INRIX 2012 Most Congested Corridors: Atlanta only has 2 out of 163 worst nationwide (Tucker: living in, moving to)

[testa50]

INRIX National Traffic Scorecard

Despite the terrible reputation Atlanta has for traffic, only two corridors made it onto INRIX's list of the 163 most congested corridors. The corridors are Georgia 400 from Old Milton Road to Holcomb Bridge Road (ranked 89th most congested), and I-85 from Chamblee Tucker to Jimmy Carter Blvd (ranked 158th most congested).

What gives? I feel like traffic actually is pretty bad here, and I barely even drive. I live overlooking the Connector and it is regularly backed up in either direction. Maybe other places are worse? Maybe the methodology favors us somehow?

Some cities that have a larger number of top-congested corridors than we do:

Austin (4)
Minneapolis (3)
Dallas (9)
Houston (9)
Pittsburgh (3)
Seattle (8)

New York has 21, and Los Angeles has 35 on the extreme end of the spectrum. I often hear Atlanta tossed around as having traffic as bad as LA, but according to this study it is night and day.

By way of comparison, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando, and Tampa each have 1 on the list. Denver, New Orleans, and Phoenix each have 2.

[Cameron H]

Originally Posted by testa50

What gives? I feel like traffic actually is pretty bad here, and I barely even drive. I live overlooking the Connector and it is regularly backed up in either direction. Maybe other places are worse? Maybe the methodology favors us somehow?

Some cities that have a larger number of top-congested corridors than we do:

Austin (4)
Minneapolis (3)
Dallas (9)
Houston (9)
Pittsburgh (3)
Seattle (8)

New York has 21, and Los Angeles has 35 on the extreme end of the spectrum. I often hear Atlanta tossed around as having traffic as bad as LA, but according to this study it is night and day.

By way of comparison, Nashville, Charlotte, Orlando, and Tampa each have 1 on the list. Denver, New Orleans, and Phoenix each have 2.

I lived for at least one year in New Orleans, Houston, Austin, LA, and Minneapolis before moving to Atlanta. New Orleans was in the 80s, and it's a different city now. I'll leave it out. But I felt that overall Houston, Austin, and LA were all worse, and Minneapolis was about the same.

I've said since joining this board that Atlanta traffic is overhyped. Of course, that doesn't mean that the city needs no improvement in its transportation infrastructure.

[arjay57]

I have said for years that the claim that Atlanta traffic is the worst is a myth. With a few exceptions traffic here zips along pretty well compared to other big cities.

[10 feet tall]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I have said for years that the claim that Atlanta traffic is the worst is a myth. With a few exceptions traffic here zips along pretty well compared to other big cities.

I agree. It is no worse here than where I've lived before.

[tonygeorgia]

People generally say our traffic is bad because of the number of lanes we have. We can have 7 lanes of traffic backed up on 75/85 going at 25mph but people will say that it is worse than 3 lanes of traffic going at 15mph

[Bama1787]

I recently moved from the ATL area to the LA area. Holy Cow! I had no idea how good we had it in ATL. If I ever move back to GA, I will never complain about the traffic.

I would say though that Atlanta is worse at clearing wrecks and broken down cars. On CA freeways, wrecks are cleared immediately and vehicles on the shoulder are tended to immediately. CHP will actually use their push bumpers to push wrecked cars to the shoulder.

[PKCorey]

I wonder, if less people working in this economy has something to do with us dropping in all the traffic categories lately.

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

I wonder, if less people working in this economy has something to do with us dropping in all the traffic categories lately.

Doubtful. It's not as if there are that many people out of the work force to affect traffic that much. Also, in some cases we have more people in the work force than there are people living in cities with worse traffic scores than us or we have a similar amount of the workforce out of work.

Really, the biggest problem with Atlanta are the bottle necks. The biggest of them all being where 400 and 285 and the Connector. They do cause a cascading effect for traffic in several directions, but after the initial rush is over it's smooth sailing.

Really, the key to Atlanta's traffic being better than those cities is that most of the major highways have a huge capacity. Which, as was mentioned, might lead people to think that traffic is worse than it really is due to a lack of information.

If one is driving through Atlanta, chances are you have to go through the Connector or 285. If one happens to do it during the afternoon, one may look around at the lanes jam packed with 10s of thousands of cars and assume that every where in Atlanta looks like that.

[testa50]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

I wonder, if less people working in this economy has something to do with us dropping in all the traffic categories lately.

For this to be true we'd have to be doing worse relative to everyone else. Right now that isn't really the case.

The US economy is ~2.7 million jobs below its March peak level (2008), or right around 2%. Atlanta is 50,000 jobs off of its March peak level, also around 2%. We actually got hit harder than the rest of the country during the recession, but are now recovering faster than average, and we are right around the point that we have caught up with the national recovery at the moment. So I don't think it really explains our improvement in traffic ratings.

Maybe 2 years ago, yes, this would be a plausible explanation. But not the 2012 data.

[noah]

Worse traffic means a better economy | www.clarkhoward.com