I-85

On Mar. 30, 2017 a fire broke out underneath a bridge on I-85 in Atlanta.  As news broke out about the incident, there was sudden panic within Atlanta. This affected many people that work at Wesleyan, as well as students that attend Wesleyan. Assistant Dean of students Mary Stephenson said, “Going home now has been awful, it used to take me about 30 minutes, now it’s easily an hour”.

The incident shines light on the United States dependency on transportation. Civilians depend on cars and the roads to get them to work every day, so when one of those elements is destroyed, there becomes a major problem. Stephenson said, “Absolutely, Atlanta has always been a commuter city and Atlanta was not well planned out from the beginning.” Although MARTA is one solution to this problem, the railways don’t extend to great lengths. Stephenson said, “If we had a more extensive transit system that would help the problem but that’s not even an option, MARTA doesn’t even go to cobb county or anywhere near Wesleyan from the inner city”.

When asked about how the bridge collapse has affected the commute to and from school, sophomore Maegan Baker said, “It now takes me two hours to get home from school, but does not affect my drive to school because I leave earlier.” Keep Reading