Braves ditching The Ted for suburbs

I still live in Atlanta. A worse place does not exist. The stadium will be at the nexus of traffic hell.

 

Yeah. I used to live just off of I-75 at Delk Rd., one exit up. It boggles my mind that they even considered putting a major stadium there. I pulled it up on Google Earth, and it is as bad or worse than I had thought it would be. That wedge with Cumberland Mall, 41, 285, and 75 is going to be an absolute screaming nightmare on game days.

 

Yep. I can't even think about going to a game on a weeknight with the stadium there. I wouldn't get there until the third or fourth inning and wouldn't get home until 3 a.m. Unless they are doing a bobblehead night for the entire 1995 roster, my games will have to be limited to weekends and the occasional holiday.

 

Looking at it on Google Earth, the Braves are screwed.

 

Question, then, for those of you familiar with Atlanta (which I am not). Assuming that the Braves are sincerely convinced that their current location is a dead-end -- sketchy neighborhood, lack of development, etc. -- and that they must find a new location, where in the Atlanta Metro area would you say is the best place to put a new MLB stadium? The one or two times I've driven through there, it seemed to me that there was nowhere in the city suburban perimeter that didn't have a major traffic issue.

 

Doraville Assembly - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Traffic would still be a beast, but at least it is on a Marta line.

 

It will not surprise me at all if the first 7:05 home game ends up bearing a lot of similarities to Snowmageddon here, sans the snow. The one inch of white stuff didn't necessarily cause the traffic debacle, it was the complete gridlock on the roads, this area in Cobb County around I-285 and I-75 being a particularly noteworthy offender.

I could definitely foresee where the coverage of that initial game focuses less on what's going on in a half empty stadium, and more on what is or isn't happening on the adjacent roadways.

 

The Marietta Daily Journal and East Cobb Neighbor will be all over it.

 

This is a strong possibility. No one does pointless traffic jams like Atlantans.

I haven't missed a Braves home opener in 10 years. If the first home game is on a weekday, as it most certainly will be, that streak may end in 2017.

 

Help me out, as a Los Angeleno, I always love a good traffic nightmare story.

What's so bad about the new location? Traffic gridlock already on the 75 and 285?

 

On a normal week night currently:

I-285 West to I - 75: 6 - 8 mile stretch, bumper to bumper crawl from GA 400 for the entire 8 miles, without exception. This is essentially the only real way for Gwinnett County residents to get to the game.

I-285 East to I-75: 8 mile stretch from I-20, generally bumper to bumper crawl for at least the 2nd half of the stretch.

I-75 North to I -285: Normal outbound traffic from the city. On a good day, you can get close to I-285 before it backs up. A not so good day, it can halt about 5 miles from 285.

I-75 South to I-285: probably the only way where you can make it without significant time idling. Still some traffic congestion to slow you down.

And of course, this is all in a normal case scenario. Throw in an accident or two or a late afternoon rain shower, and it's Katie, bar the door.