AJC readers responded recently to last month’s winter storm that paralyzed the region. Here are some select comments:
R.D. Fogo: Atlanta does not have a snow problem; anybody with a few smarts knows that. It has a traffic problem. If it snows at midnight, the school buses don't run the next morning, people work out of their homes and their cars stay in the garage. But snowing during the middle of the day, when the road temperature is 32 degrees or below, brings on a compounding traffic problem that the current highway system just can't handle.
The news is partially right about the historic gridlock last month being the governor’s and the mayor’s fault — only they should be talking about the governor and mayor of 40 years ago. Somebody of that vintage failed to raise holy hell when the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) agreed to build a second loop around Kansas City with 90 percent federal funds and 10 percent state funds, and they didn’t foresee the need to build a similar second loop around Atlanta. Kansas City has a Metropolitan Statistical Area of 8,000 square miles, and so does Atlanta. But at last count, Kansas City only has about 2 million people living in their area, while Atlanta MSA has 6 million.
With three times the people and cars and trucks and less interstate mileage in the same area as Kansas City, every time it snows during the daytime and the temperature is around freezing or below here, it hardly matters what Band-Aids the current governor or mayor applies, Atlanta is forever going to be subject to gridlock. A single jack-knifed tractor trailer can block a highway in a moment and take hours to clear.
Because there is no second bypass, the I-285 loop around Atlanta carries more traffic than any other interstate in the country. If there were a second interstate to bypass downtown Atlanta at the outskirts, many drivers, and particularly truckers, would do so.
Would that solve all the snow and ice issues? No. But take 1,000 trucks out of the mix last month, and it really would have helped.
Richard C. Wise: The opinion expressed in a recent AJC that had the state of Georgia built the outer loop in 2009, Atlanta would not have suffered the recent mess caused by last month's snowstorm, is nonsense. Many of the more than 2,000 vehicles stranded the storm would not have used an outer loop had there been one. Yet the trains continued to run. Had MARTA rail lines been extended to Gainesville,Cumming and Cartersville — with a cross metro line along I-285 from Clarkston with stops at Doraville, Perimeter Mall, Sandy Springs and Cumberland Mall — the mess would not have shut down the north metro area. A MARTA train can carry more passengers, using less fuel per passenger mile, polluting less, much faster than any other form of land transportation.
