Atlanta’s North Avenue Smart Corridor Pilots Transportation and Traffic Technologies with its ‘Living Lab’
By Lisa R. Schoolcraft
North Avenue in metro Atlanta has been turned into a living lab, one where technology and engineering are helping to reduce crashes, improve traffic flow and increase emergency vehicle response times.
Initially, improvements to North Avenue, a key east-west corridor in the City of Atlanta, was to be a simple repaving and signalization project, but several organizations, including the City, Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT), Renew Atlanta and engineering firm Atkins (acting as a consultant), came together to create a safer road with increased capacity, all without adding additional lanes.
The roughly $2.7 million project, unveiled to the public on September 14, 2017, included the use of over 100 sensors at 26 signalized intersections, an adaptive signal timing system, vehicle-to-infrastructure communications and a “road diet,” reconfiguring the existing road from three lanes each way to two-lanes each way with a center left turn lane.
Continue reading this article in the July/August 2018 issue of Engineering Georgia magazine
