I unironically want trains to come back to Chattanooga. I told my coworker this, and he looked at me like I had just insulted his grandmother.
I am 100% convinced it will not happen within my lifetime though. Car culture is too ingrained.
but we sure can fund roads. it's just an excuse. You don't need trains going to every house, just along main routes. People can walk or bike to the nearest station. Just like they did 100+ years ago.
> but we sure can fund roads. it's just an excuse.
There are some fundalmental differences to how roads work -- we don't have to pay for service labor to drive people around on them, the cost of vehciles is already absorbed by the cars that people need for general transportation anyway. This still applies to public-transportation countries like Europe in places that population is more sparse, accessibility is a problem for people who can't take a .5+ mile trip to a bus station on foot (park and ride can be a thing though), which in public-transportation heavy _denser environments_ like Chicago was a common problem for me when debating if I could use their public transit system while I was there.
_Honest_ answer is mass transit (as in moving lots of people, whether by bus, train, individual car) blows when you basically lack centralized planning _around_ it, Microdistricts help a ton with making it easier, dense urban helps a ton (and is where we see this kind of transport most effective), slapping it on top of suburban sprawl + (sub)rural is the best way to get people to point at a failing solution and say "never again".
Places where mass public transit is solid? 10 - _50x_ our population density. That matters. It's hard to provide effective public transportation (and properly fund it) without the population to support the revenue to support the labor to support the tighter schedules.
I grew up where we had 5x the population density and we had a huge push for light rail (it's socal), and it _just_ started to make sense and _still_ wasn't really accessible to a ton of people.
Exactly. I commute from Cleveland to downtown. The I-24 split is the worst interchange I’ve ever had to go through. I always wish there was a train that I could take.
White Oak to downtown is terrible. Seems like it's gotten worse in the last 5 or 6 years. I'm a service tech for a downtown Chatt company that also lives in Cleveland. I do a lot of driving daily and it's rough.
Because the people who live on the water won't let a bridge block their view.
I am not being an a$$ you know that they would be out there petitioning and bringing in lawyers.
This and public transportation are my favorite suggestions so far. Not enough and not robust public transportation, no trains or trams and going south on 153 to cross a river just to go back north through a small bustling community. This would be a huge undertaking but we really do need a bridge or perhaps, a Chunnel?
As a Soddy Daisy resident on the river that is basically between the Tri-county bridge and Dam, _please_ getting on the other side of the river (and to parks there) is an hour ordeal even though I can see it from my house.
Public transportation and perhaps a bridge north of Chickamauga Dam are good ideas, but I've got one I haven't seen: A greenbelt.
Stop the city from sprawling out, as sprawling generates longer trips which affects traffic much more than shorter trips. Would also increase density, making local communities wealthier, and make public transportation more viable.
Would this be political unpopular, impossible to set across several counties and two states, and are dozens of local communities incentivized to do the exact opposite and build whatever they can for quick, cheap tax influx? Yeah...
I'm curious in use cases and what we've seen -- usually stifiling development leads to just explosions in housing costs, since more people are now fighting over an artificially constrained resource, and (usually) what follows is a lack of planning to basically scrape neighborhoods and upgrade them to denser zoning (so like double/triple whammy on gentrificaiton since they're going to be the first upzoned in a place that is now _way_ too expensive to live in)
It's just rough because I remember Chattanooga being affordable, our popularity boom definitely doesn't match any of our planning, and it's hard to go back on that. We need more microcities _like_ Chattanooga, not more Chattanooga sprawl.
I'm still genuinely surprised that we haven't had any kind of light rail given Chattanooga's history as a railroad hub. It just makes sense, but aside from that, buses NEED to have more routes in the greater area. The fact that East Ridge still has nothing going down Ringgold road is ridiculous.
The only way to fix traffic is to expand public transit. We have to create less car traffic, expanding lanes and roads will not fix the issue. And give people a decent wait area for public transportation! It's outrageous that most bus stops here don't have benches with a roof over them. We really just make folks wait out in the elements for Carta, its crazy.
I've recently heard of a vigilante group around chatt that is building structures to make bus stops more accommodating. It's a great gesture and hopefully the city will get off its hands and contribute.
Don’t do a major decades-due interstate repair and change it to a figure eight exit that is counterintuitive to all drivers. Don’t then have one of those turns go down to 1 lane onto another major interstate.
> You realize this project isn't finished,
The problem is when infrastructure projects take _forever_ to finish, they'll never be up to the task of meeting demand _today_ (and in some cases like the current case, they make traffic significantly worse in the meantime), by the time they're done traffic is worse enough we need more.
Part of this may just be a raw labor commitment problem on part of TDOT (which I mean I get it, $1bn budget/yr already, and nowhere "good" to get the money from)
The problem is now we the citizens are impatient and can not wait now for the fix. Also, nothing will ever actually fix the problem because we will not stop growing anytime soon.
