Bill Kinney
The Four Lane had, not four lanes in each direction, but two. I-75, on the other hand, has five and six and seven and probably even more lanes than that going in each direction in some of its stretches through Cobb. And it’s still crowded!
I-75 has been widened and widened and widened since its construction through Cobb in the 1970s, and needs to be widened again. Only there’s really no room to widen it any further. Land costs would be astronomical.
The latest proposal for dealing with the congestion involves adding reversible lanes that would run on the west side of the interstate in some places and down the median in others.
It’s a reversible-lane concept put forth by the state Department of Transportation, and as shared with Marietta Rotary Club members on Wednesday by DOT highway engineer Darryl D. VanMeter.
Georgia has reversible lanes on Highway 9 (Roswell Road) heading south from downtown Roswell to the Chattahoochee River Bridge, and they’ve worked satisfactorily for the past few decades. But there are none in Cobb County. They’ve been talked up at times for the crowded Whitlock Avenue corridor. But nothing ever happens regarding Whitlock, except talk, talk and more talk. But if it turns out that they are a solution for I-75, maybe someday we can give them a try on Whitlock.
VanMeter said the managed-lane concept is a recognition that “we can’t build ourselves out of congestion. In order to add enough lanes to the interstate, we would have to add so much laneage it would be cost prohibitive.”
How much would that be? Try about $4 billion, VanMeter said.
So the proposed $960 million cost for the reversible lanes wins by comparison.
“Compared to $4 billion, that’s pretty good,” he told the club.
But managed lanes do result in added mobility, he said.
“Managed lanes allow us to preserve the mobility in that lane and be able to sustain that mobility, and the tool that you use in that concept is pricing,” he said.
As he explained it, airlines use the concept. Think about flights to Hawaii. If the price for a ticket to get there was just $5, the airlines could never add enough capacity to handle the demand. Instead, the price goes up to a point where there is sufficient infrastructure, or in this case, enough planes, to handle the demand, VanMeter explained.
And the Northwest Corridor Reversible Lane concept would have mechanisms in place to help preserve those new lanes’ mobility, unlike is the case for the general-purpose lanes.
The new lanes would be designed to keep traffic moving at or near 45 mph, he said. Incidentally, the managed, reversible lanes would be completely closed during non-peak hours, he said.
They are part of a statewide strategic transportation objective, he said.
“This project is not just a small fix,” he said. “It is part of a big step forward toward a network of managed lanes in the metro area.”
Similar managed-lane systems are already employed in Houston, Los Angeles and Seattle, to name just a few, VanMeter said.
The reversible lanes would stretch for 29.5 miles, starting at the I-75 intersection with I-285 at the Galleria, he said. They would stretch north the Hickory Grove exit on I-75 and northward to Sixes Road on I-575.
“That’s why we call it the ‘Northwest Corridor’ concept,” he said. “It’s not just one interstate or the other.
And it will not involve just managed lanes (like HOT and HOV lanes), but reversible lanes.
“They will be barrier-separated from the other lanes, so you’re not going to have the option of accidentally getting onto the lanes at the wrong time going in the wrong direction. Access will be prohibited from the wrong direction,” he said.
At the south end, the reversible lanes will connect with I-285. Northbound vehicles on I-75 would connect with the new lanes via a flyover ramp south of the Windy Hill interchange, he said. An elevated section of the managed lanes would carry traffic over Windy Hill, leaving traffic on that already-busy road uninterrupted, he said.
Those traveling on I-285 will be able access the new lanes going north, too. There’s also a good chance that southbound travelers on the managed lanes might have the opportunity to funnel off onto similar managed lanes heading east and west on I-285, and without having to enter the general-purpose lanes to do so, he said.
Disruptions due to construction will hopefully be minimal because most of the work will take place on the west side of I-75 or in the median areas north of the I-75/575 interchange, he said.
Will the reversible lanes pay off for commuters?
Yes, he said.
“We predict a 30- to 40-minute time savings by 2035,” he predicted.
