Bitching about Atlanta traffic is about as original as, well, it's not original at all. The city almost wears it as a badge of honor, swallowing hard and accepting the sprawly, public transit-deficient hellscape our government and real estate overlords have created. But the new Congested Corridors Report is out from the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A.M., and the ATL fares surprisingly well against the rest of the country. Though the report is a bit dry with a data-heavy 94 pages, we do hand it to the authors for the witty titles they give various statistical categories (e.g. Dog Day Afternoons). Though you're welcome to peruse the report yourself here, Curbed Atlanta has done the heavy lifting for you and presents the highlights for you after the jump.
Atlanta: The Most Reliably Unreliable (1st & 2nd Place!)
* Atlanta's highlight in the report is clearly placing first and second in the "Reliably Unreliable" category, which quantifies which stretches of highway require drivers to allow the biggest buffer to assure they are on time 19 out of 20 times. The stretch of Georgia 400 southbound between the toll plaza and the entrance to I-85 requires its habitual travelers to budget 256% more time than the actual commute takes to assure they make it to their destination on time. Ouch!
* Coming in a close second is the stretch of I-75 southbound between Mt. Zion and Hudson Bridge, which requires a buffer of 253%.
The rest of Atlanta's appearances on the list are somewhat ho-hum:
+ The stretch of 400 southbound between Milton and Holcomb Bridge comes in #40 on "3 Cup Mornings," which ranks the most congested pieces of road at peak morning commute time.
+ I-285 eastbound between Riverside Drive and I-85 ranks #39 in "Dog Day Afternoons," which tallies peak afternoon commute congestion. The same stretch also ranks #36 on "Where the Big Trucks Are," which is pretty self-explanatory.
Thankfully, none of our highways are among the worst on the weekends. And not surprisingly, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York appear to be the least commuter-friendly cities in the U.S.
All of that said, an elf told us that Atlanta's surprisingly weak position in the race for worst traffic is NOT to be used for nefarious means (i.e. as evidence that we should accept the status quo). Just imagine how well we'll do once T-SLPOST is passed and our transportation infrastructure is upgraded. Yay! (Said the elf).
· 2011 Congested Corridors Report [Texas Transportation Institute]
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