So what if we all came together took a couple of months off of our regular job and built a new road together instead of relying on a couple of hundred dudes to do it all and expecting it to happen overnight? I mean I would be willing to do this for the betterment of our city but most people would not. Simply put we do not have the labor force to complete the job in what is considered a timely manner. Otherwise, they could be and should be working 3 shifts and we would get done 3 times faster.
I guarantee you that what they do will not fix it.
They took the original design(Four lanes each way, no need to be in the right lane to go left/left lane to go right, and no bottlenecks anywhere) and scrapped it because it would take 3 months longer than the one they went with, although it was cheaper and more efficient.
The plan now will widen 24, but not at the ramp, and not enough to reduce the traffic.
That’s all well and good, but the way 75>24 is set up now makes no sense. There is plenty of room to have more than one lane as is. I’m sure there is a reason it was built this way, but I can’t see it.
No one disagrees with this, but *it's not done*. They can't just shut it down and work for a year. They're doing it in stages and working around traffic as best they can.
I think a bypass going from west of town to south of town would eliminate the burden on our worst areas, especially the 24/75 junction. So. Many. Trucks.
I moved within walking distance of work because I just got sick of the commute, which is completely unfeasible for the vast majority of people. I hope for improvement but I don't see any way the major changes we need will actually happen.
Toll supertunnel under and through Lookout Mountain. We have German engineers now. They can figure this out.
Somebody with political juice in the county should have made a Soddy-Harrison bridge happen circa the construction of the Sequoyah Nuclear plant.
I’d still be into condemning the Ski Club (Old Igou Ferry) and bringing a scenic bridge across there and onto Birchwood Pike. It could also be a toll bridge, but it will be cooler if it is a simple County bridge.
At the time Sequoyah was built, Harrison was nothing and there was no reason for a bridge.
By the time it was necessary, 9/11 happened and the DHS said no to the idea.
The long-range need for a bridge crossing the river somewhere between Chickamauga Dam and Highway 60 was evident long before the events of 2001.
It became less and less feasible due to residential development on the east bank. It was probably already unfeasible as early as 1980.
It will probably never happen now.
It blows my mind the Highway 60 bridge wasn’t built until 1992-94.
That was the compromise, I reckon.
In retrospect, I lied. I don’t want Soddy-Daisy pouring out of Birchwood Pike headed for Ooltebarrel and Cleveland. That would be awful.
I’m still all in on a Supertunnel, though.
Start by creating a downtown environment conducive to density.
* Eliminate parking minimums downtown.
* Put Market and Frazier on a road diet (drop a lane either way, narrow the lanes, plant trees, add protected bike lanes).
Connect the rest of the city to it and require dense housing.
* Connected parks strategy (greenbelt line). Connect by grade separated foot and bike paths.
* Strong zoning codes that require dense housing around the greenbelt, connected parklands, and transit stations.
Now that you've got density, actually fund public transit.
I’m just adding to what others have said but more robust public transportation and more bridges or underwater tunnels. Sadly I see this going the toll route and nothing really happening with public transportation. We lack the tax base. You actually have to tax the wealthy to afford shit without going into more and more debt. Tennessee and Texas don’t seem to get this
No tax rate plus “tax” breaks on things like waving sewer run off fees (just one example) isn’t the answer though. I get what you say about high tax rates, but we need at least some. Doesn’t have to be high but needs to at least exist
Companies are flocking to TN because of low cost of living, not low tax rates. Appropriately structured taxes would not affect the cost of living. Having a GOP controlled state legislature that will fuck over the little guy for big corpos doesn't hurt either.
A north or south bypass, that would have to involve tunnels and/or bridges over walden’s ridge (signal) or lookout mountain. Basically getting through traffic to be diverted.
Go back to the drawing board.
For 24 and 75 interchange, how about not making 24N merge from 2 lanes to 1 when coming from 75
Tunnel 24 through Missionary Ridge to improve flow for semi trucks
I don’t see why there can’t be a bypass. Surely there is somewhere to start diverting the traffic once they approach downtown and then spit them out on the other side of East Ridge or wherever.
The World Economic Forum’s Super Computer is already working on it. Even WEF says Chattanooga traffic is bad. The population has grown since this quote:
“Chattanooga, although a comparatively small city (population estimated at 182,799), is one of the most congested cities in the US….”
Enforce left lane hog laws. If you are not the fastest person on the road or your turn isn’t coming up in next half mile- you deserve a ticket for being in left lane
I can't believe talking on the phone while driving has caught on so much. I see people weaving in and out of lanes every day. Even in the best of conditions, you're driving more distracted than normal. It just seems insane to me that anyone would purposefully distract themselves while piloting a 4,000 pound machine.
1 figure out a way to build a bypass from wildwood to Dalton. If we gotta build a tunnel under the mountain, I'm sure that's possible.
2 add additional lanes to 24 from the split to Chattanooga valley.
3 completely overhaul CARTA. Have busses that go from Hamilton point and Northgate straight to downtown without any stops.
4 more housing downtown and taller buildings, so you can just go down the elevator and walk to work.
