Sunday, September 21, 2008

Dam this traffic jam

Here we find typical Atlantans in their accustomed habitat: Imprisoned in their cars on I-75/I-85 through the center of the city. Oh, isn't that cute: The lady in the back of the bus just mooned me for making fun of her. YOU TOO, LADY!

*ahem*

One lane this side of the bus, you might see the double white line that marks the HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lane. The idea was, of course, that by reserving one lane for buses and carpoolers, it would encourage more commuters to ride the bus or carpool. Whether this has worked depends on who you ask. As I look at this photograph, the HOV lane looks pretty much full to capacity. The DOT thinks it hasn't worked. Who are you going to believe, the DOT or your lying eyes?

"If we can't convince people to earn the privilege of using these lanes," they must have said to themselves, "maybe we can make them pay to use them." They want to convert the HOV lanes to TOLL lanes: I'm guessing they'll use the same CruiseCard technology that works so well at north Georgia's only (to date) toll booth, on Ga. 400 between Lenox Square and Northside Hospital.

Large car pools will be exempt from the toll, but small car pools will still have to pay. How big is a small car pool?

And why did I find this story on the web site of a Chattanooga radio station? I mean, sometimes I joke about Chattanooga being Atlanta's northernmost suburb, but I had no idea they believed it too.

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