I-85 Closure

With repairs underway, drivers and businesses feel the pinch after interstate fire and collapse

By Evelyn Andrews and Grace Huseth

Atlanta is known for having some of the country’s worst traffic, but the March 30 fire and collapse of a portion of Interstate 85 between Midtown and Buckhead has forced residents and business owners to become more familiar with public transportation and start using smartphone apps to help navigate the closure.

The Georgia Department of Transportation announced in April that it will award up to $3.1 million in incentives to the construction company repairing the I-85 collapse.

GDOT Commissioner Russell McMurry said contractor C.W. Matthews will be awarded an extra $1.5 million if the company completes the project by May 25, or $2 million for completing it by May 21. If the contractor beats May 21, they’ll get $200,000 for each day before that deadline, up to a total of $3.1 million.

Getting Around

Meanwhile, the City of Atlanta has launched a website, CommuteATL.com, to help commuters and visitors plan their routes while I-85 is being reconstructed.

The city has been urging commuters to not rely on driving alone but instead to take public transportation. The new website features real-time schedule updates for all modes of mass transit including the Atlanta Streetcar and MARTA rail and bus. MARTA parking lot conditions will also be on the site, as well as the locations for bike share stations.

The city is also scheduling traffic light timing to be more effective and restricting access to neighborhood streets. Timing the traffic lights to move traffic through intersections more quickly will also help keep people off side streets, the city said. Atlanta is relying, in part, on its partnership with navigation app Waze to run the site by using data drawn from Waze to show information on road closures, accidents and current travel speeds.

Business As Not-So-Usual

After the collapse, a stretch of Piedmont Road at the collapse site was closed for days and businesses have been trying to adapt ever since.

At Tower Beer, Wine and Spirits, manager Asya Asenova said she had never seen such terrible traffic on Piedmont Road. “It was a dead zone the week after the collapse. I was sending workers home a lot.”

Tower has a great vantage point of the bridge construction process. Asenova said she has seen construction take place both in the early mornings and late nights. “I know they are working 24 hours on it. They have been working on it overnight and staying busy,” Asenova said.

The Piedmont Goodwill store had a rough week after the I-85 collapse. They closed for a few days due to traffic and lane closures and now have modified hours of 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

“When the bridge collapsed, there was an overflow of evening traffic from Tattletale Lounge, strip clubs and night time businesses,” said Joseph Farese, owner of Gino’s NY Pizza Bar at the intersection of Piedmont and Cheshire Bridge. “It did hurt my business.”

Farese said business improved when the right Piedmont Road lane heading north reopened, but Cheshire Bridge Road still gets clogged.

“Sometimes it’s good to have traffic because people see that we are here. I don’t like the catastrophe, but sometimes it’s a good thing,” Farese said. One bright spot: Gino’s Uber Eats and Grub Hub delivery sales doubled, from just over 200 sales a week to nearly 400.

Grindhouse Killer Burgers assistant manager Sandra Gallardo said the popular burger spot just south of the collapse site saw a big drop in average sales, especially in the first week. They have been off their estimations for peak time and understand people are figuring out the traffic, as well as MARTA.

“There is dependency on the highway. It doesn’t seem like a lot of people have experience riding public transportation and some are confused with the process,” said Gallardo. “Unfortunately things like this have to happen to make people realize how important public transportation is.”

Visit AtlantaINtownPaper.com for the latest updates on the I-85 closure and repair process.

Collin Kelley contributed to this article.