Morning Reads for Tuesday, April 4

It is easy today to criticize those who “did not know better” 60 and 70 years ago designing Atlanta’s expressway system—but who then would have figured today we would have some 6 million in the general area? Furthermore, Atlanta started its expressway system before the 1956 passage of the Interstate act—for instance, the first stretch of the system opened in the fall of 1951, between Williams Street near the EY Tower and Brookwood; by 1955 or so, the Northeast Expressway was completed to Lenox Road, and construction of the Northwest Expressway (from Brookwood to West Paces Ferry) was well underway. Certainly the planners did not know in the 1940s that there would be an interstate system, but even if that had, for cost reasons—and the disruption of neighborhoods—it is unlikely they would have planned on 2 north-south freeways through the city. Heck, it took about 5 years (1959-1964) just to finish the Downtown Connector from Courtland Street to about today’s Turner Field—a distance of perhaps 3 miles at most. The amount of right of way acquisition, relocation of utilities and extensive bridge construction must have been enormous. Building I-20 through the city was very difficult, as you might surmise traveling the narrow right of way below Atlanta University. The extension of 400 into Buckhead in 1993 was the last limited-access highway built into the city—and likely the last one ever built.

Beyond 285, it gets difficult because development has spread so far out—building a Northern Arc today would mean plowing through a lot of neighborhoods in Cherokee and Forsyth. Good luck with that. The idea making the most sense would be a western by-pass of 75, from perhaps near Macon to near Cartersville and divert a lot of the Florida to and from traffic out of intown freeways and 285. It might require tolls to finance, which I have no problem with—and so that it does its job (a through route), minimize the number of exits, not one every mile or so like you see on 285.

As for interstates connecting other Georgia cities, the question is whether there would be enough traffic to justify that. The state has spent a lot of money building non-interstate four-lane highways connecting, as examples, Columbus and Macon, Albany to I-75. DOT did a study years ago on extending 185 below Columbus but found the traffic volumes did not justify it—already a lot of four-lane highways below Columbus, and you don’t hear often about traffic jams on those highways.

With regard to truck traffic, intermodal (putting trailers and containers on trains) is most effective over long distances—not so much over shorter ones—but perhaps see what we can do there. Georgia Ports Authority for instance has been working on increasing use of rail at the port to cut down on the enormous truck traffic there. Rail won’t replace the need for road improvements, but still could be of some help.