How Sprawlanta turned 2 inches of snow into a disaster (money, highway, Atlanta)

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by Pete.

I will admit that the ice was bad in Atlanta. However, I agree with Komeht about the road network. The bottlenecks are what caused people to abandon their cars. If people were able to use alternate roads, they wouldn't have had to sleep in grocery stores.

And tractor-trailers that jackknifed on ice caused the bottlenecks.

Are you trying to say there are no roads in Atlanta other than freeways? I saw news clips of plenty of cars abandoned on "alternate" roads.

[Katarina Witt]

Now this storm had a little more snow, but it was in an area that gets a lot of snow and see what happened. Read the comments as well.
http://www.dailycamera.com/ci_171388...ailycamera.com

Snow can snarl things up nicely. Ice makes it worse.

[Pete.]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

And tractor-trailers that jackknifed on ice caused the bottlenecks.

Are you trying to say there are no roads in Atlanta other than freeways? I saw news clips of plenty of cars abandoned on "alternate" roads.

Exactly! There aren't many arterial roads in Atlanta for alternate routes, so everyone was stuck.

Here is a 2011 article from Atlanta's newspaper that confirms this:
I-285 wreck shows lack of arterial roads | www.ajc.com

It looks like the "18-county metro area plans to spend $5.5 billion over the next 30 years expanding arterial roads".

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Pete.

Exactly! There aren't many arterial roads in Atlanta for alternate routes, so everyone was stuck.

Here is a 2011 article from Atlanta's newspaper that confirms this:
I-285 wreck shows lack of arterial roads | www.ajc.com

It looks like the "18-county metro area plans to spend $5.5 billion over the next 30 years expanding arterial roads".

But aren't arterial roads another "bete noir" of the urbanist crowd? Aren't we supposed to make it hard and unpleasant to drive?

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by Pete.

Exactly! There aren't many arterial roads in Atlanta for alternate routes, so everyone was stuck.

Give it up. If everyone was stuck, it was the fault of the snow and ice and not of the roads themselves, or their capacity. Had their been dozens of other alternate routes (which, no doubt, creative folks could find), that still would not have stopped semis from jackknifing and blocking the freeway. It would not have prevented the storm from intensifying once everyone was already on the freeway, or any other road.

[hurricaneMan1992]

Originally Posted by Katiana

But aren't arterial roads another "bete noir" of the urbanist crowd? Aren't we supposed to make it hard and unpleasant to drive?

LOL...you are assuming that it is "easy and pleasant" to drive in most American cities, including Atlanta! Maybe in the 50's it was...

[Pete.]

Originally Posted by Ohiogirl81

Give it up. If everyone was stuck, it was the fault of the snow and ice and not of the roads themselves, or their capacity. Had their been dozens of other alternate routes (which, no doubt, creative folks could find), that still would not have stopped semis from jackknifing and blocking the freeway. It would not have prevented the storm from intensifying once everyone was already on the freeway, or any other road.

I firmly believe that traffic engineering is important, and that a better road network would help Atlanta's terrible traffic even on normal days. We will just have to disagree.

[Pete.]

Originally Posted by Katiana

But aren't arterial roads another "bete noir" of the urbanist crowd? Aren't we supposed to make it hard and unpleasant to drive?

In general, yes. Most arterial roads are high-speed, dangerous, and unpleasant for pedestrians or bicyclers.

A regular street grid would be even better, but it's too late for that in Atlanta.

The key is to design an arterial that is safe, easy, and pleasant for cars, bikes, and pedestrians alike.

[Ohiogirl81]

Originally Posted by Pete.

I firmly believe that traffic engineering is important, and that a better road network would help Atlanta's terrible traffic even on normal days.

Of course it will. But it likely would not have helped during that particular snow/ice storm.

[BBMW]

I haven't read all of the preceding 11 pages, but I wanted to reply about the article and the OPs post. This is much more about a southern region that is gets very little snow, and is unprepared respond to it, than anything else. The same situation in the suburbs around Chicago or Minneapolis would have had little to no effect, because the localities involved would have the equipment, experience, and procedures to deal with it, and the drivers would know how to deal with the impact to their commute, and would likely have vehicles better equipped for the situation. Living in NYC, all the exposed transit links tend to get clobbered in a decent snowstorm, especially if the MTA, and the other agencies don't have their act together when these events happen.

This has nothing to do with "sprawl". There is a certain cadre who posts here, the OP among them, who want to blame any negative event that happens in the country on the SFR / auto based topology that has been used in this country since the end of WWII. They're wrong, and they need to drop it.

Originally Posted by Komeht

good read on a man-made disaster caused by sprawl

Atlanta Snow Storm - POLITICO Magazine

"More than any event I’ve witnessed in two decades of living in and writing about this city, this snowstorm underscores the horrible history of suburban sprawl in the United States and the bad political decisions that drive it. It tells us something not just about what’s wrong with one city in America today but what can happen when disaster strikes many places across the country. As with famines in foreign lands, it’s important to understand: It’s not an act of nature or God—this fiasco is manmade from start to finish."