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Old 01-28-2020, 12:10 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
9,818 posts, read 7,864,506 times
Reputation: 9981

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Need4Camaro View Post
The one thing however that makes this sort of thing much easier in DFW than Atlanta, besides political outliers, is the clay soil. Its alot easier and cheaper to dig in DFW than tearing through granite in Atlanta...but despite the extreme cost, it would be a much better solution even if built over a much longer period of time.

Yep, they're having to blast through granite just to widen the right of way around Ashford-Dunwoody.
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Old 01-28-2020, 12:35 PM
 
Location: Georgia
5,845 posts, read 6,134,419 times
Reputation: 3573
Quote:
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll View Post
A good alternative to the pursuit of a Peachtree Industrial Boulevard-style upgrade (which GDOT has gotten much flack for from businesses along the stretch of PIB that was turned into a freeway) potentially might be to rebuild some of the busiest at-grade intersections (along roads like GA-92, State Bridge Road/Pleasant Hill Road, the aforementioned GA-120 through Cobb, etc.) into multiple-level grade-separated intersections (with through lanes tunneled below-grade/underground) that require no widening of roadways and no expansion of public right-of-way.
I second this.

Major intersections are almost always the bottleneck along surface streets. Fix those and you've solved a lot of the traffic problems.

One example where they did what B2R proposed was this intersection of Broadwell, Crabapple, and Mayfield Roads. Instead of widening the intersection which would have taken out the buildings immediately SE and NE of this intersection, they built a bypass (Heritage Walk) on undeveloped land, connected by traffic circles. This wasn't enough to relieve all the traffic that backs up on Mayfield every evening, so they're going to extend that bypass road around to Charlotte Dr and put another traffic circle in there. They only had to take out one house to put in this route.

Another is down in Roswell, at the intersection of Atlanta St, Riverside, and Azalea Dr. It is the south end of reversible lanes on Atlanta St, and cars that want to turn left onto Riverside have to make a dangerous turn without any protected left arrows. The intersection even prohibits this left turn during morning rush hour!

The City of Roswell wants to build an underpass for Riverside/Azalea under Atlanta St and link them with a short connector road just north of the intersection. But unlike the example in Milton above, which is actively constructing the second part of their bypass road, I have no idea when Roswell is going to start on this much-needed project.
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Old 01-29-2020, 03:13 AM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,579 posts, read 10,723,525 times
Reputation: 6542
Quote:
Originally Posted by Need4Camaro View Post
In that aspect then yeah I see what you mean.

Is there anything concrete that shows where commuters from which county are really commuting from and where they are commuting to on average? I-85 seems like alot of commuters are leaving the county.
There is, but my apologies due to work/travel l imitations I can't look it up. I just don't have the time to participate in this forum like I use to.

The ARC had some data tools online that look at where workers work both in terms of from the county they reside to where they go and what counties the workers come from.

The general effect is Fulton has the most workers and counties like Gwinnett & Cobb (and almost Clayton) are on parity with jobs-to-population of workers.

What happens from a commuter flow is half of Gwinnett's working residents commute closer to intown, whether its Fulton, perimeter, or Dekalb and half of Gwinnett's employees live in outlying counties and commute into Gwinnett. About half stay within the county.

So the movement of flow (inward) remains the prominent demand, but they aren't all driving intown. You have exits where people get on the freeway and people from further out are getting off the freeway at the same time.

The big problem I have with their dataset, is I wish is broke apart Alpharetta, from Perimter, to intown Atlanta. If you compare those areas to a county like Gwinnett or Cobb, the commute directions and corridors are totally different.

Just commuting to Fulton County doesn't tell us as much as it use to. It also doesn't tell us how many are people that live near the border and work close by (ie. Live in Lilburn, but work at Mountain Industrial/Tucker/Northlake)

There was a data tool that they had where you could draw specific areas on maps to find out where their employees come from. It could probably be used to create better data, but it depends on how well someone uses it in the Geographic border choices they make.
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Old 01-29-2020, 01:33 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
3,656 posts, read 3,915,260 times
Reputation: 4315
Quote:
Originally Posted by Need4Camaro View Post
It will still fail to solve congestion.

Texas for example - Many of their Toll Roads have 75 - 85 MPH speed limits and they were intentfully designed this way to entice drivers to pay to use them, however when reliable speeds begin to fall below these limits, they increase the tolls making it so only those who can afford to use them are entitled to these high speeds. What you're not seeing is, the grand majority of commuters will NOT fit that entitlement. Many are paying upward $200 per month in tolls just to commute.

