Metro Atlanta transportation: How is it looking?

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Pavement quality on Georgia’s roads is getting perilously bad. Use of mass transit in metro Atlanta has gone up, up, up since 2004 -- at least until MARTA’s cuts last year. And afternoon rush hour on the highways is worse than morning.

Enlarge photo

Jason Getz, jgetz@ajc.com A GRTA analysis shows that a decrease in traffic congestion since 2006 paralleled the rise in unemployment in metro Atlanta.

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• Read the GRTA report
• Map: See latest traffic congestion
• Live traffic updates on Twitter

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Those are some of the conclusions from the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority’s annual report on metro Atlanta’s transportation systems. The data is often more than a year old, but it paints a comprehensive picture that is hard to find anywhere else.

If there is one overall conclusion, according to GRTA staff, it is that the metro area’s needs are likely to continue to increase, but there isn’t enough money to meet them.

Some of the report’s points:

Congestion

It got better! At least, through 2009. But, according to GRTA analysts, there might be a sad reason for that, and hopefully it won't last. A separate GRTA analysis shows that a decrease in traffic congestion since 2006 paralleled the rise in unemployment.

GRTA officials readily concede there are other factors at play, and indeed researchers at the Texas Transportation Institute believe that DOT efforts such as HERO units and crash clearance programs played a significant role in helping reduce Atlanta congestion even before the economic crisis hit.

Worst of the worst

Afternoon rush hour on Atlanta’s interstates was a bit worse than morning rush hour, year after year. In 2009, an average highway trip in afternoon rush hour took 20 percent longer than at free flow, but in morning rush hour, it was only 18 percent longer. (Only.) Of course, specific roads can be much worse than that. An average afternoon rush-hour trip on the Downtown Connector southbound to I-20 took 135 percent longer than at free flow.

Pavement

For a decade, between 80 and 90 percent of roads managed by the state Department of Transportation were rated in good shape. But five years ago, that number started to plunge, and in 2010, 62 percent of them were. The longer it goes, the bigger the problem. When pavement gets really bad, it’s more expensive to replace because road crews have to dig up more of it.

DOT spokeswoman Jill Goldberg said critical maintenance was DOT's top priority and pointed out big repaving and bridge projects this summer in metro Atlanta, including on I-75, I-20 and I-285. However, money is tight, massive highway expansions of the 1980s are aging, and people haven’t stopped asking for new road projects as well.

Mass transit

More and more metro Atlantans have taken mass transit since 2004, although the report’s data stopped before agencies made service cuts last year. 

Safety

As traffic declined, so did traffic deaths.  In 2006, 542 people died in metro Atlanta crashes; in 2009, 377 did. Take note, though, that the rate of deaths per amount of traffic also fell.

The crash death rate for all of Georgia is much higher than Atlanta's, and slightly higher than the nation's. One reason is city traffic goes slower than on rural roads and has more regulated intersections, analysts have said.

The 2010 MAP report can be seen at GRTA.org.