Atlanta's lack of a street grid (Savannah, Washington: house, maintenance, cost of)

[NashvilleIsLife]

Originally Posted by shenardl

+3

+4

[cwkimbro]

+5

And with bad PR info graphics!

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by architect77

The photos reiterated my point that nothing is ever improved or updated especially the South side which they neglect even more.

North Carolina has built thousands of miles of new, interstate-quality highways in the last 30 years. They have over 80,000 miles of highways and resources must be spent all across the state’s cities. Charlotte represents just 2.8 million of the state’s 10.5 million people. NCDOT would have built 3 loops around Atlanta by now.

You likely just wanted to get a reply but you couldn’t be more wrong comparing NC which maintains the nation’s 2nd largest network of roads ( only Texas has more).

Moreland Ave in that photo needs new shoulders and all kinds of safety upgrades. No federal highway in NC looks that bad.

And NC would never tolerate Piedmont Ave Northbound by the botanical garden to be headed directly into a dry
Cleaners. They care about the public’s safety and would straighten out that dangerous spot, if moving or razing the dry cleaners so be it.

Atlanta has no one looking at the bigger picture of our infrastructure's condition, resiliency, and how problems can be addressed to aide mobility.

Our infamous traffic is not because it's a big city, it's due to having a DOT that originally didn't have the funding to do much, but now that they do have more money, they don't look at how other state's DOTs do things. They truly are clueless as to what a top-notch highway system looks like or what one requires on their part.

The problem is you're just cherry picking locations. CoA and parts of Dekalb have some unkempt roads, but the rest of the metro and state is just fine. Georgia isn't as proactive as Texas or even NC but to say nothing's updated or improved is just a silly exaggeration. And GDOT's hands are often tied due to political and public pressure. The Freeway Revolts during a critical period of growth and a strong aversion to any toll roads. I think GDOT does a fine job with what they're allowed to do. They've done a lot of work over the last decade+.

[evannole]

I will say this: we made a day trip to Alabama (about an hour north of Birmingham) last weekend to adopt a cat, and I was stunned at how much better condition the surfaces of the interstates are in Alabama than in Georgia. Many of them were seemingly smooth as glass. Perhaps this is a function of much greater truck traffic on I-75 (the road I am most used to driving on in rural Georgia) than on I-20 and I-65 within Alabama, but that doesn't account for the fact that I-20 improved substantially as soon as we passed over the state line into Alabama. On the return, the poor cat woke up and became very noisy once we were back on the rough, Georgia portion of I-20. (She recovered just fine and has settled into our home beautifully.)

On the whole, though, I have been pretty impressed with some recent DOT projects. The Northweat Corridor toll lanes were really quite well designed and have worked very well. I drove on them nearly every day until the lockdown began.

[stillinthesouth]

Originally Posted by evannole

I will say this: we made a day trip to Alabama (about an hour north of Birmingham) last weekend to adopt a cat, and I was stunned at how much better condition the surfaces of the interstates are in Alabama than in Georgia. Many of them were seemingly smooth as glass. Perhaps this is a function of much greater truck traffic on I-75 (the road I am most used to driving on in rural Georgia) than on I-20 and I-65 within Alabama, but that doesn't account for the fact that I-20 improved substantially as soon as we passed over the state line into Alabama. On the return, the poor cat woke up and became very noisy once we were back on the rough, Georgia portion of I-20. (She recovered just fine and has settled into our home beautifully.)

On the whole, though, I have been pretty impressed with some recent DOT projects. The Northweat Corridor toll lanes were really quite well designed and have worked very well. I drove on them nearly every day until the lockdown began.

I noticed the exact same thing when I drove to Alabama via I-20 a couple years ago. There are many sections of the interstate system throughout metro Atlanta that are in increasingly poor condition. There's no getting around that, even if one grows tired of one of our posters constantly bringing the NC DOT into the discussion.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by evannole

I will say this: we made a day trip to Alabama (about an hour north of Birmingham) last weekend to adopt a cat, and I was stunned at how much better condition the surfaces of the interstates are in Alabama than in Georgia. Many of them were seemingly smooth as glass. Perhaps this is a function of much greater truck traffic on I-75 (the road I am most used to driving on in rural Georgia) than on I-20 and I-65 within Alabama, but that doesn't account for the fact that I-20 improved substantially as soon as we passed over the state line into Alabama. On the return, the poor cat woke up and became very noisy once we were back on the rough, Georgia portion of I-20. (She recovered just fine and has settled into our home beautifully.)

