I would say that my perspective changed a bit on March 30. Up until about 7pm that night, I would have considered a hole in the road to be “big” if I cringed when hitting it with my car tire. Now though? Now I KNOW what a big hole in the road is.
In case you missed Atlanta’s latest unfortunate tour-of-national-headlines, we had a 100-foot section of bridge on I-85 North collapse after a fire was set under it. I know what you’re thinking – how does a fire bring down a part of the Interstate? Well, let’s just say I also have a new perspective on what a “big” fire is. NPR’s coverage will give you a good impression if you missed the photos and videos.
Both northbound and southbound lanes are closed for the next two months or so. As in, ALL the lanes. It turns out the fire weakened the southbound bridge as well, so they’ll need to work on both sides of the highway.
Fortunately, Atlanta has a robust public transportation system and an intelligently-designed network of roadways to allow for a seamless modification of traffic flows without increased congestion. Unfortunately, none of that previous sentence is true.
Needless to say, Atlanta’s traffic has gone from bad to worse. For a city known for its faithful marriage to the automobile, I’m sorry to say we are getting even more quality time together. In reflecting upon this mobility challenge, two thoughts come to mind.
First, I’m reminded of the important work being conducted by Stephanie Stuckey Benfield, Atlanta’s Chief Resilience Officer. As a part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities program, Stephanie and her team are working to create and implement a plan to prepare the city for the unique long-term stresses and short-term shocks it might encounter. What are some examples of these stresses and shocks? I’d say long-and-getting-longer commute times and sudden, big holes in I-85 qualify.
Second, I’m reminded of one of the tenets of biomimicry. Natural systems are often resilient, and redundancy helps to create this resiliency. Nonetheless, redundancy is often left out when we design our cities since it can be viewed as inefficient. I mean, why pay for two when you only need one! We’ll just cross our fingers and hope it doesn’t break.
In this instance, it broke. Sure, we have other routes that drivers can take and a public transportation system. That said, our city has disproportionately relied upon high-speed personal automotive mobility, leading to underinvestment in our other forms of transportation infrastructure. We get poor marks for effective transportation redundancy, and we are now paying the price as a city.
Hopefully we learn a lesson from this. It’s time for our city to admit to a failed automobile marriage. If I had to bet, strong public transportation and transit-oriented development would love to take Atlanta out on a date.
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