Flowery Highways

Ah, spring is in the air, and the daffodils are blooming... along Georgia's major highways, that is.

Yesterday, after enjoying 70-degree temperatures the past several days, good ol' Mother Nature has to sock it to us again with some cool temperatures. Right here at "Georgia Road Geek Headquarters", its 41 degrees F (5 degrees Celsius). During that warming trend, the daffodils planted by the Georgia DOT started blooming.

Here are some of the spots on Georgia's major highways that you can spot daffodils (Source: Atlanta-Journal Constitution)...

- I-285 @ US 19/GA400 (Exit 27 - I've seen these on the ramp going from I-285 west to GA 400. They give it a nice touch IMHO.)
- I-85 at Virginia Avenue (Exit 73)
- US 76/GA 2/515 in Blairsville

Who pays for these flowers? Fortunately, not us (the taxpayers). The funds come from sales of a special Georgia wildflower commemorative license plate, which Georgia drivers can purchase from their county tag offices for a one-time fee of $25. To those of you who have purchased this plate, thanks for doing so. Your money helps make "roadgeeking" a beautiful experience for all us road enthusiasts.

To read more about the highway daffodils and find out where else you can see them, please click here.

Work Begins On "Killer HOV Ramp"

This week, the Georgia DOT has begun to do work on the I-75 "killer HOV ramp" at Northside Drive. The work includes much larger "STOP AHEAD" and "STOP" signs (48"/122 cm), the word "EXIT" painted just above the HOV diamond at the bottom of the ramp, and a 60"x30" (152 cm x 76 cm) yellow rectangular bi-directional warning sign mounted on the fence on the opposite side of the bridge.

IMHO, I don't care if it the ramps were OK by 1980s standard, but it is "too little, too late" for the victims of the tragic Bluffton University bus crash. Heck, many engineering experts have already decried the design to begin with, but Georgia DOT still stands behind it with dogged determination. Again, my solution would be to permanently close off the ramp altogether.

The AJC article about these changes includes a diagram of the ramp and the details of the changes, plus a map pointing out all left-hand HOV ramps throughout Metro Atlanta. Please click here to read and see for yourself.

Red-Light Cameras

Several months ago, the city of Roswell installed sets of those infamous "red-light cameras" at the following intersections:

- Alpharetta Highway (GA 9) at Holcomb Bridge Road (GA 140/92)
- Alpharetta Highway (GA 9) at Mansell Road 

For the first 30 days after Roswell activated the cameras and started snapping license plate photos of "red-light runners", the alleged offenders were sent "warnings". As of March 12th, however, they started sending citations.

Please click here to see Roswell's official press release.

Speaking of cameras, how many of you saw the "Mythbusters" episode regarding the various "beat the camera" myths? In that particular episode (Episode #73), Adam, Jamie, and their crew tested every method people could think of to hide or camoflauge their tags to keep speed cameras from getting good enough shots of them. In short, every experiment they did with each of the tag-hiding ideas provided proved that you just can't beat those cameras. Please click here for a video clip.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, please tell all your friends about us, and please visit often.

 

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