As Atlanta residents adjust to a new normal of not being able to use I-85 to commute into the city, questions abound.

Who is responsible for this? How do we deal with it? How do we prevent it from happening again?

The short answer to the first question, according to police, is Basil Eleby, a man who allegedly started the fire after a conversation about smoking crack under the interstate. According to news reports, including one from CBS 46, Eleby has allegedly struggled with addiction and homelessness.

George Chidi, a local journalist who writes for Georgiapol.com, writes that blaming Eleby is a cop out. More blame belongs to the state officials who stored the material under the interstate that caught fire, he writes.

“Let me state the obvious: whoever is responsible for storing material under the interstate that could melt a bridge had better still be in prison when Eleby gets out,” Chidi writes. “The Department of Transportation bears the true burden for this disaster. And that may be why state investigators quickly made an arrest of someone who doesn’t work in a business suit.”

To read the full column, click here.

Georgia DOT has defended the decision to store these materials under the interstate. In a press release, GDOT said, “The area contained materials such as plastic conduit which is a stable, non-combustible material. This kind of conduit is used for electrical or fiber optic cables. The storage site was a secured area that has been used in this manner for years. It is not an uncommon practice for Georgia DOT or other state agencies throughout the country to store their material on the right of way.”

Doug Turnbull, WSB’s “Gridlock Guy”, writes the incident may lead some residents in the suburbs north of Atlanta to finally give MARTA a chance now that they’re left with fewer options to get to work.

“This is our time, northeast commuters, to give MARTA a fair chance these next few months,” Turnbull writes. “It may be less convenient than being totally beholden to your personal schedule in your car, but it also could save you far more time than sitting for an hour on Cheshire Bridge Road or Peachtree. Not jumping at this chance to try something new (and now necessary), puts us behind the times.”

To read the full column, click here.

MARTA is providing increased rail services to help commuters who have been inconvenienced by the shut down of part of I-85.

Another observer, Paul McLennan, who is a retired member of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732, wrote a recent column for Saporta Report saying it’s time the state stepped in to help fund MARTA.

He asks, “Why isn’t MARTA a truly ‘metropolitan’ system? Why does it only serve three counties? Why is it the largest transit system in the country that receives no operating help from the state? Why are only Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties, and the city of Atlanta, expected to support and pay for a system that services the economic engine of the entire state? Why is there such a large gap between the riders who depend on MARTA and the jobs that are often located so far away in the suburbs? It is way overdue for these questions to be answered and solutions found to this problem.”

To read the full column, click here.

Atlanta residents will have plenty of time to ponder these questions. GDOT says it could take months before I-85 is back in operation. In the meantime, GDOT continues to push alternate routes for people trying to reach and leave Atlanta.

GDOT says it is working with local governments to coordinate signal timing.

“More than 30 signal engineers, part of the Regional Traffic Operations Program (RTOP), are focused on a multi-jurisdictional, cutting-edge signal timing program with the singular goal in mind of improving travel and traffic flow by minimizing congestion and reducing delays along regional commuter corridors,” a press release from GDOT says. “As a result of the work of RTOP signal engineers, Cheshire Bridge road – which typically handles 18,900 vehicles daily – saw a 100 percent increase in traffic volumes on Friday, March 31. While the traffic was congested, there was continuous movement throughout the corridor.

“In addition, Georgia DOT will be adjusting its incident response strategy and pre-staging Highway Emergency Response Operators (HERO) at known hot spots around I-285 and on the Downtown connector.  Operators will be focused on quickly addressing and removing incidents from travel lanes to reduce traffic delay on these major routes.”