The headlines on the paper said that the average Atlanta commute was now a whopping 4 hours.

This can't be right! I ride 15 miles from Stone Mountain to downtown Atlanta on my bike and it only takes me 1 hour. Where do these "average" Atlanta commuters live, Chattanooga?

:eek:

Have I lost my mind? Did the paper really say that?

OK, everyone, don't jump on me if I'm wrong, I'm really sleepy right now. Maybe they meant, "4 hours per week" or something like that...

Only in a car would it take 4 hours to get somewhere when on a bike it takes an hour (heck, my public transit takes an hour and a half to get to work whereas I take 40 minutes. Go figure).

Houston (another mega-sprawl sunbelt city) can't be far behind Atlanta. My commute is 2.5 hours on the bike, but I'm loving it.

it's gotta be per week that they're talking about.

My wife lived in ATL for a few years before we got hitched. When she first got there, she lived with some friends in Alpharetta, but worked in Midtown. There were nights when she would spend over two hours on 400 N going home. So the four hours per day, round trip number wouldn't surprise me. Plus ATL is ever-expanding. People living out in Sugarloaf and Cherokee County consider themselves Atlantans and happily drive their cars into the city, one person per car, every day. ATL = 8 lanes of gridlock.

Its not per week. That sounds closer to per day. Most people I know commute for about an hour each way.

We have horrible public transportation because our white flight suburbs never approved bus/rail connectivity with the city. Only two metro counties support MARTA. Our city is a sprawl nightmare.

My commute is a mile, and takes 5 minutes :)

I lived in various parts of the ATL, and don't miss that commute scene at all. My last job was in Norcross, I lived in Flowery Branch. Even that was hell, 985/85. I imagine it's much worse now.

I do, however, really miss Cap'n Herb and his "Achin' toe!!!" :cry:

How about 60 hours a year....

This article ran in the Atlanta Biz Journal last month:
http://atlanta.bizjournals.com/atlan...06/daily5.html

It is most likely a reference to sitting "in traffic" for 4 hours per week. The statistic seems to be based around either a recent study released by Texas A&M University based on data collected in 2002 that listed Atlanta as having the 5th worst traffic in the US or perhaps another story that ran back in February where "spagetti junction at I85 & I285" was identified as one of the worst traffic choke points in the US. Per the A&M study, Atlanta's commuters were spending 60 hours per YEAR on average sitting in traffic, e.g., take the commute time with zero traffic and subtract it by how long the drive actually takes during rush hour and the difference is time sitting in traffic.

Another recent article that pops up on Google notes: In metro Atlanta, 49 percent of commuters spend 30 minutes to more than an hour getting to work in the morning, according to Arbitron, the radio rating service. Metro commuters also tend to work in high-paying jobs. Scarborough Research, a market research firm, conducted a one-year study of commuters who use I-85 and I-285 and found that 70 percent have average earnings of more than $50,000 a year.

The Associated Press story that most news agencies picked up on Sept 8/9 is here:
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/u...?storyid=23952

My 10 mile (one way) Gwinnett county commute is 20 minutes in good traffic, 30 to 40 in average rush hour traffic, and 50 to 55 minutes on my bike. My bike commute is less than that of many of my motoring coworkers.

Due to my odd work hours my 7 mile commute lasts no more than 25 minutes (about 20 catching all the lights green
in the wee hours).
Even on the rare occasion of an 8-5 shift to sit in traffic on the bike is no great hardship.

To endure travel on Ga 400 would be wasteful tedium.

The headlines are correct. My wife works with folks from south Atl, Conyers, and Snellville and they tell her it takes 1-1/4 to 2 hours to get to work. Same or worse in the afternoon. :eek:

I didn't ride on Tuesday. I had to drive because I was making deliveries to 3 schools in the area (Chamblee and Duluth) for the Safe Routes to School program that happened Oct 6 and got stuck in the afternoon traffic. It took me 25 minutes to go 2-1/4 miles. :fight: No wonder there's so much road rage. I was pulling my hair out and shouting obscenities at everyone before I got home. :o

Its such a damned shame that segregation STILL keeps us from having decent public transportation.

I can ride from Chattanooga to Atlanta on a good day with some buds to pace me in about 4.5 hours... and I can drive there in 90 minutes...

But it does take about 200 gazillion hours to go from Hartsfield to anywhere at 4 PM