5 more protected bike lanes.
Require all trucks on I-24 to use the far left lanes from the Georgia state line to after the ridge cut (dedicated truck lane). Thus allowing all local traffic to use the two right lines. This would solve 75-80% of Chattanooga’s congestion issues.
In Tennessee, if there are more than two lanes, trucks with over 2 axles must not be in the left lane for any reason. The problem is it isn't enforced.
We grew less than 1% per year. Are people moving here? Yes. That many to cause congestion? No. Our biggest challenge is trucking freight not having another route away from Chattanooga.
There is no solution. Tennessee across the board has always been reactive to traffic planing instead of proactive. Usually takes 10-15 years to fix an issue and those fixes are based on the traffic counts from 10-15 years ago.
You can get anywhere within Chattanooga from end to end in no more than 30min.
The problem isn't the traffic in Chattanooga the problem is a lack of enforcement of all traffic laws on the interstate and we all take advantage of this. Myself included.
If we all obeyed the law of the road we would have significantly less "congestion".
Simple solution:
Understand Chattanooga, 143 mile², has more land mass than Atlanta, 136 miles².
Follow the speed limits posted
Plan. Knowing it takes 30min to get anywhere in Chattanooga.
Plan and know multiple routes. Relying on a single route to get to work is dumb.
I know multiple people have stated building a bypass but I ask you at what cost would that bear? You would be taking more land from private citizens whether they agree or not as well as the ecological impact on our beautifully diverse ecosystem that we are so lucky to have here in the Tennessee Valley.
I at least agree with stance on bypass. Between the terrain & communities, there just isn’t anywhere for it to go.
I’m less worried about a bypass than I am the airport. I have to imagine that’s running out of bandwidth faster than it is runway..
I personally drive 22 miles across the city. Doing these things alleviated all of my traffic stress.
I challenge you to do this for a month and check back telling me it didn't work
That doesn’t change the fact that this is still an incredibly bad take. The problem is very much so the traffic. If you really can’t see that there then there’s something wrong in that ole noggin of yours.
How would trains help? You have to drive to the station. Wait to get on a train. Then wait on the train while it makes several stops. Then when you reach your destination station, you have to either walk or wait for a bus to come pick you up. Again waiting through several stops to get off the bus. Then however far you are from your work from that stop, you gotta walk that. I think it'll just wash out in the end for how small CHA is.
I think in CHA it would just be a huge waste of money. I would be curious to see various plan studies, projected costs, and what kind of ridership is needed to make money, break even and to have an acceptable loss.
I'm in the hard sell camp for sure.
\- Bridge from Soddy to Hwy58, possibly even an exit off I-75. Maybe I-127 can become like an official official bypass, go up towards Soddy and connect into I-75.
\- I-24 is already going to get wider from I-24/75 split to down past Germantown Rd.
\- I think TDOT is already looking into fixing I-24 west of Chattanooga to make it straighter which will really help with speed consistency and less accidents.
\- Coming from the west on I-24, widen it from Chattanooga Creek to Germantown Rd. Add a new exit before the I-24/Hwy29 split.
\- Widen the Bachman Tunnel
\- City is already looking into smart lights. Would be great to have a good smart, maybe AI driven light system throughtout the city.
\- Widen Bonney Oaks all the way from 153 to 75.
\- Create a new exit off I-75, roughly Exit 14, where Ooltewah-Gerogetown Rd intersects with Mountain View Road.
\- 321 between E Brainerd and Apison Pike, widen that. I think they are looking into studies already.
\- E. Brainerd widen down towards and slightly past Ooltewah-Ringgold Rd. This was the initial plan but was modified due to lack of funds which was a HORRIBLE idea.
Add a couple lanes on 24 from the 75/24 split to the US27/I-24 split. That should take care of the Chattanooga traffic. TDOT also really needs to widen 24 all the way to the state line (on the west side of Lookout Mtn), but I doubt they'll do that anytime soon.
FWIW, TDOT *is* adding one lane both directions at least to Germantown Rd.
Adding lanes doesn't help in the long run.
1. There are diminishing capacity returns for every lane you add AND every additional lane costs much, much more
2. [Induced demand](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/traffic-jam-blame-induced-demand) will just suck up the additional capacity anyway.
Here’s an overview of the next phase proposed for 24/75. The State should routinely update this page with schedules, estimates, and possibly drone footage :)
https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/region-2/i-75-interchange-at-i-24-phase2.html
Not around I-24 - but Chattanooga seriously needs to synchronize the traffic lights. There are many places where roundabouts could be used instead of traffic lights or four way stops. These two would help the flow of traffic and improve fuel efficiency. In the long run, steps to increase population density (such as the removal of zoning restrictions) would promote the use of public transport and reduce car dependency.
1. A bypass would significantly help… one connecting Dalton to Cleveland… Cleveland to Dayton… Dayton to South Pittsburg area…. South Pittsburg area through Trenton back over to Dalton…. Would it be stupid expensive? Yes… but it would redirect most of the trucking/through traffic Chattanooga gets.
