ATLANTA -- Any day, anywhere in North Georgia, you can get an earful about our number one problem: traffic.

"It's awful!" "It's not good. It's a pain in the B---!"

Can you hear the honking horns now?

And worst of all, "Transportation is the biggest single crisis we have and we have to find a way to solve it.”

That from somebody who knows the grim future if Atlanta and north Georgia do NOT fix our looming traffic crisis. Sam Williams, head of the Metro Chamber of Commerce, warns our phenomenal success as a vibrant place to live and work will wither, stall and the area will begin to decay.

He points out the region is fourth in the nation in growth, fourth from the bottom in spending on getting around.

What did we do to deserve this? And what can we do to change it?

The best short answer for our history comes from a woman who recently moved here to help us change. Rosa Rountree is a traffic whiz, a trim, African American dynamo in bright jackets and a single focus.

"We tend to be more comfortable driving our single vehicles, and so that's why we see a lot of congestion in Atlanta. Because we got so comfortable in the way we did business before," she told me as we stood next to the tollbooths at Georgia 400. Gov. Sonny Perdue brought Rosa Rountree here to head the state tollway authority. She's changing the way we do business now, looking at paying for answers to our problems with voluntary tolls instead of mandatory taxes.

You don't have to be a traffic expert like Rosa, though, to see why our traffic problems grew so quickly.

East Cobb's Lori Goranovic blames "So many neighborhoods popping up everywhere!"

Shirley Brody from Tulsa, Oklahoma suggests "I think you should put the roads in first, then the housing addition, instead of waiting ten years for roads to keep up with it."

And increasingly, Rosa's optimism is infecting others, not waiting on a government fix.

"We make a difference. We are the drivers. We are in control. What decisions we make today will affect the future. And we recognize that.

What if United Parcel Service ran the highways?

One of the most prosperous companies in the world, experts at moving things through traffic, chose Atlanta as its home in the early 1990's. United Parcel Service's package sorting facility in Alpharetta provides a curious glimpse into a traffic world under control. Like cars on an access ramp, packages slide onto the interstates of UPS. They yield, merge, scoot around ramps, dodge bigger traffic and slide into a warm parking space on a big brown truck.

Driver Angela Solomon admits, "We have to drive for the other people, keep your eyes moving all the time." Their success is a blend of caution, technology and thinking ahead.

"We don't leave the building ‘til after the highest traffic time is over. We try to keep off those arteries," says Rob Papetti. He's a New Jersey import to Georgia, dressed with Italian flair, and mischievous as he shows me the latest gadgets to slip those parcels around the world in ever-faster time.

In the old days, a chalkboard hung on the back of each brown truck. