupant vehicles) hit the roads all at once to head home to outlying transit-averse (and new road construction-averse) suburbs.
Even if Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed had insisted that businesses within the 152 square-mile City of Atlanta that he had jurisdiction over stagger their closing times as an attempt to prevent traffic from getting out-of-hand, businesses in the much-larger 9,000 square mile-plus larger Atlanta metro region that he has no jurisdiction over would have all still closed at once and released their employees all out onto the roads at the same time.
What's more, even if businesses in the City of Atlanta would have had their closing times staggered, employees of those businesses still would have left work and emptied out onto the roads en masse because all of the Atlanta metro region's independent school systems closed at the same exact time at about 1:00 pm (mainly the Atlanta Public Schools system and the independent school systems in the metro area's northern suburbs that stayed open because they originally thought that the snow and ice would pass to the south of the city where most of the independent school systems in the southern suburbs had closed for the day).
As soon as parents would have heard that the schools were closed, they would have flooded a vastly-undersized (and pretty much totally transit-deficient) road network and caused total gridlock.
Heck, even if all of the independent school systems on the Northside had not all closed at the same time at 1:00 pm, most employees still would have been out on the roadways en masse because they would have all panicked at the sight of heavy snow falling from the sky and would have all left work early hoping to beat the traffic.
I don't believe that picture refutes the claim of insanity.
I may be mistaken, but as I recall, the crossing was in DeKalb County (about 10 miles south of that picture) where the road is wider and generally has a grassy median. There are few traffic lights, so the traffic is usually going 45-55. And its hilly so the driver and pedestrian don't have a long distance they can view of what is going on.
I also think the crossing was at night, but unfortunately, there have been several of these incidents, so I might have it confused with another one.
If one is going to use last week's winter weather event to demonize sprawl then they've also got to use last week's winter weather event to also demonize Atlanta's very-sparse regional road network.
That's because Atlanta being so overly-dependent upon such a sparse and limited regional road network is the equivalent of a large automobile-dependent metro region like a Dallas or Houston trying to use the road network of a much-smaller metro region like Pittsburgh or the road network of a transit-oriented metro region like Boston, but only without the transit.
Atlanta has sprawl and lots of it, it's just that Atlanta doesn't have the anywhere near the road infrastructure that is needed to serve that sprawl without the assistance of an adequate transit option.
Last week's weather-induced epic traffic jam isn't the first traffic disaster that the Atlanta metro region has experienced and, unfortunately, with the continued widespread resistance to viable transit alternatives by the most-powerful and hard-core anti-transit factions in the heavily-populated and politically-powerful suburbs outside the I-285 Perimeter, it most likely will not be the last traffic disaster that the Atlanta metro region experiences.
(...There are parts of the Atlanta suburbs and exurbs where even just buses alone are considered by many to be a form of extreme evil that threatens the existence of the entire American way-of-life...though many of those same transit-averse residents also abhor what they consider to be excessive roadbuilding.)
These periodic traffic disasters have been going on since the late 1990's when continued explosive population growth started to far-outstrip the ability of the Atlanta region's already-limited transportation infrastructure to handle the increased traffic.
The population of the Atlanta region has more than doubled since 1990 (from 2.9 million in 1990 to 6.3 million today) yet the region is still attempting to use what is basically the same transportation infrastructure that it had when it had less than half the population it has today, despite gaining the entire regional population of a Denver or a Cleveland.
This is a link from an article in the New York Times from November 21, 1999 titled "CHOKING ON GROWTH: A special report.; In Atlanta, Suburban Comforts Thwart Plans to Limit Sprawl" that illustrates just how long these massive traffic jams have been occurring in the Atlanta region, often with increasing severity as the region's population continues to grow while the region's transportation infrastructure stays the same: CHOKING ON GROWTH: A special report.; In Atlanta, Suburban Comforts Thwart Plans to Limit Sprawl - New York Times
From the article:
From the opening of GA-400 in 1992 until last year, Atlanta had not added a single freeway lane or even added an exit to a freeway. They added a new exit on 400 last year and opened HOT lanes in Gwinnet County. That's over 20 years with no expansion and basically doubling the population. I don't think there were any expansions of arterial roads inside I-285 either (runs about 10-12 miles from downtown). Certainly there weren't any significant ones. And they did take out some lanes in places to do "traffic calming." As for mass transit, they have added just one stop on their MARTA rail system in that time frame.
Contrast that with Houston in the same time that added significant capacity to (off the top of my head) 7 of their arterial freeways, added 3 brand new freeways/toll roads, added capacity to their inner loop 610, completed the last segment and added lanes to the north of west and started construction of additional lanes in the southwest of their 2nd loop Beltway 8 and started work on their 3rd loop, the Grand Parkway. And they have been building a 20+ mile light rail system.
Basically I-75 at I-285 got clogged and so did the rest of the city. The worst problems were in that north and northwest direction. People going east didn't have it nearly so bad. Atlanta has almost no alternative roads.
By the way, MARTA's south train was shut down for 3 hours during the peak of the traffic, so our trains contributed to the problems. It didn't provide an alternative.
In addition to the lack of through routes, Altanta is very hilly. So once those cars stopped on a hill in traffic, they had a hard time starting again in the ice.
strange that you complimented the article that refused to acknowledge ...ice......, yet you mention ...ice... as a reason.
Atlanta had gridlock in central DeKalb County (Atlanta is mostly in Fulton County, but partly in DeKalb to the east) about a month before. A gas leak shut a major thoroughfare, Lawrenceville highway. It clogged up roads all around and there was no ice. Just one major closed road. Took me nearly an hour and a half to go 2 miles (and I wasn't on Lawrenceville Highway or even going in the same direction). There isn't sufficient capacity and there are too few alternatives. When a gas leak or a ice hits, Atlanta has problems.
Why does the OP ..........REFUSE ......to acknowledge/mention ice ?
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