Metro Atlanta Is Out Of Control
Yesterday afternoon, I was taking I-285 from Peachtree Industrial to GA 400, a trip that should take mere minutes, but literally had taken nearly one hour!!!
Once I got on GA 400, it took me an additional 45 minutes to travel up GA 400 to Northridge Road, Dunwoody Place, and finally Roswell Road, all to get to Roswell to meet my wife for dinner.
Last I remember reading, Metro Atlanta now has at least 4 million people, with tens of thousands more coming every day. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of our elected officials and their developer buddies, our traffic situation is getting worse and worse and worse. You can add all the new lanes you want to our roads, but we will not begin to get any kind of relief until our federal, state, and local governments have the guts to stand up to developers and say "no more".
Not only does out-of-control development exacerbate traffic problems, especially on roads that were never designed to carry tens of thousands of vehicles per day, it also put way too much stress and strain on our schools (which become trailer parks the moment the doors open), public safety services (law enforcement, firefighters, and EMS personnel unable to respond as quickly to 911 calls due to gridlock, plus not even having enough personnel to do an adequate job of helping and protecting us), and finally, our environmental resources (i.e. water and sewage).
Our elected officials get put into (and kept in) office only due to about an average of 1/3 of registered voters who do cast ballots on election days. If we want change, then we, the people, better get our own act together, register to vote, and then vote. Once those we have voted into office are in place, it is furthermore necessary to hold each and every one of them accountable for helping us improve the quality of life in our communities.
The best place for our elected officials to start is by putting serious growth restrictions in place so that the infrastructure and natural resources are not overwhelmed by more people and vehicles. Over the past 25 years, Gwinnett County, where I was raised, has turned into one big gridlock mess, plus a whole mess of abandoned shopping centers. The out-of-control growth has even contributed to a rise in crime. As a result, the quality of life has gone downhill and people have moved even further outside of Atlanta to places such as Cherokee, Forsyth, and Hall Counties.
We live in Forsyth County and are already seeing the growth overwhelm us as farms are constantly being turned into subdivisions and strip malls. I am afraid that 20 years from now, Forsyth will be another Gwinnett. When will the madness stop?!!!
Again, it's up to us, the people, to combat this problem before we all have to commute to Atlanta all the way from Tennessee, Alabama, and the Carolinas... just to have a decent quality of life at home. If we don't do something, then we all will eventually suffer.
That's all for today. Thanks for visiting and please come back again.
P.S. If it weren't for 96Rock, I would've gone totally bonkers after that trip. Thank you, "Southside Steve" and Rhoades. :)
Once I got on GA 400, it took me an additional 45 minutes to travel up GA 400 to Northridge Road, Dunwoody Place, and finally Roswell Road, all to get to Roswell to meet my wife for dinner.
Last I remember reading, Metro Atlanta now has at least 4 million people, with tens of thousands more coming every day. Thanks to the infinite wisdom of our elected officials and their developer buddies, our traffic situation is getting worse and worse and worse. You can add all the new lanes you want to our roads, but we will not begin to get any kind of relief until our federal, state, and local governments have the guts to stand up to developers and say "no more".
Not only does out-of-control development exacerbate traffic problems, especially on roads that were never designed to carry tens of thousands of vehicles per day, it also put way too much stress and strain on our schools (which become trailer parks the moment the doors open), public safety services (law enforcement, firefighters, and EMS personnel unable to respond as quickly to 911 calls due to gridlock, plus not even having enough personnel to do an adequate job of helping and protecting us), and finally, our environmental resources (i.e. water and sewage).
Our elected officials get put into (and kept in) office only due to about an average of 1/3 of registered voters who do cast ballots on election days. If we want change, then we, the people, better get our own act together, register to vote, and then vote. Once those we have voted into office are in place, it is furthermore necessary to hold each and every one of them accountable for helping us improve the quality of life in our communities.
The best place for our elected officials to start is by putting serious growth restrictions in place so that the infrastructure and natural resources are not overwhelmed by more people and vehicles. Over the past 25 years, Gwinnett County, where I was raised, has turned into one big gridlock mess, plus a whole mess of abandoned shopping centers. The out-of-control growth has even contributed to a rise in crime. As a result, the quality of life has gone downhill and people have moved even further outside of Atlanta to places such as Cherokee, Forsyth, and Hall Counties.
We live in Forsyth County and are already seeing the growth overwhelm us as farms are constantly being turned into subdivisions and strip malls. I am afraid that 20 years from now, Forsyth will be another Gwinnett. When will the madness stop?!!!
Again, it's up to us, the people, to combat this problem before we all have to commute to Atlanta all the way from Tennessee, Alabama, and the Carolinas... just to have a decent quality of life at home. If we don't do something, then we all will eventually suffer.
That's all for today. Thanks for visiting and please come back again.
P.S. If it weren't for 96Rock, I would've gone totally bonkers after that trip. Thank you, "Southside Steve" and Rhoades. :)
posted by Georgia Road Geek at
5:29 AM