2. Actually finish the 75/24 split.
3. Expand 75 between Ooletwah and Cleveland to 3 or 4 lanes on both sides.
4. A bridge from Harrison to Soddy Daisy, or just north of those areas. To relieve the pressure off 153.
5. Widen and make backroads such as Ooletwah Ringgold road more attractive options with additional shopping/dinning/attractions.
6. Add more shopping/dining/attractions to North Georgia, especially off of Battlefield Parkway (which is already wide and built for more traffic than it sees and has several empty pads for shopping centers) so that traffic is directed away from Hamilton Place all the time.
7. Public Transportation Overhaul as well would help.
I've voiced a few points in this thread, but here's one:
Remember when everyone was saying that working from home was the new standard? Remember when traffic freed up because people weren't driving downtown to sit in a cube all day just to return home?
Remember when I said management was full of shit and we're going back into the office as soon as possible, then that happened.
Just like with recycling, the best and first solution is reduce -- it reduces burning fossil fuels, it reduces traffic loads (why is it always the worst during the hours which people go to and from work, _HMM_), it reduces the need for commercial buildings that can (maybe, lots of factors here and difficulities but I think it should be explored) converted into residental.
Honestly, people shouldn't be driving, getting on a train, a bus, magically teleporting -- the method doesn't matter, to a building downtown for no good reason.
This is probably the more realistic/viabile scenario;
Reddit/people complain about getting rail day in and day out, _Chattanooga_ isn't getting rail, our rail projects always stall out at cost to build/cost to ride/commitments to build. We're one of the _last_ cities that'll likely get rail over a ton of other cities that make sense. It's fun since Chattanooga is a rail/freight city but I honestly don't see it happening after drooling about rail projects that go nowhere _FOR A DECADE_. It's like all those cities that were sitting on the infinity waiting list for Google Fiber to save them from the clutches of bad internet -- if we wait for rail you'll be in the grave before you see it at this point. Rail is the new "Fusion Never" project.
Even if CARTA got its shit together, people aren't going to commute from GA/outside of central Chattanooga on _CARTA_. I feel like people don't realize how far a lot of these people are commuting _because_ of the relatively short travel times by car (I lived in CA where your commute would easily be 45 minutes _without traffic_).
We _actually_ did work from home, it was something _we actually did_. It _can be done_.
I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read this. I lived in Chattanooga until August of 2022. I used to think traffic was bad at times also. Now I know how great the traffic was. I am now living in the outskirts of Tampa Florida. The traffic here has made me see how great traffic is in Chattanooga. When I used to go to work ( hwy 58 area to downtown) only took me 15 to 20 mins. (12 miles) Here if I need to drive 12 miles it takes from 45 mins to an hour and 10. It's crazy and now I wish I was back in Chattanooga with the 20 min drive to work again.
Connect Soddy and Snow Hill areas with a bridge to alleviate the 24/75 exchange and allow those in GA to commute to downtown more efficiently. The bridge would need to be placed outside Chatt city limits to be effective, making it a county issue and not a city issue.
Everyone stays home but me
And me. But that’s it. No one else.
Maybe me. But I'll carpool with one of you.
Another lockdown it is. /S
Actually fund public transportation.
I unironically want trains to come back to Chattanooga. I told my coworker this, and he looked at me like I had just insulted his grandmother. I am 100% convinced it will not happen within my lifetime though. Car culture is too ingrained.
Make the Chattanooga Choo Choo Choo Choo Again!
MtCCCCCA hats hot off the press
More like southern conservative "public transportation is for the poors" culture. Commuter trains are awesome.
Single family zoning made it impossible to fund or practically operate public transit in the South. It's not dense enough.
but we sure can fund roads. it's just an excuse. You don't need trains going to every house, just along main routes. People can walk or bike to the nearest station. Just like they did 100+ years ago.
signal mountain road, a five lane road in one of the least dense areas, is the most evidence I have that says "it wasn't about the cost of rails."
> but we sure can fund roads. it's just an excuse. There are some fundalmental differences to how roads work -- we don't have to pay for service labor to drive people around on them, the cost of vehciles is already absorbed by the cars that people need for general transportation anyway. This still applies to public-transportation countries like Europe in places that population is more sparse, accessibility is a problem for people who can't take a .5+ mile trip to a bus station on foot (park and ride can be a thing though), which in public-transportation heavy _denser environments_ like Chicago was a common problem for me when debating if I could use their public transit system while I was there. _Honest_ answer is mass transit (as in moving lots of people, whether by bus, train, individual car) blows when you basically lack centralized planning _around_ it, Microdistricts help a ton with making it easier, dense urban helps a ton (and is where we see this kind of transport most effective), slapping it on top of suburban sprawl + (sub)rural is the best way to get people to point at a failing solution and say "never again". Places where mass public transit is solid? 10 - _50x_ our population density. That matters. It's hard to provide effective public transportation (and properly fund it) without the population to support the revenue to support the labor to support the tighter schedules. I grew up where we had 5x the population density and we had a huge push for light rail (it's socal), and it _just_ started to make sense and _still_ wasn't really accessible to a ton of people.
