While the I-85 overpass collapse was a nightmare for the thousands of Atlantans who had the crux of their commute go up in flames, it gave city officials a glut of data regarding traffic patterns and transit usage that under normal circumstances would have been near impossible to quantify.
Click to enlarge
With two and a half months of data available we can see just how much the collapse affected the city as well as how Atlanta commuters dealt with the problem, whether it was via I-285, surface streets, or switching to public transportation. The results may not be surprising, (hint: traffic got a lot worse) but they are quite interesting, as we got a first hand look at how one of the most trafficked cities in America reacts when a main roadway-artery is severed.
According to numbers from the Atlanta Regional Commission, an estimated 243,000 trips daily go over the impacted overpass each weekday, with commuters from as far north as Cumming and as far south as Newnan making the trip into the city for work. Overall congestion was up 30% citywide with some areas, particularly those near the scene of the incident and on direct alternate routes, seeing 50% upticks in traffic.
Click to enlarge
MARTA quickly became the favored alternative for those coming in from the suburbs to the North of the city. Ridership at the Brookhaven station went up a whopping 66% during April, with every station north of Five Points seeing a notable boost. As you can see on the map, stations on the East-West line did not see such large increases as their mostly in-town riders were not directly affected by the I-85 collapse.
While the ARC studies traffic patterns, other groups such as Invest Atlanta are taking a closer look at how the incident impacted business within the city. The organization’s ‘I-85 Business Impact Survey’ found that 75% of businesses around the area of the collapse reported a loss of customers during April. 63% reported delays in employees managing to get in to work, 55% reported increased delivery times, and 36% reported increased delivery costs.
A horde of other studies on both transportation and business impact are certainly underway, but as we wait to pore over the information gleaned from this grand two and a half month sociology experiment one thing is for sure – kudos are owed to the GDOT and their contractors who managed to get I-85 patched up in record time.
