Tag: Atlanta

Tom’s World – 07JUL2026 – Atlanta Road Rage – Part 2

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TomD

Below from Google AI in response to a search. You can see elements of prejudice in the framing of the intended traffic mitigation efforts in terms of “sprawl” and civil rights.

Did it ever come to light who was spearheadding the successful opposition by federal lawsuit to Atlanta metro traffic inittiaves circa 2002?

The prominent federal lawsuits that successfully disrupted and reshaped Atlanta metro traffic and highway initiatives circa 1999–2002 were spearheaded by a coalition of environmental and civil rights organizations, most notably led by the Sierra Club, Georgians for Transportation Alternatives (GTA), and the Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice. [1, 2]
The primary public figures and legal minds anchoring this push included:

Context of the Legal Battle
The litigation (most notably Georgians for Transportation Alternatives v. Shackelford and Sierra Club v. Atlanta Regional Commission) alleged that Atlanta’s multi-billion dollar, highway-expanding Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) violated the federal Clean Air Act. Because metro Atlanta chronically failed to meet federal ground-level ozone and smog safety deadlines, the lawsuits successfully froze federal funding and forced a historic out-of-court settlement. [1, 2, 4]

The Outcome
Rather than stopping transit outright, the opposition successfully weaponized federal law to force a massive pivot away from sprawl. The settlement required state and regional planners to scrap dozens of major road-widening projects, reallocate roughly 40% of regional funding directly into mass transit, and heavily analyze the civil rights impact of traffic planning on low-income and minority neighborhoods. [1, 3]

Tom’s World – 04JUL2026 – Atlanta Road Rage

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TomD

 

My knowledge from both a personal and professional level indicate that the Georgia DOT is well funded, efficient and competent. Lord only knows the crisis level if that were not the case. Pure traffic density is the issue.

The density problem was significantly purposefully created by supposed “environmental” groups. The effects of the rapidly developing increasing traffic density has been easily extrapolated for decades. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s a number of projects were proposed to head it off to a significant degree. But, each project was sued into non-existence in Federal court , one by one. Every suit was brought and financed by non-regional environmental groups ultimately financed by, nobody knows. The Sierra Club was the front group for several suits. Whatever the ultimate purpose of the suits was it did not include the well being of the citizens

The biggest hit was an outer perimeter to route non-local traffic, both E-W and N-S entirely bypassing metro Atlanta. I75, I85, & I20 all intersect in the middle of Atlanta constituting a large portion of the total. But noooo. Several other major projects were killed.

You would not believe the competency the GDOT call on to plan and execute MAJOR infrastructure projects. This bunch in FDOT District 3, not so much. They make what would be a 4-5 month project in Atlanta Metro last for literally years. And in the face of rapidly increasing traffic density, the local FDOT’s traffic light timing and coordination is absurdly bad.

I was “involved” with the industry for some time and before I retired couldn’t open my mouth publically.

Picture below: Ga 400 entering Buckhead area of the city on a Sunday morning. Buckhead was the area in the news a couple of years ago that tried to secede from Atlanta due to non-protection from the APD from the hoards of inner city predators.

<a data-flickr-embed=”true” href=”https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomd77/21935250858/in/datetaken/” title=”Into the belly of the beast”><img src=”” width=”2048″ height=”1477″ alt=”Into the belly of the beast”/></a><script async src=”//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>

Guest Contributor – TomD – Insights Into Atlanta – Part 3

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I grew up in Sandy Springs, used to ride my go kart on the perimeter (285) when they were just grading it. It only went from Chamblee Tucker to the river at first.

Fulton County has a long history of looting the northside communities of exorbitant property taxes, which are promptly distributed to political supporters in other areas. A few weeks ago I was driving through North Fulton County on roads barely changed, if at all, from when I traveled them while I was in High School in the mid-60’s. This despite the current population being orders of magnitude denser and the insane attendant 24/7 traffic jams and 100’s of square miles of near to $million dollar + homes. God only knows how much tax money has been looted from North Fulton to be distributed inside the perimeter. But it wasn’t spent in the interests of those who paid it.

I remember Fulton Commissioner “Queen” Emma Darnell using Fulton tax money to buy herself a bejeweled multi-thousand dollar Mont Blank pen because she had a “rare disorder” that allowed her to write only using such an instrument. When unincorporated Fulton started to incorporate into cities to escape the taxation, “Queen” Emma famously announced that the northsiders should not be allowed to escape because the southsiders “owned” that tax base. That really happened.

All the houses that I’ve owned in the area were carefully selected to not be in Fulton county. I spent my last 20 years there in the East Cobb County area where the property taxes were 45% of what they would be in Fulton and with far better roads and amenities to boot. Newt Gingrich was my congressman.

So this tax-confiscation-with-no-correlating-benefit war between relatively affluent and less affluent but more populous Atlanta areas has been going on for quite some time. Atlanta has been exporting money from Buckhead and importing crime almost forever. Lenox Square opened in 1959 as the 1st Mall in the southeast; it was an incredible success, for a while. It took less than 20 years for the Mall to turn into a battle zone of shoplifting and robberies.

So I’d say, “Let’s Go Buckhead!”

Jason M: You commuted from Buford to Sandy Springs for 13 years? I85 south to top end perimeter to Sandy Springs or reverse twice a day x 5 days+ per week for 13 years? Whew!

Guest Contributor – Jason M – 01NOV2021 – Insights Into Atlanta – Part 2

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I lived in Buford (North-eastern Atlanta suburb, for those not familiar…about 25 miles from the Atlanta city limits) for 18 years, and I worked in Sandy Springs for 13 of those years.

The fact that it is Buckhead that is trying this is interesting. Depending on where lines are drawn, wouldn’t Buckhead be completely surrounded by the Atlanta city limits? Essentially a separate city inside the city? Regardless, if I were driving this in Buckhead, I’d be setting up working sessions with the people in Sandy Springs that successfully incorporated in 2005. I know it’s a different scenario, but there are probably a number of experiences that could help those in Buckhead avoid some mistakes along the way.

I would also imagine that the city of Atlanta will fight this with all they have. Despite their efforts, they lost the potential to annex a very lucrative area when Sandy Springs incorporated. Sandy Springs is an affluent area with nice neighborhoods and industry, and Atlanta had been trying, unsuccessfully, to annex the area since the 1960s. Corporate headquarters for UPS, Newell Rubbermaid, Cox Communication and several others are located in Sandy Springs, along with the executives that work for those companies and all the money that they earn.

Buckhead makes Sandy Springs look like chump change. This will be interesting to watch even after moving to NC a couple years ago.