Doug Turnbull
doug.turnbull@coxinc.com
Mark Arum has covered many wishes he has had for Atlanta traffic in this space over the years. Instead, I want to put on my traffic Christmas wishlist some other things that drive myself and the other reporters on the WSB Traffic Team crazy.
More traffic cameras
For some reason, there is only one active traffic camera on GA-400 between Interstate 285 and Interstate 85. GDOT has cameras and poles up and has for years, but they have never gone online. This stretch of GA 400 has become one of the busiest stretches in Atlanta, especially since the tolls went away two years ago and even more so this busy shopping time.
We also really need more cameras on I-85 in north Gwinnett, GA 400 in north Forsyth, Interstate 75 in Henry County, and Interstate 20 outside I-285 both east and west of town. As Atlanta continues to sprawl, so does our need to see the increasingly slow traffic. Fortunately, we have the WSB Skycopter to fly over problems in these areas and Atlanta’s largest network of Traffic Troopers reporting problems to us.
Local authorities knowing where they are
We often hear on police scanners the confusion between first responders and 911 dispatch centers when trying to locate calls. Officers often will pull up on a crash and not know exactly where it is or the caller to 911 won’t know the direction of the freeway where their emergency is located. This delays response time and, of course, throws us as traffic reporters for a loop in trying to report it.
This may seem minor, but Cobb County always calls I-285 “east and west”, when it is clearly “north and south” between I-20 and I-75 on the west side. Atlanta PD, for some reason, almost never says the direction of a crash on the Buford Spring Connector and oftentimes calls it “I-85.” Local authorities should be the, well, authorities on the roads in their areas. And we, the citizens, also have a responsibility of needed to know where we are at all times, too.
Better communication about construction
For some reason, the construction that GDOT forecasts to happen is not nearly close to what actually is happening. We get a “Weekend Construction Report” every Thursday that normally lists far more projects for way longer periods of time than what actually occurs. Additionally, the DOT website often lists projects that aren’t happening or is missing ones that are.
One big fault of traffic reporting nationwide, is that many apps rely on data streams from the state and local authorities. When the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing, that info is faulty. The two main reasons that GDOT even shares this data are for the safety of their workers and to try and warn people about backups. When GDOT reports data wrong, they fail at both goals.
You may wonder why I’d spend time writing about traffic reporter pet peeves. It’s because all of them affect you. You can watch live traffic cameras on GDOT’s 511 app and there is no doubt you have been caught in crashes or construction that, if reported by authorities correctly, may have given you a window around the delays. In most cases, a happy traffic reporter makes for a happy motorist.
Merry Christmas!
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