This particular interstate is horrible during rush hour, capacity is well over 100% . The state has no money to add to the lanes and these shoulders were already reinforced and expanded so buses could use them to bypass traffic. They added several "pullover" spots for wrecks, breakdowns, ticketing but we know how many people would think to stop there.

FTFA: "Authorities say emergency vehicles will use the two left lanes of the highway as long as drivers cooperate."

Therein lies the rub. Good luck with that.

mauricecano: This particular interstate is horrible during rush hour, capacity is well over 100% . The state has no money to add to the lanes and these shoulders were already reinforced and expanded so buses could use them to bypass traffic. They added several "pullover" spots for wrecks, breakdowns, ticketing but we know how many people would think to stop there.

The road isn't an interstate. It's Georgia 400, a state road and currently the only toll road in GA and that's only the ITP part. (Inside The Perimeter) Another goofy thing about this is it's only the mornings and the south bound lanes getting the change. Going home northbound in the afternoon, no such luck.

But come on Subby, you couldn't have used an Atlanta station for the article? I mean the Chattanooga article references WSB radio which posted information about this change.

/OTP and proud.

"What we do is wind this road around and around like this in a circle....and then put a dead end on it!"

/Probably not an accurate quote, but it's been years since I've heard Foxworthy

It's a bit of a gateway measure; once you do it there's no going back. Other than that - they've been doing it in my country for ages now (with electronic signs over the road every few hundred meters or so, indicating whether or not you can use them), and it's always a weird experience. Especially when you're crossing a line that was once used to indicate the curvature of an exit. You get that 'holy shiat, I'm going to bump into something Very Soon Now' feeling. Keeps you awake.

Fix the damn I285 exits/entrances. A huge part of rush hour traffic is because of that clusterfark.

Ahhh good ole 285, aptly named, because you're going 2 or 85.

/ Done a lot of traveling over the years, NOTHING compares to Atlanta
//Lived on Peachtree

TOY Moose: Ahhh good ole 285, aptly named, because you're going 2 or 85.

/ Done a lot of traveling over the years, NOTHING compares to Atlanta
//Lived on Peachtree

It's like a grownup version of MarioKart

ZAZ: One of the other stories on this subject mentions that the speed limit on the shoulder will be 45, compared to 65 on the regular lanes.

Massachusetts' lanes are opened at fixed hours. When traffic is moving fine (no need for a fourth lane) people use the shoulder as a passing lane. Letters to the editor periodically call for reduced speed limits. Enforcement is not practical. Police are too busy and there is little room to pull over speeders when the shoulder is in use.

As a voluntary code of conduct for these lanes, I recommend driving no more than 10-15 mph faster than the next lane if traffic is moving or 25-30 mph if traffic is stopped, and if traffic is moving over 60 you should drive in a real lane no matter whether the shoulder is legal.

As someone who has lived just off exit 8 of 400 for the last 6 years, and who has 10% confidence my fellow drivers would exercise common sense, I think you're only tagging part of the problem. While maintaining a "reasonably faster" speed than traffic to the left of the emergency lane might help, the bigger problem is to get these drivers to focus on the task at hand; driving!

The abundance of dipshiat drivers in Roswell/Alpharetta area who put 80% or less of their attention on the road is staggering. Couple that with those wielding the wheel with all the confidence of a Parkinson's victim with a surgical scalpel and it's a farkin disaster.

Driving protocol is not a strength here; left-lane squatters on the phone, stopping in a middle lane because you're going to miss that right or left turn, paying attention to traffic lights.

Solution: move out of the sticks.

SweetSilverBlues: Fix the damn I285 exits/entrances. A huge part of rush hour traffic is because of that clusterfark.

This.
Getting off 285 to 400 in the afternoon (like many other exits) is a crapshoot, dangerous and ridiculous. People clog up a second lane trying to merge at the last second.

I still don't understand how opening up that shoulder was supposed to help? Can anyone explain that? It sounded like all they did was make one large exit ramp for Northridge Rd?

/45 min commute = 2 hours this morning

This is nuts.

GA 400 (not an interstate highway, but a freeway) was built to relieve N-S traffic congestion on that side of town. To pay for the construction, a section of it, from just south of the I-285 loop to I-85, was made a toll road. We were promised that as soon as construction costs were recouped, the toll both would come down. Ten years max, we were told. Well, the toll booth is still there and there are no plans to take it away. Au contraire! Now there is talk about making several more sections of freeways toll roads.

