New Surface Markings on 75/85 South (closing, moving, pine)

[tikigod311]

Was traveling south on the connector tonight and noticed the new I-75 and I-85 markings painted on the asphalt in the three left lanes starting around 17th St. I was intially puzzled by the location on these markings being on the southbound side since it is past the merge.

What I guess they are trying to do is promote all through traffic to stay to the left. It starts as the three left lanes with 75/85 logos, then as you get closer to I-20, they are only painted on the two left left lanes.

So now instead of the left lanes being for faster travel, it is for thru lanes. It makes sense to encourage thru traffic to get over before arriving at I-20 to avoid the last minute merging. Having thru traffic situated before traffic from Freedom and Edgewood merge on may have an impact on congestion around the Grady curve.

I think this may be a fairly clever trick to get traffic moving more efficiently through the city.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by tikigod311

Was traveling south on the connector tonight and noticed the new I-75 and I-85 markings painted on the asphalt in the three left lanes starting around 17th St. I was intially puzzled by the location on these markings being on the southbound side since it is past the merge.

What I guess they are trying to do is promote all through traffic to stay to the left. It starts as the three left lanes with 75/85 logos, then as you get closer to I-20, they are only painted on the two left left lanes.

So now instead of the left lanes being for faster travel, it is for thru lanes. It makes sense to encourage thru traffic to get over before arriving at I-20 to avoid the last minute merging. Having thru traffic situated before traffic from Freedom and Edgewood merge on may have an impact on congestion around the Grady curve.

I think this may be a fairly clever trick to get traffic moving more efficiently through the city.

Whatever it takes!

[MattCW]

In my experience, the problem is with the people getting on at Edgewood and having to merge all the way over, and I-20 traffic having to fight them. What would drastically improve things is an HOV entrance from Edgewood onto the connector as well as an HOV interchange from the connector to/from I-20. As it stands now, the I-20 HOV on the east freeway is utterly useless. The only normal traffic backups are past I-285 going east in the afternoon, and right where the HOV ends going west in the morning. They should either take the HOV lane for fixed-guideway transit like GA-400 (the two lanes plus left shoulders are just wide enough for HRT, and easily wide enough for LRT) or remove the striping altogether.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by MattCW

In my experience, the problem is with the people getting on at Edgewood and having to merge all the way over, and I-20 traffic having to fight them. What would drastically improve things is an HOV entrance from Edgewood onto the connector as well as an HOV interchange from the connector to/from I-20. As it stands now, the I-20 HOV on the east freeway is utterly useless. The only normal traffic backups are past I-285 going east in the afternoon, and right where the HOV ends going west in the morning. They should either take the HOV lane for fixed-guideway transit like GA-400 (the two lanes plus left shoulders are just wide enough for HRT, and easily wide enough for LRT) or remove the striping altogether.

One of the dumbest things that came out of the Freeing the Freeways project was the decision to not shut down the Edgewood SB onramp. Closing it would go a long way to helping the merge issue down there.

[red92s]

Originally Posted by Gulch

One of the dumbest things that came out of the Freeing the Freeways project was the decision to not shut down the Edgewood SB onramp. Closing it would go a long way to helping the merge issue down there.

I've decided the I-20/Edgewood exit entrance situation turns everyone involved to idiots. It's pretty much impossible to make it through there without a couple people going back or forth at the last second, through the medians.

[cqholt]

So now instead of the left lanes being for faster travel, it is for thru lanes. It makes sense to encourage thru traffic to get over before arriving at I-20 to avoid the last minute merging. Having thru traffic situated before traffic from Freedom and Edgewood merge on may have an impact on congestion around the Grady curve.

I think this may be a fairly clever trick to get traffic moving more efficiently through the city

How is it so hard to see the large overhead signs that point to the lanes?

[jsvh]

I saw these last night. Neat. Agree about closing some of the ramps downtown. There are way too many.

[tikigod311]

Originally Posted by cqholt

How is it so hard to see the large overhead signs that point to the lanes?

It starts at 17th street in the SB lanes, so they are trying to get thru traffic over before they get to the merging madness.

It worked on me last night.

[sjuraud]

I like them, but they reflect a lot of sunlight in the mornings heading Southbound. I suppose once the shiny-ness of the paint wears down a bit, the shimmer won't be as bad.

[testa50]

Agree there are too many freeway access points southbound in downtown (between I-20 and North).

Northbound you've got 7:
- I-20 onramp
- MLK onramp
- Edgewood offramp
- Freedom Parkway offramp
- Freedom Parkway onramp
- Pine St offramp
- Linden offramp

Southbound you've got 10:
- Williams offramp
- Spring onramp
- Courtland offramp
- Freedom Parkway offramp
- Jesse Hill Jr offramp
- Ellis onramp
- Freedom Parkway onramp
- Edgewood onramp
- MLK offramp
- I-20 offramp

I feel like Jesse Hill Jr and Freedom Parkway could be merged into a single exit point which splits. Edgewood could be closed.