Forsyth's New Ramp Meters Activated on Wednesday
Forsyth County commuters will notice a change this week on the McFarland Parkway ramps.
Beginning Wednesday, Forsyth County commuters will notice that the new meters on the entrance ramps on GA 400 at McFarland Parkway (Exit 12) will be activated.
The ramp meters will be turned on before rush hour and operate at different times of the day depending on traffic patterns, according to the Georgia Department of Transportation. Every 3-5 seconds, a cycle from red to green allows one vehicle at a time to merge onto GA 400. On two-lane ramps, the left and right lanes have alternating lights, so the left lane goes while the right is stopped, and vice versa.
“We’ll monitor these new ramp meters very carefully. If traffic starts to back up on the ramp, sensors will speed up the meters to allow more vehicles to move through, said Georgia DOT Traffic Engineer Scott Zehngraff. "If our cameras show traffic spilling out onto the surface streets, we can turn them off completely."
GDOT says ramp meters are intended to reduce average rush-hour commute times. The meters are placed on entrance ramps to help control the flow of traffic from the surface streets onto the interstate or state route. Without metering, vehicles push their way all at once onto the highway in a disorderly and potentially dangerous manner. Once these vehicles reach the merge point, they force their way into the travel lanes, causing additional congestion due to stop-and-go merging activity. When this happens on already traffic-heavy roadways, there is a total breakdown of free-flow near the on-ramps, which has a ripple effect on traffic for many miles. Even with no stalls or accidents, heavy on-ramp traffic causes congestion that both extends and continues throughout the rush hour.
To date, there are 170 ramp meters that are operational in the metro Atlanta area. Other benefits include reductions in fuel consumption, merging accidents, and vehicle emissions.
“There will be a short learning curve period in the first few days as motorists adjust to following the meters, said Zehngraff. "We realize that we may need to tweak them. Please bear with us, and keep in mind that there is no one ‘silver bullet’ solution to eliminate congestion. Ramp meters are just one of several tools that can help fight congestion.”
Do you think the new ramp meters on McFarland Parkway will help traffic flow? Tell us in the comments why you think it will or will not.
You might also be interested in reading:
More Road Projects Planned on GA 400 in Forsyth
Chris
2:44 pm on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Is this for the northbound lanes? I ask because the southbound lanes at McFarland already have the alternating lights. They achieve no purpose other than to block the traffic up onto McFarland. There is no in-bound traffic from 400S because the right lane starts at McFarland so why have a light there? Now if you're talking northbound, that's a different animal but I don't believe it will help there either because traffic is already stopped at that point during rush hour.
Liz Kennedy
4:25 pm on Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Hi Chris, yes GDOT says northbound ramp.
Random
9:51 pm on Wednesday, October 17, 2012
For all the money GDOT spent on these ramp meters in metro Atlanta, we could probably build another bridge over the Chattahoochee River and help a few thousand people avoid ever having to get on GA-400 in the morning commute. I don't understand how anybody could ever think that these meters were a good idea. In my experience, exits are either A) very congested and people just snail along the on ramp anyway or B) easy to get onto and never had a merging problem to begin with. On McFarland Road (southbound), the only time there is a back up is when the ramp meter is actual on.