285/400 interchange project plans coming soon (Atlanta, Smyrna: home, tax, living)

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by netdragon

Hindsight is 20/20. Yet, in the time of suburbanism still rampant like the 80s, and when the north metro had half as many people as it does now, it may have been a bad choice. Had Cobb and Gwinnett had rail through their respective interchanges into the counties, a good chunk of the metro may have been in serious trouble financially and not grown so fast. Creating the ROW for rail but leaving it unbuilt in the 80s may have worked.

Creating the right-of-way for future passenger rail transit service and leaving it unbuilt until needed would have been an excellent idea.

But having passenger rail transit service extend into then-outer suburban but now-urban outlying counties like Cobb and Gwinnett would not have caused financial trouble and slowed growth throughout the metro area...

...Particularly if said passenger rail transit service would have been funded, managed and operated in the best way possible as a largely-privatized transit entity funded with real estate development revenues, inflation-indexed distance-based fares and the aggressive sale of major private sponsorships...

...That's instead of being funded, managed and operated as a highly-negatively politicized public entity overly-dependent upon funding from extremely-limited and restrictive revenue sources like voter referendum-approved countywide sales taxes, a non inflation-indexed flat-rate fare structure and limited amounts of federal aid.

If anything, the extension of well-funded and well-managed and competently-operated passenger rail transit service into outlying suburban areas would have made Atlanta even more conducive to winning the Olympic bid that sent the metro area into a massive growth spurt and most likely would have sparked even more growth in heavily-developed and heavily-populated post-outer suburban counties like Cobb and Gwinnett.

With the extension of well-funded and well-managed and competently-operated passenger rail transit service into outlying suburban areas, explosive growth would have gotten to outer-suburban counties like Cobb and Gwinnett even quicker than it already has.

[netdragon]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

...Particularly if said passenger rail transit service would have been funded, managed and operated in the best way possible as a largely-privatized transit entity funded with real estate development revenues, inflation-indexed distance-based fares and the aggressive sale of major private sponsorships...

I agree in principle, but I don't see a private company doing to a very sparsely developed county at the time. The demand would have to be there, and it's only just gotten to Cobb and Gwinnett. Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. I think now your approach would definitely appeal to businesses. I wish we had set a strip of land aside for the rail.

[bryantm3]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

(...According to many accounts, at one time the State of Georgia had supposedly intended to rebuild the I-285/GA 400 interchange into the tallest stack interchange in the Eastern U.S.)

i had also heard that, but from a wikipedia article, i believe. i was under the impression that was the plan until yesterday, although i should have questioned its veracity...

Spaghetti Junction was actually designed to handle large future volumes of traffic....It's just that Metro Atlanta grew so much explosively faster than anyone expected that Spaghetti Junction was already overcapacity within about 15 years after it was completed....Metro Atlanta's explosive growth of the 1990's and 2000's would have swamped any roadway no matter how well it was designed or how much capacity it had (...not many people at the time expected Atlanta region's population to more than double by the early 2010's).

my problems with the interchange aren't that traffic gets backed up... i understand that it wasn't designed with today's traffic in mind. my main issues are that it is confusing to navigate and that it takes up so much space.

If anything, the biggest oversight with the Spaghetti Junction project was the lack of a high-capacity passenger rail transit alternative that could continue to handle commuter movements in the I-85 NE and I-285 Top End Perimeter corridors after the I-85 and I-285 roadways had maxed-out in their traffic-carrying capacity.

agreed.

[bigstick]

Originally Posted by bornjacksonian

Here is the link to the projected project. http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/n.../GA400_285.pdf I am thankful all the time that I don't have to commute across the top end daily for work. My last trip across the top end was mid-May on a Saturday night lol.

This is going to be an utter nightmare, this should have been done years ago, good ole GADOT.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by netdragon

I agree in principle, but I don't see a private company doing to a very sparsely developed county at the time. The demand would have to be there, and it's only just gotten to Cobb and Gwinnett. Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. I think now your approach would definitely appeal to businesses. I wish we had set a strip of land aside for the rail.

Wait...rail. I think an LRT line just became harder to fit around the 285/400 interchange.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by netdragon

I agree in principle, but I don't see a private company doing to a very sparsely developed county at the time. The demand would have to be there, and it's only just gotten to Cobb and Gwinnett. Kind of a chicken-and-egg problem. I think now your approach would definitely appeal to businesses. I wish we had set a strip of land aside for the rail.

A private company would have been interested in expanding into outlying counties like Cobb and Gwinnett because of the rising value of real estate in those suburban counties.

Even though those outlying counties did not yet have the increasingly very-heavy amount of population and development that they have today, back during the 1980's it was evident that both counties were rapidly-heading in the direction of being very-heavily populated and developed with the explosive amount of population growth that those outlying then-suburban counties experienced during the 1980's.

Gwinnett County was one of the absolute fastest-growing counties in the entire nation back during the decade of the 1980's, so it was clear that there was a rising need for transportation infrastructure in the explosively fast-growing county.

(...Cobb County's population grew by 1070% between 1940 and 1990 while Gwinnett County's population grew by 992% between 1950 and 1990.)

A private company would have been interested in expanding into outlying counties like Cobb and Gwinnett so that it could buy real estate at rock-bottom prices and then collect growing amounts of profit as the land continued to be developed.

The construction and opening of Gwinnett Place Mall in 1984 in Gwinnett and Town Center Mall in 1986 in Cobb helped to guide very-heavy growth and development out further away from Atlanta along the I-85 NE and I-75 NW corridors, respectively so the growth potential was definitely there.

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by bryantm3

my problems with the interchange aren't that traffic gets backed up... i understand that it wasn't designed with today's traffic in mind. my main issues are that it is confusing to navigate and that it takes up so much space.

Even though Spaghetti Junction takes up much space, it is pretty much just a much more efficient design of the old cloverleaf interchange that was in place and took up roughly about the same amount of space before reconstruction when both Interstates 85 and 285 had much-narrower roadways.

The only difference is that the current interchange has 5 flyover ramps standing on about roughly the same amount of land after reconstruction.

[sedimenjerry]

Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll

Even though Spaghetti Junction takes up much space, it is pretty much just a much more efficient design of the old cloverleaf interchange that was in place and took up roughly about the same amount of space before reconstruction when both Interstates 85 and 285 had much-narrower roadways.

The only difference is that the current interchange has 5 flyover ramps standing on about roughly the same amount of land after reconstruction.

I forgot that it used to be a cloverleaf. I can't imagine the traffic disaster that would be today. One thing I do wish they had done with the 285E to 85N ramp was extend the right lane instead of having it merge right when the ramp joins 85N. It's dangerous and backs up the left lane. I (and a lot of other people) usually stay in the left lane and get over asap. Seems like there's always a car next to me that has to merge and has run out of room.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by sedimenjerry

I forgot that it used to be a cloverleaf. I can't imagine the traffic disaster that would be today. One thing I do wish they had done with the 285E to 85N ramp was extend the right lane instead of having it merge right when the ramp joins 85N. It's dangerous and backs up the left lane. I (and a lot of other people) usually stay in the left lane and get over asap. Seems like there's always a car next to me that has to merge and has run out of room.

Agreed. This makes no sense. Hell, a lot of lane alignments around here make no sense.

[netdragon]

Between this development, Windy DDI rebuild, Atlanta Rd interchange rebuild and the Braves games, I-285 will be a parking lot.