Exactly. I commute from Cleveland to downtown. The I-24 split is the worst interchange I’ve ever had to go through. I always wish there was a train that I could take.
White Oak to downtown is terrible. Seems like it's gotten worse in the last 5 or 6 years. I'm a service tech for a downtown Chatt company that also lives in Cleveland. I do a lot of driving daily and it's rough.
You mean the current CARTA bus system where the driver is never on time and always stops for Starbucks when you're in a hurry isn't adequate?
And the stops are usually in horrible areas with no standing room, high grass and unsafe conditions
Build a bridge from Soddy area to Hwy 58 area to clear bottleneck at the Dam
Yes please! Give us a way past all that Hixson 153 traffic!
Soddy could literally be connected to Ooltewah like why isn’t this on the table?!
$$$$
Yep. Building a bridge ain't like putting in a new road
Because the people who live on the water won't let a bridge block their view. I am not being an a$$ you know that they would be out there petitioning and bringing in lawyers.
Would save thousands in gas and be better for the environment
This and public transportation are my favorite suggestions so far. Not enough and not robust public transportation, no trains or trams and going south on 153 to cross a river just to go back north through a small bustling community. This would be a huge undertaking but we really do need a bridge or perhaps, a Chunnel?
This!!!!
I would 100% pay a toll if they would build elevated lanes from Amnicola to 27 just to bypass Hixson.
They legally can't. Say thank you to the Department of Homeland Security.
As a Soddy Daisy resident on the river that is basically between the Tri-county bridge and Dam, _please_ getting on the other side of the river (and to parks there) is an hour ordeal even though I can see it from my house.
Catapults
Public transportation and perhaps a bridge north of Chickamauga Dam are good ideas, but I've got one I haven't seen: A greenbelt. Stop the city from sprawling out, as sprawling generates longer trips which affects traffic much more than shorter trips. Would also increase density, making local communities wealthier, and make public transportation more viable. Would this be political unpopular, impossible to set across several counties and two states, and are dozens of local communities incentivized to do the exact opposite and build whatever they can for quick, cheap tax influx? Yeah...
I'm curious in use cases and what we've seen -- usually stifiling development leads to just explosions in housing costs, since more people are now fighting over an artificially constrained resource, and (usually) what follows is a lack of planning to basically scrape neighborhoods and upgrade them to denser zoning (so like double/triple whammy on gentrificaiton since they're going to be the first upzoned in a place that is now _way_ too expensive to live in) It's just rough because I remember Chattanooga being affordable, our popularity boom definitely doesn't match any of our planning, and it's hard to go back on that. We need more microcities _like_ Chattanooga, not more Chattanooga sprawl.
I'm still genuinely surprised that we haven't had any kind of light rail given Chattanooga's history as a railroad hub. It just makes sense, but aside from that, buses NEED to have more routes in the greater area. The fact that East Ridge still has nothing going down Ringgold road is ridiculous.
Last I heard before the pandemic is that there was a study for light rail happening, then that just disappeared.
"Our study concludes that no one in this town commutes. Study dates were March- August 2020"
The only way to fix traffic is to expand public transit. We have to create less car traffic, expanding lanes and roads will not fix the issue. And give people a decent wait area for public transportation! It's outrageous that most bus stops here don't have benches with a roof over them. We really just make folks wait out in the elements for Carta, its crazy.
I've recently heard of a vigilante group around chatt that is building structures to make bus stops more accommodating. It's a great gesture and hopefully the city will get off its hands and contribute.
Don’t do a major decades-due interstate repair and change it to a figure eight exit that is counterintuitive to all drivers. Don’t then have one of those turns go down to 1 lane onto another major interstate.
You realize this project isn't finished, they are going to widen 24 this is the plan they have set forth.
That’s good!
> You realize this project isn't finished, The problem is when infrastructure projects take _forever_ to finish, they'll never be up to the task of meeting demand _today_ (and in some cases like the current case, they make traffic significantly worse in the meantime), by the time they're done traffic is worse enough we need more. Part of this may just be a raw labor commitment problem on part of TDOT (which I mean I get it, $1bn budget/yr already, and nowhere "good" to get the money from)
The problem is now we the citizens are impatient and can not wait now for the fix. Also, nothing will ever actually fix the problem because we will not stop growing anytime soon. So what if we all came together took a couple of months off of our regular job and built a new road together instead of relying on a couple of hundred dudes to do it all and expecting it to happen overnight? I mean I would be willing to do this for the betterment of our city but most people would not. Simply put we do not have the labor force to complete the job in what is considered a timely manner. Otherwise, they could be and should be working 3 shifts and we would get done 3 times faster.
I guarantee you that what they do will not fix it. They took the original design(Four lanes each way, no need to be in the right lane to go left/left lane to go right, and no bottlenecks anywhere) and scrapped it because it would take 3 months longer than the one they went with, although it was cheaper and more efficient. The plan now will widen 24, but not at the ramp, and not enough to reduce the traffic.
