Friday, June 26, 2009
News Jim Wooten: Double-deck Atlanta's Downtown Connector
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Fri, Jun 26, 2009 at 2:51 PM
In his weekly installment of "This Whole World's Gone to Pot," the AJC's resident conservative columnist Jim Wooten — who plans to ease into retirement soon — proposes a ridiculous way to solve congestion on the Downtown Connector.
Crowds headed to a Braves game and a soccer match between Mexico and Venezuela at the Georgia Dome clogged the always-trouble Downtown Connector for miles up I-75, I-85 and Ga. 400. Fix it. Find a private-sector company to double-deck the Downtown Connector. Make both toll roads.
Just be prepared for that private-sector company to stipulate in its contract that the city or state can't compete — or in other words, improve transportation — near the double-decker road "product." That means MARTA, intown roads, and even intercity rail. (One concept for a proposed high-speed rail line from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Chattanooga, Tenn., had a train running along the I-75/85 median.)
Privatization — especially road privatization — could make sense in some cases. But it has its pitfalls.
(UPDATE: Griftdrift has his own analysis of Wooten's Friday column.)
Comments (5)
Showing 1-5 of 5
Building double-deck highways, especially through downtown Atlanta, is flat-out, fucking retarded.
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Imagine what the air quality would be like on the lower-deck connector on a hot July day when there's an accident that clogs up the traffic -- and everyone in the traffic jam keeps their cars running so their AC works. I can almost taste the fumes now. Atlanta has had decades of planning that accommodates increased car traffic on the city streets and highways. I think the constancy of bad-air days and the almost daily gridlock on Peachtree are telling us that we've reached a nice stopping point in that kind of planning. How about having privatized providers of mass-transit routes in the exurbs connect people from Cobb, North Fulton, Gwinnett, Jonesboro, etc. to MARTA stations?
The air on a double-decked Connector would be so bad that it would kill the homeless people camped nearby. Jim, this idea will not work.
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