I spent an inordinately large amount of time sitting in traffic over this weekend, because the Georgia Department of Transportation is shit, and at this very moment I am writing this, the worst organization in the history of mankind, over the Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan and ISIS.
For whatever reasons, GDOT decided to perform road construction to every single interstate northbound route in order to get to/pass through Atlanta. Want to get to/pass through, Atlanta via I-85/I-75? Three lanes closed. Want to circumvent Atlanta on I-285? Two lanes closed on the west side of 285, and construction and a lane shift on the east side of 285. The result of trying to take any major route to or through Atlanta is sitting in tragic standstill traffic and the desire to pull your hair out of your head.
Seriously, who the fuck decides to do this much road construction in the middle of the weekend? Sure, there is undoubtedly one worse time to do any sort of road construction, which is during the middle of any weekday work rush hour, but in the middle of the weekend afternoons has to be easily the second worst times to do traffic. And to every single major northbound vein, at the same time? That’s not just lunacy, it’s downright idiotic.
I think I’m spoiled having grown up in Virginia, a state that takes its roads serious to the tune of having a dedicated $4B+ annual budget on roads alone. Any and all road construction always occurred in the middle of the night, so that it was almost never a factor during weekends or in the middle of the weekday rush hour times.
Georgia, seems incapable of being able to do such things, and whatever road budget this god forsaken state does have, is probably 50% usurped by the legion of corrupt politicians that use state funds as a personal fucking ATM.
One of the thoughts going through my head in one of the numerous times I was sitting in my car wanting to scream my lungs out, was that Atlanta feels a lot like a game of Sim City, where if you don’t allocate enough money towards road maintenance, the roads begin deteriorating and exacerbate the existing traffic to worse conditions. And it’s like Atlanta doesn’t pay enough funds towards road maintenance, so the roads begin to crumble and turn into sandpaper for your tires, and you want to believe it’s because Atlanta is allocating its fund first to police/fire departments to keep up with the litany of luxury apartments that keep getting built, but then you realize that the police force is already stretched paper thin, and you have no idea where all our tax dollars are going to in the end.
But back to the point at hand, GDOT and all these fucking road construction projects that occur smack dab in the middle of the weekend, they’re basically making it so that you shouldn’t leave your house during the weekend, because you will undoubtedly have your day ruined when you get snared in whatever bullshit road construction that spontaneously happens no matter where you are. Have company coming in from the airport? Better have them take the depressing MARTA to somewhere north of I-20, and pick them up there, because getting back from the airport, no matter what route you take, is going to result in sitting in standstill traffic.
Seriously, fuck GDOT. This kind of execution should be punishable by death to whomever came up with this brilliant idea to have massive road closures to every single route to and through the city.
