One solution local officials are employing to help ease backups in busy interstate interchanges are diverging diamond interchanges, four of which have opened in metro Atlanta in the last five years. DDIs not only help taper delays, but also are safer, as they eliminate left-turns across oncoming traffic onto busy freeways.
I attended a festival before the grand opening of the first Atlanta DDI at Ashford Dunwoody Road and I-285 in DeKalb and people were very leery of it. That makes sense, as the idea to eliminate those traffic-jamming left turns across oncoming traffic, is to send traffic into the opposite lanes and channel the other traffic to the other side. Both the idea and the execution can confuse first-timers.
From our perspective in both the WSB Skycopter and 24-Hour Traffic Center, DDIs have at least stabilized traffic delays (traffic progressively gets worse year-to-year most places anyway). And DDIs have indeed cut down on dangerous t-bone wrecks.
The newest DDI on Windy Hill Road at I-75 in Cobb County went into operation not long before SunTrust Park opened. We have heard very few, if any, complaints about the configuration and haven’t seen any more wrecks than usual. This was not the case one Monday morning in the WSB Skycopter for our morning drive traffic anchor Smilin’ Mark McKay.
“Our Skycopter pilot Bob Howdy alerted me of activity in the Windy Hill interchange at I-75,” McKay recalls. “Low and behold, as we banked the chopper to my left, there it was.”
They found two cars tangled in the eastbound lanes of Windy Hill. McKay says he couldn’t gather exactly what happened. Coming upon a DDI can throw off a first-timer and imagine how many of those have approached Windy Hill en route to a Braves game.
An unnamed commuter told me how they were halfway distracted as they exited to Windy Hill for the first time and flat-out stopped in middle of the road when they had to start across to the opposite side. The following car was quite unhappy. WSB Traffic’s Floyd Hillman commutes through this interchange multiple times a day.
“For those that have gone through it for the first time, it’s kind of change — driving on the lefts side of the road. Crossing over can make it a little bit of an adjustment,” Hillman explains. “I know one of the biggest problems I have experienced is coming off of I-75/northbound from I-285, ramping onto Windy Hill, to go Windy Hill/westbound. The traffic lights are over the balk line [stop line] on the ramp, so the lead cars are right under them and can’t see when the light changes.”
This, of course, causes more delay. Hillman thinks that he — both as a traffic reporter in Atlanta since 2008 and as a Smyrna commuter — will get a better read on how much the Windy Hill DDI helps traffic once crews on the bridge are done with the cosmetic work they couldn’t finish before the stadium opened.
McKay points out that all Atlanta drivers better brace and be ready for driving on the wrong side of the road.
“I think the key is you have to really be careful, you have to really watch what you’re doing, as you enter these Diverging Diamond Interchanges, which are popping up all over the Metro Atlanta area.” He’s right. DDIs are now in place on Pleasant Hill Road at I-85, Jimmy Carter at I-85, along with the aforementioned ones on Ashford Dunwoody and on Windy Hill. GDOT is currently building one on Wade Green Road at I-75 in Acworth and even in Chatham County in Savannah, off of I-95 at Highway 21.
McKay urges the need to minimize distractions.
“Follow the directions, the markings on the ground and what you see as you approach the interchange, as far as lights and directional signs. Just pay attention.”
Even with these variables mixed in, driving the “wrong-way” on the roads has not caused very many of these problems. People adjust.
“It has been pretty smooth getting through there … it’s actually been kind of an enjoyable experience,” Hillman says of Windy Hill.
Enjoyable. How often can we use that word in Atlanta traffic?
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