On the whole, though, I have been pretty impressed with some recent DOT projects. The Northweat Corridor toll lanes were really quite well designed and have worked very well. I drove on them nearly every day until the lockdown began.

They literally just re-did that section within the last decade. This was the section in 2014. It was ok. It actually had a very distinct sound that I associated with road trips. I honestly miss that sound.
I remember in the 2000s when I-20 was in abysmal shape. In fact, there's still one bumpy section that remains right here east of Pell City. The whole portion of I-20 east of Birmingham out towards Anniston/Oxford used to be the bumpiest stretch of freeway I have ever travelled. My dad used to refer to it as the CD player skip test. He knew he had a good unit when he could survive that portion with limited skipping.

Alabama has stepped up their game in the last decade but it wasn't that way forever. Their new construction has impressed me and they're really improving things. They had a huge project between Leeds and Pell City. My sister started college in NW Alabama in 04 and it seems like they started working on that portion by the time she graduated in 08. Very hilly and just 2 lanes so they widened it to 3 in each direction. I don't remember when they started work but it was during her time in college. I finished college in Texas in 2014 so I drove that stretch a lot too. They took until 2013/2014 to finish it all. In fact, it took so long they had to repave the already completed portion.

I wish they'd dump concrete (not literally) in Georgia. They did work on I-20 just east of AL in the 2000s and I remember plenty of times they had EB traffic down to one lane on the WB side and vice versa. Fast forward to now and they're already re-doing the same stretch cause it just wasn't in that great of shape. Up near Lake Hartwell they just repaved 85 10 years ago. It's really not in bad shape at all and they're already repaving it entirely from mile 154 to the SC border. It's the 5 mile concrete portion from 149 and 154 that I wish they'd re-do.

[jsvh]

Atlanta before highways cut it up (1911):

[dozener]

damn, that's sexy

[architect77]

Originally Posted by NC2ATL60

lol +1

Reading is fundamental. Go back and look at Sedimenjerry's attempt to say I don't know what I'm talking about.

He brought up NC, so try reading first before insulting, or don't post at all unless you have something meaningful to contribute.

[architect77]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

They literally just re-did that section within the last decade. This was the section in 2014. It was ok. It actually had a very distinct sound that I associated with road trips. I honestly miss that sound.
I remember in the 2000s when I-20 was in abysmal shape. In fact, there's still one bumpy section that remains right here east of Pell City. The whole portion of I-20 east of Birmingham out towards Anniston/Oxford used to be the bumpiest stretch of freeway I have ever travelled. My dad used to refer to it as the CD player skip test. He knew he had a good unit when he could survive that portion with limited skipping.

Alabama has stepped up their game in the last decade but it wasn't that way forever. Their new construction has impressed me and they're really improving things. They had a huge project between Leeds and Pell City. My sister started college in NW Alabama in 04 and it seems like they started working on that portion by the time she graduated in 08. Very hilly and just 2 lanes so they widened it to 3 in each direction. I don't remember when they started work but it was during her time in college. I finished college in Texas in 2014 so I drove that stretch a lot too. They took until 2013/2014 to finish it all. In fact, it took so long they had to repave the already completed portion.

I wish they'd dump concrete (not literally) in Georgia. They did work on I-20 just east of AL in the 2000s and I remember plenty of times they had EB traffic down to one lane on the WB side and vice versa. Fast forward to now and they're already re-doing the same stretch cause it just wasn't in that great of shape. Up near Lake Hartwell they just repaved 85 10 years ago. It's really not in bad shape at all and they're already repaving it entirely from mile 154 to the SC border. It's the 5 mile concrete portion from 149 and 154 that I wish they'd re-do.

Some interstates in Atlanta have to use an asphalt mix thats aerated so the water has somewhere to go fast because the roadway isn't crowned or sloped enough to shed the water quickly. That asphalt is pretty loud at least with my tires.

Asphalt doesn't last long, I would think 10 years with heavy traffic counts like I-85 (probably 60,000 cars a day if not more) would be too long to resurface again.

Sometimes concrete highways are built well and they are smooth. But yeah, as the nexus of the Southeast's interstates the truck traffic in Georgia is tough on the roadways.