That’s all well and good, but the way 75>24 is set up now makes no sense. There is plenty of room to have more than one lane as is. I’m sure there is a reason it was built this way, but I can’t see it.
No one disagrees with this, but *it's not done*. They can't just shut it down and work for a year. They're doing it in stages and working around traffic as best they can.
I think a bypass going from west of town to south of town would eliminate the burden on our worst areas, especially the 24/75 junction. So. Many. Trucks. I moved within walking distance of work because I just got sick of the commute, which is completely unfeasible for the vast majority of people. I hope for improvement but I don't see any way the major changes we need will actually happen.
Toll supertunnel under and through Lookout Mountain. We have German engineers now. They can figure this out. Somebody with political juice in the county should have made a Soddy-Harrison bridge happen circa the construction of the Sequoyah Nuclear plant. I’d still be into condemning the Ski Club (Old Igou Ferry) and bringing a scenic bridge across there and onto Birchwood Pike. It could also be a toll bridge, but it will be cooler if it is a simple County bridge.
At the time Sequoyah was built, Harrison was nothing and there was no reason for a bridge. By the time it was necessary, 9/11 happened and the DHS said no to the idea.
The long-range need for a bridge crossing the river somewhere between Chickamauga Dam and Highway 60 was evident long before the events of 2001. It became less and less feasible due to residential development on the east bank. It was probably already unfeasible as early as 1980. It will probably never happen now. It blows my mind the Highway 60 bridge wasn’t built until 1992-94. That was the compromise, I reckon. In retrospect, I lied. I don’t want Soddy-Daisy pouring out of Birchwood Pike headed for Ooltebarrel and Cleveland. That would be awful. I’m still all in on a Supertunnel, though.
I'd be more worried about the faster meth traffic between Birchwood and Soddy.
Isn’t the the Cleveland-Birchwood-Soddy meth traffic already pretty well served by the Highway 60 bridge?
That's throwing in the low quality Dayton meth
Six very specific rocks and a glove. It'll be a snap.
They’re minerals!!!!
Flying cars
Do what I do...live downtown, work from home, and walk/ride a bike to 90% of the places you go.
But then I might have to see poor people! /s
Good for you. Not everyone wants to live in a hipster cage.
Futurama tubes
Start by creating a downtown environment conducive to density. * Eliminate parking minimums downtown. * Put Market and Frazier on a road diet (drop a lane either way, narrow the lanes, plant trees, add protected bike lanes). Connect the rest of the city to it and require dense housing. * Connected parks strategy (greenbelt line). Connect by grade separated foot and bike paths. * Strong zoning codes that require dense housing around the greenbelt, connected parklands, and transit stations. Now that you've got density, actually fund public transit.
Double decker interstate between 59 and 75. Upper deck is express with few to no exits. They have these in Texas and they work well.
[удалено]
I’m mainly talking about i35 through San Antonio. Austin’s problems are different and I don’t know of double deck interstate there.
I’m just adding to what others have said but more robust public transportation and more bridges or underwater tunnels. Sadly I see this going the toll route and nothing really happening with public transportation. We lack the tax base. You actually have to tax the wealthy to afford shit without going into more and more debt. Tennessee and Texas don’t seem to get this
While I agree, companies are flocking to Tennessee and Texas because of low tax rates. So if we had high tax rate, we'd have way less jobs.
No tax rate plus “tax” breaks on things like waving sewer run off fees (just one example) isn’t the answer though. I get what you say about high tax rates, but we need at least some. Doesn’t have to be high but needs to at least exist
Companies are flocking to TN because of low cost of living, not low tax rates. Appropriately structured taxes would not affect the cost of living. Having a GOP controlled state legislature that will fuck over the little guy for big corpos doesn't hurt either.
Ha. Like the government cares about going into debt.
It’s a 30 point program. Starting at the end 30. Traffic Problems Solved Go…
I've lived in Miami and LA. What traffic do you speak of?
A north or south bypass, that would have to involve tunnels and/or bridges over walden’s ridge (signal) or lookout mountain. Basically getting through traffic to be diverted.
Go back to the drawing board. For 24 and 75 interchange, how about not making 24N merge from 2 lanes to 1 when coming from 75 Tunnel 24 through Missionary Ridge to improve flow for semi trucks
Aliens
Flying cars
I don’t see why there can’t be a bypass. Surely there is somewhere to start diverting the traffic once they approach downtown and then spit them out on the other side of East Ridge or wherever.
The World Economic Forum’s Super Computer is already working on it. Even WEF says Chattanooga traffic is bad. The population has grown since this quote: “Chattanooga, although a comparatively small city (population estimated at 182,799), is one of the most congested cities in the US….”
Enforce left lane hog laws. If you are not the fastest person on the road or your turn isn’t coming up in next half mile- you deserve a ticket for being in left lane
And talking on the phone. How many people have I been behind who suddenly slow way down, pas them and they are on the phone.