Let’s hope that, if the lanes are built as planned, that he’s right.
But you’d better keep your fingers crossed on that.
Bill Kinney is associate editor of the Marietta Daily Journal.
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If you do it with tax payer money than all tax payers need to be able to use it.
This is another idea that gets a big "NO" from me.
Since I was not familiar with the area, it was a little difficult and frightening for me the first two days. I kept thinking that I was going the wrong way and would have a head on collision. By the third day, I was comfortable with the area and the time of directional change and I was able to notice that it significantly improved traffic flow.
I was there for a week and a half and took the opportunity to go out to lunch when the road was a two way road and that confirmed, at least, to me, that the one way reversible road was a traffic benefit and a time saving idea.
Or traffic could be routed one-way westbound on Polk Street during evening rush-hour west of Downtown Marietta or what not.
The fact is that the presence of Polk Street, which runs parallel to the busy Whitlock Avenue, makes some creative solutions to the Whitlock Ave rush hour traffic problem somewhat possible.
Reversible lanes on Hwy 120/Whitlock Avenue is a very good idea, but you know, probably better than most anyone else in Marietta and Cobb County, that even the mere suggestion of modifying that stretch of heavily-traveled roadway through that area of the Near Westside of Marietta is a virtual non-starter due to the historical significance of the area and the residents' fiercely-protective additude towards it.
We are pretty much stuck with miserable rush hour commutes on two-lane Whitlock Avenue forever as that is an area for which road improvements are a political impossibility as the residents of the Near Westside of Marietta see any modification of the road as a mortal threat to the historical character of the neighborhood.
Only if teamed with a LONG OVERDUE widening of Highway 41/Cobb Parkway from four through lanes to six through lanes (or, better yet, a conversion of Cobb Pkwy to a super-artery with 4-6 local lanes and six continuous express through lanes), high-frequency commuter bus service operated in the HOT lanes on I-75 & I-575 and high-frequency luxury liner commuter rail service on the existing CSX and Georgia Northeastern Railroad tracks that run through the heart of Cobb County and parallel the intensely-utilized Cobb Parkway, I-75 & I-575 right-of-ways.
30- to 40-minute time savings by 2035, my foot! The only way that we'll see 30-40 minute time savings by 2035 is if the state government resorts to draconian measures (like heavy taxation and cost-prohibitive user fees on automobile use and forcing us to ride rail and bus transit) to prevent us (motorists in single-occupant vehicles) from driving at peak times on I-75 and other major Atlanta-area roads.
To assume that two reversible lanes with adjustible tolls that will increase in price as traffic in the lanes themselves and on the overall road increases will give us a 30- to 40-minute time savings is to assume that either, a) the population of the Atlanta Region will remain stagnant or slightly decline or, b) that there will be a dramatic decrease in automobile traffic on the I-75 and I-575 roadways, which just isn't physically possible unless you force single-occupant vehicular traffic off of the roads by penalizing them, making it too expensive for them to drive and basically forcing them to either carpool or ride transit, which by most accounts seems to be where the powers-that-be in the Atlanta Region are heading with transportation policy as the region's population continues to increase from the approximate six million inhabitant point where it now stands.
HOT lanes are not necessarily built to handle increased rush hour traffic as much as they are built to handle increased multiple-occupant vehicle traffic (commuter buses and carpools), hence the increased tolls to push excess single-occupant vehicle traffic out of the lanes during peak period, tolls which can reach as high as $10.00 one-way during peak hours.
Buses, carpools and single and double-occupant vehicles with the funds to utilize the lanes on a consistent basis (higher-income and affluent motorists) may see 30- to 40-minute time savings, but the rest of us will either be priced out of single and double-occupant vehicle driving and be forced by the government to use transit with cost-prohibitive wheel/mileage taxes and road user fees or we'll be sitting in unfathomably increased miserably heavy truck traffic on I-75 due to ramped-up freight being transported to-and-from a continuously vastly-expanding Port of Savannah.