GA 400 did relieve horrible north side traffic problems at first. But as Atlantans know all too well, a new freeway always equals massive over-development and eventually another clogged freeway. A section of the highway was widened to three or four lanes (one lane as exit only) a few years back and this helped some, but not much. But this makes me wonder how opening the emergency lane to traffic's going to work. Those fourth lanes are essentially long exit/on ramps and the emergency lanes are to their right.

When I lived in ATL, until last August...

I would head north from Buckhead on 400 in the afternoons. I'd get in the rightmost lane for 285 E, exit where the highway splits stay in the right hand lane until the last possible minute, then get back in the 400N lane, then take the emergency lane for about 100 yards to the 285W exit. Those moves saved me about 15 minutes at 5:45PM and I was one out of about every 500 cars going 400N to 285W.

Those interchanges were simply not designed for the way the traffic flows now. And, I don't feel guilty at all for the 100 yards in the breakdown lane, or the fact that I had to cut in at the last minute...

Related, the book Traffic by a guy named Tom Vanderbilt is really great.

I live outside of DC. On I-66, the right shoulder is open to traffic in the direction that rush hour is flowing, and closed all other times. That said, the left shoulder is always closed, they have a dedicated HOV lane, and several of ways to get emergency vehicles into the left lane and/or over from the opposite direction of traffic.

I commuted on Route 128 where breakdown lane travel is used in Mass. for 2 years. Around 3 pm when the lane opens for travel you see everyone who can't stand to do the normal speed the rest of the lanes are going, suddenly zip into the breakdown lane and use it as their little slice of raceway.

It gets really fun when there's a decent amount of snow, and visibility from the on-ramps is horrible, and people are still flying up the breakdown lane.

Glad I don't have to deal with that road warrior free-for-all anymore.

JackieRabbit: This is nuts.

GA 400 (not an interstate highway, but a freeway) was built to relieve N-S traffic congestion on that side of town. To pay for the construction, a section of it, from just south of the I-285 loop to I-85, was made a toll road. We were promised that as soon as construction costs were recouped, the toll both would come down. Ten years max, we were told. Well, the toll booth is still there and there are no plans to take it away. Au contraire! Now there is talk about making several more sections of freeways toll roads.

GA 400 did relieve horrible north side traffic problems at first. But as Atlantans know all too well, a new freeway always equals massive over-development and eventually another clogged freeway. A section of the highway was widened to three or four lanes (one lane as exit only) a few years back and this helped some, but not much. But this makes me wonder how opening the emergency lane to traffic's going to work. Those fourth lanes are essentially long exit/on ramps and the emergency lanes are to their right.

In my experience, Atlantans don't know this very well. I've probably had this argument 20 times.

Humans make for lousy drivers. When traffic gets more dense we slow down, and when we slow down traffic gets more dense.

The solution isn't 12 lane freeways. It's getting people to live near their work or work where they live. Also, if you could get 20% of those commuters to be telecommuters one day a week I bet the whole system would smooth out most days.

I realized that was why people are paying $300k for condo's near downtown. They were taking the advice to live near their work. This could add up to two hours a day of personal time that the schmucks on the freeways were giving up to live out the the suburbs. Or a professional could trade in those two hours for productivity.

Finally... if you have a company that wants to attract family types, move your company to the suburbs. Pick one with a well rated school district and nice neighborhoods.

Rapmaster2000:

In my experience, Atlantans don't know this very well. I've probably had this argument 20 times.

Right. Freeways are built that are originally stated to have "limited" access, and within a few years, there are exits every 1/2 mile.

More lanes equals more traffic. You simply never solve a traffic problem by making it easier to drive.

In Germany they have electronic signs advising when emergency lane can be used. Works fine.

I-66 in NoVA has been using the shoulder for years - they have overhead lane signs and it works well enough that i can zip past congestion pretty well.

Oh yeah. That (article) sounds brilliant. Vehicles break down and many times don't give you any warning.
One dead car in a traffic lane is a bottle neck that will take longer to remedy.

If you put some thought into where you live versus where you work, its pretty easy to avoid traffic in Atlanta.

They've been doing this in Massachusetts for years. It's a farking nightmare.

Bronzed War God: Rapmaster2000:

In my experience, Atlantans don't know this very well. I've probably had this argument 20 times.

Right. Freeways are built that are originally stated to have "limited" access, and within a few years, there are exits every 1/2 mile.

More lanes equals more traffic. You simply never solve a traffic problem by making it easier to drive.

I usually try to explain it in terms of supply and demand. Highway usage is at an equilibrium of supply (space on the road) and demand (need for space on the road). Highway usage is elastic so if more supply is added, the essential cost of demand (time is money) is reduced such that demand increases and a new equilibrium is reached. The result is just as much traffic congestion as before the supply expansion.

