PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
GETTING ON THE
TRANSPORTATION TRAIN
“
By Wade H. Watson III
Caldwell & Watson LLP
“Venting about traffic jams
on Facebook is unlikely to
get the job done; it will take
well-planned interaction with
public officials, especially
state legislators.”
I
was having lunch in the Ravinia Three café, when I noticed
that there were cars lined up on Ravinia Drive, bumper
to bumper, and they were not moving. I had heard there
might be some snow in the afternoon, but I did not see much
coming down. I asked the guy next to me what was going
on. He did not know, but thought that many offices were closing and sending people home. They could not get out of the
complex onto Ashford-Dunwoody Rd. That’s really strange,
at least at lunchtime, I thought.
Returning to the office, I found everyone in a state of
excitement. Our partner brain trust conferred and decided to
close for the day. The staff left. Some attorneys left too; some
stayed. One called me about 45 minutes later and said she
was still sitting in her car in the parking deck unable to move.
Wow. I could see I-285 from my office. It was not moving
in either direction. I checked news reports. Yes, it was true.
The Great Atlanta Traffic Apocalypse of 2014 had begun.
4 THE ATLANTA LAWYER
May 2014
Thinking I could waste my time sitting in my office equally as
well as I could in the snow jam, I decided to wait in the office.
The remaining lawyers trickled out the rest of the afternoon
and early evening. One came back about 6:00 p.m. His suit
was soaked and he was shaking with cold. He had been
forced to abandon his car some distance away after hours of
frustration, and walked back.
About an hour later, there seemed to be a break in the snow,
and it looked like I had an opening because I was headed
south to Midtown, rather than north. I called my lovely wife
Betty and told her I was driving home. “No you’re not,” she
said, and I knew from her tone that she was not open to a fair
and balanced discussion of the issue. “Well what am I going
to do?” I asked. “Walk to the Dunwoody MARTA station and
take the train to Arts Center Station; I’ll pick you up.” “But I
don’t want to have to walk to the Dunwoody Station in the
cold and ice, and it’s dark out there,” I protested. “Well,” she
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association