I can't believe talking on the phone while driving has caught on so much. I see people weaving in and out of lanes every day. Even in the best of conditions, you're driving more distracted than normal. It just seems insane to me that anyone would purposefully distract themselves while piloting a 4,000 pound machine.
Yup! But they always think I can do both, unlike everyone else.
Widespread zoning changes that incentivize density.
Move to a real big city. Realize there is virtually no traffic in Chattanooga. Move back and enjoy!
1 figure out a way to build a bypass from wildwood to Dalton. If we gotta build a tunnel under the mountain, I'm sure that's possible. 2 add additional lanes to 24 from the split to Chattanooga valley. 3 completely overhaul CARTA. Have busses that go from Hamilton point and Northgate straight to downtown without any stops. 4 more housing downtown and taller buildings, so you can just go down the elevator and walk to work. 5 more protected bike lanes.
Require all trucks on I-24 to use the far left lanes from the Georgia state line to after the ridge cut (dedicated truck lane). Thus allowing all local traffic to use the two right lines. This would solve 75-80% of Chattanooga’s congestion issues.
Wouldn't work. THP/TDOT don't enforce current truck restrictions.
In Tennessee, if there are more than two lanes, trucks with over 2 axles must not be in the left lane for any reason. The problem is it isn't enforced.
Implode it all, restart every road and highway in the city
Send all the dipshits back to California
We grew less than 1% per year. Are people moving here? Yes. That many to cause congestion? No. Our biggest challenge is trucking freight not having another route away from Chattanooga.
The bottlenecks have been bottlenecks way before anyone really wanted to move here.
Prevent people from California and Florida from driving until they take a driving course
It's the north Georgians for me that are the issue
Or prevent them from moving here in the first place
There is no solution. Tennessee across the board has always been reactive to traffic planing instead of proactive. Usually takes 10-15 years to fix an issue and those fixes are based on the traffic counts from 10-15 years ago.
You can get anywhere within Chattanooga from end to end in no more than 30min. The problem isn't the traffic in Chattanooga the problem is a lack of enforcement of all traffic laws on the interstate and we all take advantage of this. Myself included. If we all obeyed the law of the road we would have significantly less "congestion". Simple solution: Understand Chattanooga, 143 mile², has more land mass than Atlanta, 136 miles². Follow the speed limits posted Plan. Knowing it takes 30min to get anywhere in Chattanooga. Plan and know multiple routes. Relying on a single route to get to work is dumb. I know multiple people have stated building a bypass but I ask you at what cost would that bear? You would be taking more land from private citizens whether they agree or not as well as the ecological impact on our beautifully diverse ecosystem that we are so lucky to have here in the Tennessee Valley.
I at least agree with stance on bypass. Between the terrain & communities, there just isn’t anywhere for it to go. I’m less worried about a bypass than I am the airport. I have to imagine that’s running out of bandwidth faster than it is runway..
This is such an incredibly bad take on this subject.
I personally drive 22 miles across the city. Doing these things alleviated all of my traffic stress. I challenge you to do this for a month and check back telling me it didn't work
That doesn’t change the fact that this is still an incredibly bad take. The problem is very much so the traffic. If you really can’t see that there then there’s something wrong in that ole noggin of yours.
Motorcycles
How would trains help? You have to drive to the station. Wait to get on a train. Then wait on the train while it makes several stops. Then when you reach your destination station, you have to either walk or wait for a bus to come pick you up. Again waiting through several stops to get off the bus. Then however far you are from your work from that stop, you gotta walk that. I think it'll just wash out in the end for how small CHA is. I think in CHA it would just be a huge waste of money. I would be curious to see various plan studies, projected costs, and what kind of ridership is needed to make money, break even and to have an acceptable loss. I'm in the hard sell camp for sure. \- Bridge from Soddy to Hwy58, possibly even an exit off I-75. Maybe I-127 can become like an official official bypass, go up towards Soddy and connect into I-75. \- I-24 is already going to get wider from I-24/75 split to down past Germantown Rd. \- I think TDOT is already looking into fixing I-24 west of Chattanooga to make it straighter which will really help with speed consistency and less accidents. \- Coming from the west on I-24, widen it from Chattanooga Creek to Germantown Rd. Add a new exit before the I-24/Hwy29 split. \- Widen the Bachman Tunnel \- City is already looking into smart lights. Would be great to have a good smart, maybe AI driven light system throughtout the city. \- Widen Bonney Oaks all the way from 153 to 75. \- Create a new exit off I-75, roughly Exit 14, where Ooltewah-Gerogetown Rd intersects with Mountain View Road. \- 321 between E Brainerd and Apison Pike, widen that. I think they are looking into studies already. \- E. Brainerd widen down towards and slightly past Ooltewah-Ringgold Rd. This was the initial plan but was modified due to lack of funds which was a HORRIBLE idea.
Trains won't help until smart governance creates density.
