Decatur Area Road Conditions: Open Thread
Decatur Metro | January 11, 2011 | 12:26 pm
I’m certainly not encouraging people to drive on all this ice, but for those who can’t avoid it, I thought it might be helpful if we put together a post on street conditions. This way folks could make for the best streets and steer clear of the worst.
So, which Decatur streets are in the best shape at the moment and which are currently moonlighting as ice-skating rinks?
East College Ave photo courtesy of Greg
Midway Woods seems to be an ice skating rink……
Hello fellow Decaturites. This is not about the roads; it’s about the sidewalks. I, a Midwesterner by birth, was just out taking a small shovel and broom to my sidewalk. It’s not terribly cold out, the ice is melting, and it took me all of twenty minutes to clear the walk. Just saying, if everyone who is able went out for twenty minutes and cleared their sidewalks before the hard freeze comes in tonight, we would as a community be collectively much better off. So, think about it! Get some exercise and do as others do in icy places! Clear off the melting ice before it turns into a skating rink tomorrow, and save someone’s ankles! Come on, get off your I-Phone.
Applause!
And for those of us trying to simultaneously manage our children and get some work done, I recommend roping your neighbor into doing it for you. Better yet, call Julia (but not on your iPhone).
Seriously. I am trying to close out 2010 while sitting in a camping tent in my living room. Hey, Token, let’s lock the kids in the tent we set up to distract the 3 year old (for 11 minutes) and work uninterrupted for a couple hours!
Works for me, Nellie!
Shoveled my sidewalk as well as the sidewalk for the elderly woman across the street. While I was at it I did her walk to the door, a path in her driveway to her car and had fun cleaning the snow off of her car. And it was contagious as two other 2nd Ave. neighbors did their sidewalks too!
Thanks Julie – hope others in the city responded to your great suggestion.
Westchester Drive is closed to sledding traffic only! All those over 15 must be accompanied by a qualified sledding adolescent.
downtown Decatur main roads (like Ponce & Commerce) are fine, but side roads are still ice.
Poplar, Grove, Lockwood & Pinehurst are skating rinks.
Coventry Rd, 100 block: Icy in most places but passable.
Church Street is passable from what I can see in the 800 block North to Glen lake Park if you stay in the tire tracks left by other vehicles. The sidewalks are dangerous and all ice. I watched a kid slide from the top of the hill most of the way down church, he looked like he was having a great time
Church St sidewalks aren’t that bad. I walked the dogs there this morning.
I would get out there and shovel… But I don’t have a shovel. Just saw ambulances fire trucks on south candler. Don’t be an idiot and drive, walk. Don’t have legs? Drink beer.
My husband and I left our snow shovel in New England when we moved south. So we got out our garden shovel to get a least a small path for pedestrians on the sidewalk and wheel tracks for our car in our driveway. The snowy sidewalks are safe enough the first couple of days but with a week of freezing temperatures they are only going to get more dangerous not less as the week goes on.
Sycamore Drive is being used by ambulances to hospital at no more than 10 mph. Recommend not using street if possible.
Memorial is in good shape and Dunkin Donuts is open with tea and 3 day old donuts!
Anyone heard anything about the routes from here to downtown Atlanta? I need to get to Crawford Long. I was thinking of trying to drive to East Lake Marta then train to North and walking the rest.
Driving to East Lake station – avoid Paden Circle (the short street from E. Lake to W. Howard
I’ve been driving to and from CNN Center on N. Dekalb with no problem. I’m just about the only one on the road (except for a few MARTA police) and I go about 20-25 mph and I’ve actually been early both days. I just stay in the grooves or on the chunky stuff. It’s actually been a pretty peaceful commute….
you mean DeKalb Ave, right? any particular bad patches to look out for? did any of the downtown streets look cleared off?
Clairemont and N. Decatur intersection area is slushy and drivable. Hate to see what it looks like tonight-talk about ice skating!
Valley Brook and East Ponce, not so bad; Scott Blvd. not bad but it does get a little dicier as it approaches North Decatur Rd. Medlock is drivable.
Does anyone know how N. Druid Hills Road (from Lawrenceville Hwy to Buford Hwy) looks?
Clairmont Road is open from Decatur to LaVista Rd. It varies from one to two lanes. N. Druid Hills intersection is clear. Speed was limited at about 30 mph and it’s follow the leader most of the way. About 4 cars were abandoned in the right lane on Clairmont near Desmond Drive.
LaVista Rd. heading to Northlake is open but two significant ice patches to look out for, one in front of the Montessori school and one near Northlake Commons Office Park can be iffy. Speed varied from 20 to 35 mph and a crawl at the two icy patches.
W. Howard is much-improved from yesterday, but still still awful.
I have to modify what I said – the volume of ice/snow has declined, but it’s actually a lot more slippery to walk on.
Just now listening to a presser from Kasim Reed. He indicates that City of ATL will be getting 15 more pieces of equipment to clear roads (includes salt trucks and plows) bringing city total to 58 such vehicles.
City of ATL also just received approval to plow or treat STATE roads including—Peachtree, Piedmont, PONCE DE LEON, Northside, Memorial, MLK.
Huh? The City of Atlanta Just received permission to plow State roads like Peachtree and Ponce? WTF? How does divvying up plowing responsibilities like this make any sense at all? I can cut the Atlanta metro area a lot of slack for not having the equipment to handle conditions that would be well within normal range at most other U.S. cities–we’re not Minneapolis or even Memphis. But not having a plan in place to coordinate plowing in case a big storm does hit, so that Atlanta is just receiving permission to plow Ponce 2 days after the storm hits, is inexcusable.
City Schools of Decatur closed tomorrow.
What I’m hearing from folks who have had to drive to work or medical care or food is that the major roads have ruts cleared down to the pavement and those ruts are relatively negotiable. But idiots wanting to go faster keep swerving into the icy areas to either side and skidding, no matter that they are risking others’ well-being as well as their own.
Since I may have to venture out to work tomorrow, I entreat other drivers to:
1. Drive extremely slow. Resist the impulse to deal with the danger and stress by hurrying up to get there. It’s harder to skid when going slow and skids have less velocity.
2. Use first gear if having trouble with traction, e.g. going up a hill,. A running start in fourth gear is not a good idea on ice.
3. Do not leave the safer pavement ruts to pass on ice.
4. Stay home or travel by foot if you can. It’s been fun walking, sledding, or skiing around Decatur. Unfortunately, employment calls for some of us.
Be safe. Happy Snow Days! We will be returned to our usual programming of global warming soon.
Global warming is to thank for these lovely storms. More warmth over the oceans adds more moisture to the air and more precipitation down wind.
anyone know what the parking lot looks like at East Lake MARTA?
anyone know what avondale marta station parking lot looks like?
As of 7:45 this morning, a CoD sand truck was spreading sand on Commerce and Church Street.