Reversible lane on U.S. 78 in Gwinnett going away

“I think it’ll be a tremendous safety improvement,” added Roy Whitehead, chief of the Snellville Police Department.

Confusion had nothing to do with the project, said DOT spokesman Mark McKinnon.

“Our official reason was, we looked at traffic volumes,” he said. With businesses taking hold in the suburbs, commutes are no longer headed solely downtown, he added, making many reversible lanes obsolete.

Even so, for some drivers unfamiliar with U.S. 78, the lanes stood alone as a complicated confection. Five other reversible lane systems remain, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation: three in Atlanta, one in Roswell, one in Macon. Though these are less daunting than the Gwinnett lanes, they are generally not as simple as permanent lanes and they pose an issue for policymakers.

When traffic in a congested corridor is made up of commuters traveling the same direction, a reversible lane saves an extra lane’s worth of space — without the huge cost of expansion.

On the other hand, they require quick thought. Drivers must make split-second decisions about where to direct their 3,000-pound projectiles as they whiz along.

“Used in the right application, they are safe,” McKinnon said. “But it does require the driver to be alert and to understand how the systems work.”

There are discussions about removing reversible lane systems on Northside Drive and Roswell Road, McKinnon said, while the city of Macon is looking to upgrade the one there.

The DeKalb Avenue reversible lane gives food for thought. In a metro area famous for the epic congestion of its commute routes, DeKalb Avenue is often close to free-flowing at rush hour. And the commuters who use it on a regular basis seem to follow its simple overhead signals en masse — a green arrow means the lane is open in your direction; a red ‘X’ means no — usually without a hitch.

But not always. A sample of random incidents, heading to downtown Atlanta on weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., showed overhead signs that occasionally malfunctioned, showing a red ‘X’ when it should be a green arrow. One such sign, at Nelms Avenue, has showed the red ‘X’ during the morning commute for months. On rare occasions, a whole series of signs showed the red ‘X’ instead of green arrows. Mostly drivers ignored the red ‘X’s and drove in the lane anyway.

In addition, occasionally cars or trucks have mistaken the direction of the reversible lane.

The malfunctioning DeKalb Avenue signs “would definitely be a problem,” said Brian Wolshon, an associate professor of engineering at Louisiana State University who has researched reversible lanes. Even though the red ‘X’ is meant to clear the lane, if people obey, that means darting out of the reversible lane and potentially causing sideswipe accidents, he said.

If they disobey, he said, “That’s when things can get very dangerous,” because in spite of all their experience, they can’t know for sure why the ‘X’ is red.

Whitehead, the Snellville police chief, added that the U.S. 78 system had the additional disadvantage of low sunlight that sometimes blinded drivers as they were trying to read the signs. He is looking forward to the finished product.

“It’ll be a lot clearer to drivers what they’re supposed to do,” he said. “In my experience most drivers travel from habit. If they’re used to traveling in a line, they’ll continue to do that, even if a sign says they’re not supposed to.”