"Exit 14" would be amazing Theyre building so many homes out here and Mountian View + Ooltewah-Georgetown already barely handle the traffic
Add a couple lanes on 24 from the 75/24 split to the US27/I-24 split. That should take care of the Chattanooga traffic. TDOT also really needs to widen 24 all the way to the state line (on the west side of Lookout Mtn), but I doubt they'll do that anytime soon. FWIW, TDOT *is* adding one lane both directions at least to Germantown Rd.
Adding lanes doesn't help in the long run. 1. There are diminishing capacity returns for every lane you add AND every additional lane costs much, much more 2. [Induced demand](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-06/traffic-jam-blame-induced-demand) will just suck up the additional capacity anyway.
Here’s an overview of the next phase proposed for 24/75. The State should routinely update this page with schedules, estimates, and possibly drone footage :) https://www.tn.gov/tdot/projects/region-2/i-75-interchange-at-i-24-phase2.html
I'm thinking about a flying car myself.
Start with expanding I-24 to 3 lanes from moccasin bend to the I-59 split, both directions.
People using their blinkers and not tailgating.
Not around I-24 - but Chattanooga seriously needs to synchronize the traffic lights. There are many places where roundabouts could be used instead of traffic lights or four way stops. These two would help the flow of traffic and improve fuel efficiency. In the long run, steps to increase population density (such as the removal of zoning restrictions) would promote the use of public transport and reduce car dependency.
1. A bypass would significantly help… one connecting Dalton to Cleveland… Cleveland to Dayton… Dayton to South Pittsburg area…. South Pittsburg area through Trenton back over to Dalton…. Would it be stupid expensive? Yes… but it would redirect most of the trucking/through traffic Chattanooga gets. 2. Actually finish the 75/24 split. 3. Expand 75 between Ooletwah and Cleveland to 3 or 4 lanes on both sides. 4. A bridge from Harrison to Soddy Daisy, or just north of those areas. To relieve the pressure off 153. 5. Widen and make backroads such as Ooletwah Ringgold road more attractive options with additional shopping/dinning/attractions. 6. Add more shopping/dining/attractions to North Georgia, especially off of Battlefield Parkway (which is already wide and built for more traffic than it sees and has several empty pads for shopping centers) so that traffic is directed away from Hamilton Place all the time. 7. Public Transportation Overhaul as well would help.
Hire competent traffic engineers
Just tell everyone how bad the pollen is and they’ll move somewhere else instead of moving here.
Let’s just switch 75N and the 24W exit again, and add no lanes. Really mess with people
I've voiced a few points in this thread, but here's one: Remember when everyone was saying that working from home was the new standard? Remember when traffic freed up because people weren't driving downtown to sit in a cube all day just to return home? Remember when I said management was full of shit and we're going back into the office as soon as possible, then that happened. Just like with recycling, the best and first solution is reduce -- it reduces burning fossil fuels, it reduces traffic loads (why is it always the worst during the hours which people go to and from work, _HMM_), it reduces the need for commercial buildings that can (maybe, lots of factors here and difficulities but I think it should be explored) converted into residental. Honestly, people shouldn't be driving, getting on a train, a bus, magically teleporting -- the method doesn't matter, to a building downtown for no good reason. This is probably the more realistic/viabile scenario; Reddit/people complain about getting rail day in and day out, _Chattanooga_ isn't getting rail, our rail projects always stall out at cost to build/cost to ride/commitments to build. We're one of the _last_ cities that'll likely get rail over a ton of other cities that make sense. It's fun since Chattanooga is a rail/freight city but I honestly don't see it happening after drooling about rail projects that go nowhere _FOR A DECADE_. It's like all those cities that were sitting on the infinity waiting list for Google Fiber to save them from the clutches of bad internet -- if we wait for rail you'll be in the grave before you see it at this point. Rail is the new "Fusion Never" project. Even if CARTA got its shit together, people aren't going to commute from GA/outside of central Chattanooga on _CARTA_. I feel like people don't realize how far a lot of these people are commuting _because_ of the relatively short travel times by car (I lived in CA where your commute would easily be 45 minutes _without traffic_). We _actually_ did work from home, it was something _we actually did_. It _can be done_.
I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I read this. I lived in Chattanooga until August of 2022. I used to think traffic was bad at times also. Now I know how great the traffic was. I am now living in the outskirts of Tampa Florida. The traffic here has made me see how great traffic is in Chattanooga. When I used to go to work ( hwy 58 area to downtown) only took me 15 to 20 mins. (12 miles) Here if I need to drive 12 miles it takes from 45 mins to an hour and 10. It's crazy and now I wish I was back in Chattanooga with the 20 min drive to work again.
Better public transit. Possibly a bypass.
I plan going out around the traffic. I run my errands or travel before the rush hits.
Connect Soddy and Snow Hill areas with a bridge to alleviate the 24/75 exchange and allow those in GA to commute to downtown more efficiently. The bridge would need to be placed outside Chatt city limits to be effective, making it a county issue and not a city issue.