Which Columbia roads make you crazy? (+map)

Do you hate stop-and-go traffic on your work commute? Despise hordes of football fans clogging downtown streets on game days? Not a fan of sharing the road in general?

It probably won’t surprise you that traffic data prove streets such as Elmwood Avenue, Garners Ferry Road and Gervais Street are among the most heavily traveled non-interstate roads in Columbia. But you may be pleasantly surprised at other main thoroughfares not represented among the city’s top-20 busiest stretches – in other words, routes to consider if you just can’t handle another 5 p.m. traffic jam – including Two Notch Road, Harden Street, Rosewood Drive, Trenholm Road and Beltline Boulevard.

Elmwood and Garners Ferry have the city’s highest estimated daily traffic counts, with stretches of the roads topping 40,000 – even nearing 50,000 – vehicles per day in 2013, according to data from the state Department of Transportation. DOT measures daily traffic volume using more than 2,400 counting stations throughout the county and averaging the data annually.

That’s useful information, said Dan Dennis, whose Columbia engineering firm, Dennis Corp., handles a number of traffic engineering projects.

“Developers are using that data to decide where to build developments. Realtors are using it to guide their clients on where they want to live,” he said. “Not to mention, it helps traffic engineers plan ahead to determine what the trends are.”

High traffic on certain downtown roads could mean high traffic for future commercial sites, such as the Bull Street development that will connect to Elmwood as well as continued development in the Vista and along the Huger and Assembly street corridors.

But more development could also mean more congestion on already heavily traveled roads. As the city continues to grow, one of the keys to controlling downtown congestion will be getting people out of their cars and encouraging them to become pedestrians, cyclists or transit riders, said David Brewer, the city’s traffic engineer. After all, he said, traffic solutions like widening roads aren’t an option in a city where the buildings already sit flush with the streets.

However, encouraging people to park their cars and use their feet also highlights concerns for pedestrian and bicycle accessibility on those high-traffic, multi-lane roads such as Huger and Assembly. The city is working toward addressing these issues with its Walk Bike Columbia plan and attempts to round up funds for improvements to the two streets.

“We have known for many, many years that we have issues, particularly with pedestrian crossing on those two,” said Fred Delk, director of the Columbia Development Corp., which encourages development in the Vista district bordered by Assembly and Huger. “Assembly Street we’ve talked about for years now as a community, and the same problem is coming quickly for Huger Street, and yet we haven’t really taken care of Assembly Street yet.”

Unsurprisingly, a number of the city’s busiest roads pass through either major commercial areas – such as Gervais Street in the Vista, Harbison Boulevard by Columbiana Mall and Garners Ferry near the Shoppes at Woodhill – or major interstate entry and exit points to and from downtown, such as Elmwood, Garners Ferry, Huger and Bull Street.

Despite the high volume on Garners Ferry, the road isn’t known for the kind of stop-and-go traffic and backlogs common on some downtown streets at rush hours (we’re looking at you, Blossom and Assembly streets). Counters at four points along the road registered an average of more than 40,000 vehicles per day, including at Greenlawn Drive near I-77 and near the Shoppes at Woodhill.

Perhaps surprisingly, Assembly Street does not stand out among the city’s very busiest. Vehicle counting stations on Assembly by Capital City Stadium and near the intersection at Blossom Street clocked in at fewer than 25,000 daily travelers, ranking 19th and 20th, respectively, in daily volume checkpoints.

This story was originally published September 26, 2014 at 8:41 PM with the headline "Which Columbia roads make you crazy? (+map)."