Here is what will really happen:

The toll lanes will become cap-less and increase to absurdly high amounts to retain reliable speeds. Unfortunately reliable speeds will be the only thing they will retain - the grand amount of commuter traffic will be forced to continue to use the congested GP lanes while the toll lanes become for the lack of better words, Lexus Lanes. meanwhile the grand majority of commuters will probably only be able to afford to use them twice a week at BEST.

Thats not solving ANYTHING, Thats just entitling certain classes of commuters to reliable commute times while the GP lanes continue to fill up.

Mass Transit will be much more in line with providing EVERYONE a means of by-passing traffic.

That plus those elevated lanes will absolutely trash anything aesthetic in terms of scenery around I-285. There is no need to build these lanes when Atlanta metro has plenty of rail lines extending to its suburbs that could be converted to commuter rail for practically the same dollar.
The Express Lanes do only one thing- provide the option of a faster moving lane that shouldn't ever grind to a halt like the general purpose lanes many times each day.

That's all that they were promised to do, and "solving congestion" which gets confused with "adding capacity" aren't stated goals or objectives of the Express Lanes.

But GDOT has officially identified the revenue from the dynamic tolls as a main source of funding for maintenance and new construction projects in the future.

They claim that all of the money dedicated for new construction projects has already been spent and even future projected revenue has already been spent on recent projects.

Therefore they will be depending on this generated revenue to finance part of any capital expenditures in the future.

Though with the same $6 billion a year to spend now just like NC has, I don't understand why Georgia couldn't allocate $2 billion for maintenance and $3.5 billion to new construction projects like NCDOT has always done.

I do think the aesthetic damage to I-285 will change this state forever and is of such magnitude that this project in the I-285 right-of-way should be relocated elsewhere or cancelled.

It's almost impossible to make it look attractive, and even the rendering video shows that all of the tree buffer will be lost on the Top End. That's the nail in the coffin for any justification to live in Atlanta in my opinion when almost every other Southeastern city is more attractive.
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Old 01-29-2020, 02:16 PM
 
Location: NW Atlanta
6,502 posts, read 6,091,474 times
Reputation: 4463
Quote:
Originally Posted by architect77 View Post
The Express Lanes do only one thing- provide the option of a faster moving lane that shouldn't ever grind to a halt like the general purpose lanes many times each day.

That's all that they were promised to do, and "solving congestion" which gets confused with "adding capacity" aren't stated goals or objectives of the Express Lanes.

But GDOT has officially identified the revenue from the dynamic tolls as a main source of funding for maintenance and new construction projects in the future.
These lanes will not generate enough money to pay for the construction of the projects (most of the funding is coming from gas tax revenue)

Quote:
They claim that all of the money dedicated for new construction projects has already been spent and even future projected revenue has already been spent on recent projects.

Therefore they will be depending on this generated revenue to finance part of any capital expenditures in the future.
Debt?

Quote:
Though with the same $6 billion a year to spend now just like NC has, I don't understand why Georgia couldn't allocate $2 billion for maintenance and $3.5 billion to new construction projects like NCDOT has always done.
Where does GDOT have a $6 billion/year budget?

Quote:
I do think the aesthetic damage to I-285 will change this state forever and is of such magnitude that this project in the I-285 right-of-way should be relocated elsewhere or cancelled.
ALL of these projects should be canceled just on the cost/benefit alone, though aesthetics would more affect the immediate homeowners along these corridors than the entire state.

Quote:
It's almost impossible to make it look attractive, and even the rendering video shows that all of the tree buffer will be lost on the Top End. That's the nail in the coffin for any justification to live in Atlanta in my opinion when almost every other Southeastern city is more attractive.
Don't you live very, very ITP anyway?
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Old 01-30-2020, 06:39 AM
 
Location: west cobb slob
264 posts, read 162,631 times
Reputation: 748
I wonder if it would be reasonable to do to GA 20 what NC plans to do with US 74 inside Charlotte. Keep it an arterial road, but basically reduce/eliminate stoplights, and turn the inner lanes into a divided, limited access express lane.

https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us-74...al-section.jpg


Might be more palatable than a true outer freeway.
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Old 01-30-2020, 06:51 AM
 
Location: NW Atlanta
6,502 posts, read 6,091,474 times
Reputation: 4463
Quote:
Originally Posted by cranberrysaus View Post
I wonder if it would be reasonable to do to GA 20 what NC plans to do with US 74 inside Charlotte. Keep it an arterial road, but basically reduce/eliminate stoplights, and turn the inner lanes into a divided, limited access express lane.

https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us-74...al-section.jpg


Might be more palatable than a true outer freeway.
I drove on that very segment a few weekends ago, and it was awful.
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Old 01-30-2020, 01:28 PM
 
11,695 posts, read 7,882,476 times
Reputation: 9802
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gulch View Post
I drove on that very segment a few weekends ago, and it was awful.
Those are common in states like New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, ect. They are called Super Streets. I personally think at the point where they throw up a barrier to prevent left turns, they really just need to make it a complete freeway, although other things stop it such as available land, local businesses, ect.