The only place I've been to that escapes this problem is Detroit where there is seemingly far more supply than demand. So I suppose the regional economy could implode. That would fix things.

wildcardjack: Also, if you could get 20% of those commuters to be telecommuters one day a week

Most jobs require a person to be physically present. Jobs that don't are generally managed by people that don't understand what their subordinates do, so they insist on seeing them every day. My wife could get her work done in half the time, if she didn't have to deal with idiots with problems completely outside her job. She has to waste time telling said idiots that it isn't her problem and do it nicely so the idiots' feelings aren't hurt.

JackieRabbit: We were promised that as soon as construction costs were recouped, the toll both would come down. Ten years max, we were told. Well, the toll booth is still there and there are no plans to take it away. Au contraire! Now there is talk about making several more sections of freeways toll roads.

You bought that one (literally).

Let's see... you agreed to something, with a promise by one guy that another guy yet to be named would do something in return. Sucker.

It's now entrenched bureaucracy. Whenver you're voting on a new area of what will become entrenched bureaucracy and/or a money maker for government (in this case it's both), you should ignore any promises that it will ever go away.

Rincewind53: Um, lots of places already do this, with little to no problem.

Maybe so. But for this to work in Atlanta, there will need to be a good deal of common sense exercised by the drivers on 400. The odds of this happening are very, very slim.

I did some contract work at BellSouth years ago, two separate 6 month contracts. One 15 years ago on the north side of the Perimeter where we could watch The 400. Looked like a NASCAR event. The other was downtown on Peachtree in 2001 where we could watch I75. It was either another NASCAR event or the world's longest parking lot. I spent 4 hours going through Altanta a couple of years ago when some kid smeared himself and his crotch rocket all over an under pass in downtown. Sherman would still be stuck near the Chambodia exit on the Spaghetti interchange trying to get to Savannah if he tried to take Atlanta today during rush hour.

Remember when someone had the awesome idea to allow Marta buses on the emergency lanes? It will encourage people to use the bus! Let's spend $$$ building up the shoulder to accommodate the buses! How long did that last in practice? A few weeks?

I forgot to mention the drive out to Pappadeaux's is worth the extra time spent in Hell to get there.

CultureVulture: Sherman would still be stuck near the Chambodia exit on the Spaghetti interchange trying to get to Savannah if he tried to take Atlanta today during rush hour.

If an army with bunch of horses and cannon tried to negotiate 285 in rush hour today, the fine commuters in this town would win that battle.

Wodan11: JackieRabbit: We were promised that as soon as construction costs were recouped, the toll both would come down. Ten years max, we were told. Well, the toll booth is still there and there are no plans to take it away. Au contraire! Now there is talk about making several more sections of freeways toll roads.

You bought that one (literally).

Let's see... you agreed to something, with a promise by one guy that another guy yet to be named would do something in return. Sucker.

It's now entrenched bureaucracy. Whenver you're voting on a new area of what will become entrenched bureaucracy and/or a money maker for government (in this case it's both), you should ignore any promises that it will ever go away.

I didn't agree to shiat. I was not a resident of the area at the time, though I did occasionally have to traverse this area on surface roads. They had a bond referendum and the citizens, desperate for the highway, approved it. They're the one's that got farked. I knew know that toll roads are permanent. I only rarely have to use that section of the road. But now, some local officials want to place toll booths in various places. I've experienced this in places in Florida and it's a major pain in the ass to have to stop and pay yet another toll every six to 10 miles, as you change jurisdictions.

The road was widened all the way up to McFarland Road^* a few years back. There it drops down to two lanes each way, which causes volume delays even outside of rush hour. They should have widened farther north to GA 20.

* Uh, that's now McFarland Parkway now. People in the Northeast will know a parkway for what it is supposed to be. But here in Atlanta, a parkway is a regular four-way street, with a few crepe myrtles or Bradford pears planted in the median and three-deep commercial development on either side. But "parkway" sounds so much more cosmopolitan, doesn't it?

Bronzed War God: More lanes equals more traffic. You simply never solve a traffic problem by making it easier to drive.

That's not a generalizable theory. If you shunt everyone over to rail, you now have a rail traffic problem. But you can't solve that by making it easier to take the train. So now the ferries are jammed, or the buses, or monorails, or the rickshaws. But the fundamental problem is more moving people at times of maximum demand than the infrastructure can support.

Take cars out of the equation entirely. Your theory reduces to:
"You simply never solve a traffic problem by making it easier to move."

But that's madness. Eventually, people just force an avenue to move through.

