Nothing happens in a bubble: Georgia’s transportation plans affect Atlanta neighborhoods
Posted by DARIN GIVENS [ATL URBANIST] on JULY 7, 2017
For addressing congestion on Interstates I-75/85 – a giant gulf of asphalt that divides the center of the City of Atlanta – the Georgia DOT says no idea is off the table.
Georgia’s Department of Transportation has committed to making improvements – a three-year evaluation to explore a range of solutions small and large scale. no idea is off the table. GDOT’s study is scheduled for completion at the end of 2018.
It would be interesting to know what ideas GDOT is putting on the table to start with. The article mentions the potential for removing some existing on/off ramps in Downtown and Midtown, an idea that was raised a few years ago and that never saw the light of day. (Why? Did someone complain? We don’t know.) It would be fascinating to watch that happen as an experiment and find out if congestion decreases.
Whatever happens to this I-75/85 connector will effect the neighborhoods in the center of the city. Some have suggested increasing capacity through a tunnel or a double-deck expansion. But doing that while leaving all the exits open means more car trips (induced demand) that create more exhaust and bring more vehicles into the city, all of them needing parking spaces.
And leaving things as they are means we continue with the current level of exhaust which is harmful to our health. Nothing happens in a bubble. Transportation decisions at the state level affect urban livability in the city.
What we’ve done to our neighborhoods
These two images above provide some historical perspective on the neighborhood fabric that was affected by the interstates that run through the center of Atlanta. This is basically South Downtown, Mechanicsville and Summerhill pictured. Look at all that we lost.
The top image is from the 1950s, just before interstate construction began. The bottom image is of the exact same area in scale. Many residents were displaced from these largely-African American neighborhoods, and many street connections were lost. We often talk a lot about addressing traffic congestion here, but we also need to address the effect that this infrastructure – and the car trips it generates – has had and continues to have on the surrounding city neighborhoods.
“Fixing” congestion with roads – is it possible?
The above image (source) shows the amount of space taken up by cars on a freeway, and the number of people inside the cars. What we need to do is get those people to destinations – not necessarily the cars. Your car isn’t going to help you out at the office or join you for dinner. The last panel shows those same people in a different configuration, one that could be facilitated by buses.
Could we put Bus Rapid Transit lanes on all freeways in Atlanta and put BRT stations throughout the metro? And encourage transit-oriented development around those stations? It’s just a random thought, but it’s an example of the kind of regional-scale “fix” for congestion that would actually accomplish something, rather than trying to make the road design bear the weight of solution as the built environment all around it remains car-centric and lacking in transportation options.
What ideas do you have? GDOT has a comment form online you can use:
http://www.dot.ga.gov/BuildSmart/Pages/ContactUs.aspx
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