Mall of Georgia has the worst transportation design ever (Roswell: gated, organic)

[ATLTJL]

I've mentioned this before, but it deserves its own thread.

I had to go to Mall of Georgia this afternoon because I needed to get a gift at a store there.

Umm....whose idea was it to put the Mall and EVERY SINGLE SATELLITE BUSINESS along a single stretch of road with pretty much no back streets to get around it all?

I mean, this is the kind of thing you would expect at a mall that popped up organically in the middle of an already developed area and there was no other choice. Not a mall that was built in a huge empty area and master planned from the ground up.

Highway 20 is an unmitigated disaster. Of course it is, there is no real way around it. How in the world could piling everything up along this one road have seemed like a good idea? Why weren't back roads added? Why aren't the businesses situated around the mall with a perimeter road going around it like other modern malls? Now that this disaster has happened, is there any way to fix it?

Seriously, I will never go to Mall of Georgia on a weekend if I can avoid it. It's simply too frustrating. And it's really odd considering I took a back way to get there, where I pretty much drove by farms and rural land, and then you have this behemoth thing that wasn't designed well at all and a traffic nightmare in the middle of pretty much nowhere.

Such a shame because there is so much good retail in and around the mall. Why is it harder to navigate than Lenox and Phipps? Inexcusable!

If this is why some people hate the suburbs, I couldn't possibly agree with hating this design more.

[mattee01]

^ Reason why commuter rail should extend up at least to the Mall of Georgia area.

[MattCW]

Originally Posted by mattee01

^ Reason why commuter rail should extend up at least to the Mall of Georgia area.

You would still need bus service on the roads as the closest stations would be between 4 and 5 miles away at Sugar Hill and Buford.

[ATLTJL]

I think you're missing the point....

The roads that lead TO the Mall of Georgia aren't the problem. The problem is the immediate area surrounding the mall itself.

Once you get a mile or so past the mall in any direction, it's smooth sailing. I don't know if you need commuter rail to solve that. What would actually make more sense to solve this particular problem is a small localized monorail where you could park a mile or so away from the mall and a small system like that of Las Vegas or Disney World gives you 6 or 7 choices of where to get off, then circles back around again.

But honestly, all this could have been avoided with decent design. I have no idea why this was engineered in such a moronic way. It was completely avoidable.

[billl]

Agreed. It's a disaster. I avoid going there at all.

[ElleKaye]

I went there a few times right before summer and agree the traffic is a mess. The funny thing is that didn't really bother me because I'm so used to it - welcome to a day in the life of my morning and evening drive in Cobb lol.

The first issue was missing my turn at Mall of Georgia Blvd for a variety of reasons and almost needing an act of congress to turn around and get back to it.

The next time, there was a terrible accident on the freeway so I took what I guess could be considered the back way and in true ATL metro form, the street name changed from Buford to Jackson or some such and my GPS didn't quite get that. Also, the gas stations I stopped out to clarify apparently didn't get the memo either.

[Gulch]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Umm....whose idea was it to put the Mall and EVERY SINGLE SATELLITE BUSINESS along a single stretch of road with pretty much no back streets to get around it all?

I mean, this is the kind of thing you would expect at a mall that popped up organically in the middle of an already developed area and there was no other choice. Not a mall that was built in a huge empty area and master planned from the ground up.

Because the developers of the mall were banking on the Northern Arc being built, which would have run just north/east of the area.

[vince217]

ok... you had to go to the Mall on a Sunday with a little more than 2 weeks before Christmas. You will encounter traffic!

That being said... there is a back road that bypasses most of the traffic lights along 20. Financial Center Way runs parallel to 20... thats the street where the Toys R Us is located.

[rlrl]

Im a New Yorker but my brother lives in Roswell. In fact Im flying out there next week.

I was at the MOG in 2000 and again in Dec 2011. something seemed changed. was the Barnes & Noble recently added?

I thought the Genghis Grill across the road was pretty cool

[cqholt]

The atea was designed with only cars in mind. So even having all that retail concentrated in one place, people still have to get in their cars to drive between individual stores. This failure is all put on gwinnett county. They should have forced the developer to create a better, more pedestrian friendly design. Not in the sense of people being able to walk to the area, but being able to park once and walk to individual stores without having to drive for each store. I believe that's the cause of most of the congestion.
It is a poor design.