Jim Wooten: Double-deck Atlanta’s Downtown Connector
June 26, 2009 at 10:51 am by Thomas Wheatley in NewsIn his weekly installment of “This Whole World’s Gone to Pot,” the AJC’s resident conservative columnist Jim Wooten — who plans to ease into retirement soon — proposes a ridiculous way to solve congestion on the Downtown Connector.
Crowds headed to a Braves game and a soccer match between Mexico and Venezuela at the Georgia Dome clogged the always-trouble Downtown Connector for miles up I-75, I-85 and Ga. 400. Fix it. Find a private-sector company to double-deck the Downtown Connector. Make both toll roads.
Just be prepared for that private-sector company to stipulate in its contract that the city or state can’t compete — or in other words, improve transportation — near the double-decker road “product.” That means MARTA, intown roads, and even intercity rail. (One concept for a proposed high-speed rail line from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Chattanooga, Tenn., had a train running along the I-75/85 median.)
Privatization — especially road privatization — could make sense in some cases. But it has its pitfalls.
(UPDATE: Griftdrift has his own analysis of Wooten’s Friday column.)
June 26th, 2009 at 11:25 am
Building double-deck highways, especially through downtown Atlanta, is flat-out, fucking retarded.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Imagine what the air quality would be like on the lower-deck connector on a hot July day when there’s an accident that clogs up the traffic — and everyone in the traffic jam keeps their cars running so their AC works. I can almost taste the fumes now.
Atlanta has had decades of planning that accommodates increased car traffic on the city streets and highways. I think the constancy of bad-air days and the almost daily gridlock on Peachtree are telling us that we’ve reached a nice stopping point in that kind of planning.
How about having privatized providers of mass-transit routes in the exurbs connect people from Cobb, North Fulton, Gwinnett, Jonesboro, etc. to MARTA stations?
June 26th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
The air on a double-decked Connector would be so bad that it would kill the homeless people camped nearby.
Jim, this idea will not work.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
This idea is so many flavors of teh Stupid that I can’t even begin to describe what’s A) wrong with it and B) what twisted mental process Wootie used to come up with this pile o’ scheisse.
June 26th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I love the first comment on his post.
Rehashing what I said on Twitter, I can’t believe a major newspaper is paying someone to aggregate my uncle’s emails.