ManRay: Remember when someone had the awesome idea to allow Marta buses on the emergency lanes? It will encourage people to use the bus! Let's spend $$$ building up the shoulder to accommodate the buses! How long did that last in practice? A few weeks?

What ticks me off about MARTA is that it isn't run by the state but the city. This lead to the issue of Cobb and Gwinett coming up with their own "transportation" systems consisting of crappy buses only. I know that Cobb county had the option of expanding the rail service into the county but the stupid voters at the time declined it. If we had a proper rail system throughout all of metro Atlanta traffic would be much less of an issue.

TOY Moose: Ahhh good ole 285, aptly named, because you're going 2 or 85.

/ Done a lot of traveling over the years, NOTHING compares to Atlanta
//Lived on Peachtree

I see you've never been to Manila then. I have been to Atlanta multiple times and have never seen it nearly as bad as rush hour traffic in the Philippines. The main highway is 3 lanes but cars cooperatively spread out over 5 lanes, and fark the traffic markings. It is a true clusterfark.

Here in Cleveland, Ohio there is a interstate (I-271) that has a dedicated "express lanes (2 lanes going each direction, N/S)" which was supposed to help with congestion on the East side suburbs of Cleveland.. The problem with this is that going south on 271, they end built a remerge lane (1 lane mind you) to get back onto I-271 South (The express lane continues onto I-480 West if you don't get off) where I-271/I-480 meet which everyday at 4pm, jams up the interchange like no other.. It extends my commute home by at 20 minutes because of it. It's a big pain in the butt and the civil engineer that came up with that remerge lane needs to be shot.

/CSB

ZAZ: For the first decade Massachusetts used "travel prohibited except ..." static signs. The state recently added a few electronic roadside message signs just in case you're paying close attention to them. But why would you expect a sign to have a useful message? Usually variable signs show rhyming slogans about the ticket quota of the month or warn you that the road is wet during rain.

"Call 911 to report drunk drivers."

... At 11:00 am, on a Wednesday.

What incentive do they have to address congestion when they are making nearly $0.50 for every gallon of gas that is sold? Idle out an extra gallon per day? More money for them.

/convinced local town has actually put in the effort to synch up the lights to make sure you catch EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM RED

Build an express MARTA train from McFarland to North Springs. Problem solved. You're welcome.

heady: If you put some thought into where you live versus where you work, its pretty easy to avoid traffic in Atlanta.

I rent so it's not tough for me, but those who've purchased are likely to own their home longer than they hold any one job.

CultureVulture: I forgot to mention the drive out to Pappadeaux's is worth the extra time spent in Hell to get there.

IMO - way overrated. Try this place: Chef Henry's.
They also have an uptown location.

akadros: ManRay: Remember when someone had the awesome idea to allow Marta buses on the emergency lanes? It will encourage people to use the bus! Let's spend $$$ building up the shoulder to accommodate the buses! How long did that last in practice? A few weeks?

What ticks me off about MARTA is that it isn't run by the state but the city. This lead to the issue of Cobb and Gwinett coming up with their own "transportation" systems consisting of crappy buses only. I know that Cobb county had the option of expanding the rail service into the county but the stupid voters at the time declined it. If we had a proper rail system throughout all of metro Atlanta traffic would be much less of an issue.

Well, it isn't actually run by the city, though the City of Atlanta does have board members on the Authority, along with Fulton and Dekalb counties. There have been a couple of efforts to expand MARTA to include CCT (Cobb) and GCT (Gwinnett). But understandably, neither of these counties wanted anything to do with the piss-poorly managed MARTA.

JackieRabbit: akadros: ManRay: Remember when someone had the awesome idea to allow Marta buses on the emergency lanes? It will encourage people to use the bus! Let's spend $$$ building up the shoulder to accommodate the buses! How long did that last in practice? A few weeks?

What ticks me off about MARTA is that it isn't run by the state but the city. This lead to the issue of Cobb and Gwinett coming up with their own "transportation" systems consisting of crappy buses only. I know that Cobb county had the option of expanding the rail service into the county but the stupid voters at the time declined it. If we had a proper rail system throughout all of metro Atlanta traffic would be much less of an issue.

Well, it isn't actually run by the city, though the City of Atlanta does have board members on the Authority, along with Fulton and Dekalb counties. There have been a couple of efforts to expand MARTA to include CCT (Cobb) and GCT (Gwinnett). But understandably, neither of these counties wanted anything to do with the piss-poorly managed MARTA.

As someone who lives outside the perimeter I can say there are many reasons we don't MARTA expanding into our communities



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