What 2nd tier city has the worse traffic? (Atlanta, Columbus: move, estimate)

[nortonguy]

Augusta, Savannah, Columbus, or Macon

[lilmusket]

I would say they are all fairly similar... but Savannah not so much because it is more a planned city and has a grid street pattern that distributes traffic more evenly. The suburban traffic in the other three are pretty comparable... I'd say maybe worse in macon because they have I75 which is a very high traffic corridor.

[aboutmetro]

I don't know about volume, but Columbus traffic light management (or lack of, I should say) has much to be desired. I've seen vast more volume move down US 280 in B'ham than in Columbus with much better flow. If that much volume hit Veterans' Pkwy in Columbus, it would be backed up to Pine Mountain.

[saharaga]

Yes. You can add the lights on Manchester to that as well. The backups on Manchester are caused solely by the lack of light synchronization IMO. The light at Armour Rd is especially frustrating to me...and it doesn't help that most of the drivers on Manchester don't seem to know (or care) that the speed limit is 45...not 35 or 30...sometimes even 25...

To answer the OP question, I would have to say Savannah. We spent quite a bit of time driving around there when we were stationed at Fort Stewart. I can only imagine the traffic has gotten worse now.

Originally Posted by aboutmetro

I don't know about volume, but Columbus traffic light management (or lack of, I should say) has much to be desired. I've seen vast more volume move down US 280 in B'ham than in Columbus with much better flow. If that much volume hit Veterans' Pkwy in Columbus, it would be backed up to Pine Mountain.

[ne georgia]

Athens is the worst, followed by Gainsville in a close second.

[yerocal]

I would say Macon Because during high peak times 7:00AM-9 and 4:00-PM traffic can get really bad especially on I-75/16 downtown, Mercer, Zebulon Rd (NW Macon) and Gray hwy in East Macon sometimes can get bumper to bump.....


East Macon/Gray Hwy


Downtown

[lilmusket]

Only the last 2 photos show fairly heavy traffic congestion.. the others show hardly any at all. But seriously, when you compare with Atlanta, which has some REAL heavy traffic , the others seem very mild.

[yerocal]

Originally Posted by ne georgia

Athens is the worst, followed by Gainsville in a close second.

Athens and Gainesville are not Second tier.....

[lilmusket]

Originally Posted by yerocal

Athens and Gainesville are not Second tier.....

The population of the city of Athens is bigger than that of Macon..
Also the population of Hall County, where Gainesville is the principal city is 185,000 as of last year..The 2008 estimate for the population of Bibb County is 155,216.

[Southern Soul Bro]

That Athen's pop is the city-county...but wow I had no idea Hall County's pop had exploded that much.


I will say that the afternoon traffic along heavily traveled I-75 going south through Macon can get very congested. If you travel through south on I-75 where it meets I-16 in Macon and get off at the Milledgeville/Spring St. exit and turn unto Gray Hiighway (like in the shot yerocal posted) you will encounter some HORRIBLE traffic daily, I go that route everyday. These is no sometimes about it with Gray Highway traffic, its bumper to bumper everyday, even before that 4 PM peach

Also, while Warner Robins may not be 2nd Tier, when you take a city of around 50,000 people and basically everything is off of two roads (Russell and Watson) the traffic there is no joke either.