I think what would be better is to just build overpasses over congested intersections converting them to interchanges and eliminating all stop-lights while retaining non-signalized intersections (going left and right with no barrier in the median obstructing left turns) as well as any neighboring driveways. This and building short but fully limited access bypasses around the cores of the of the towns it passes through (Canton, Cumming, Buford)

TX 71 between Austin and I-10 follows a similar principal and although through many sections it looks just like the rural sections of GA-400 or GA-316, it flows very well and even has a 75 MPH speed limit on a non limited access divided highway. It has no traffic lights but it does have intersections including left turners.

It would basically be like GA-316 without traffic lights but intersections here and there and grade-separated interchanges at previously congested intersections

After its completion, put a sign on I-75 S that points to GA 20 as the route to I-85 N

Last edited by Need4Camaro; 01-30-2020 at 01:41 PM..
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Old 01-30-2020, 05:36 PM
 
Location: Georgia
5,845 posts, read 6,134,419 times
Reputation: 3573
Quote:
Originally Posted by cranberrysaus View Post
I wonder if it would be reasonable to do to GA 20 what NC plans to do with US 74 inside Charlotte. Keep it an arterial road, but basically reduce/eliminate stoplights, and turn the inner lanes into a divided, limited access express lane.

https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us-74...al-section.jpg


Might be more palatable than a true outer freeway.
If the goal is to prevent sprawl, then a superstreet would do a worse job than a limited-access highway would. That's why if we ever get the outer perimeter built, it needs to be a freeway built to interstate standards.
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Old 01-30-2020, 07:41 PM
 
10,356 posts, read 11,387,430 times
Reputation: 7733
Quote:
Originally Posted by cranberrysaus View Post
I wonder if it would be reasonable to do to GA 20 what NC plans to do with US 74 inside Charlotte. Keep it an arterial road, but basically reduce/eliminate stoplights, and turn the inner lanes into a divided, limited access express lane.

https://www.ncdot.gov/projects/us-74...al-section.jpg


Might be more palatable than a true outer freeway.
GDOT had recently proposed to expand the GA-20 roadway between Cumming and Canton (which is mostly 2-3 lanes) to a divided 6-lane roadway.

Many (if not most) local residents seemed to be strongly opposed to almost any type of widening of the GA-20 roadway (except for maybe the addition of some extra right and left turn lanes where most needed, and/or maybe a center-turn lane) out of an intense fear that adding travel lanes to GA-20 will attract the type of heavy development that has been built in and helped to almost completely urbanize once seemingly far-flung closer-in metro Atlanta suburban areas like North Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb, DeKalb and Clayton.

… This in an area (in Forsyth and Cherokee counties) where many residents seriously continue to think of themselves as living in the Appalachian/Blue Ridge foothills region of North Georgia.

The many residents who are loudly opposed to any type of significant expansion of the GA-20 roadway between Cumming and Canton intensely fear that adding more travel lanes to GA-20 will bring about the destruction of the exurban/rural Appalachian/Blue Ridge foothills character and lifestyle that they so enjoy about living in the area and that they seem to be willing to fight fiercely to protect.

In that context, almost any type of expansion of GA-20 is likely to be rejected by the residents of Forsyth and Cherokee counties who remain strongly opposed to expanding the GA-20 roadway between Cumming and Canton.

Here are a couple of links from a previous discussion here on the Atlanta Forum in early 2017, after GDOT had proposed to expand GA-20 into a 6-lane divided surface highway, that might provide some more background on that issue...

Residents push back against widening of Hwy 20 to six lanes in Cherokee and Forsyth counties (City-Data Atlanta Forum, 2/28/17)

Residents push back against six lanes on Highway 20...
Concerned residents in Cherokee County are pushing back against a plan to widen Highway 20 from two lanes to six lanes. GDOT officials say the project will relieve congestion and improve safety.
(WXIA-TV/11Alive Atlanta, 2/27/17)
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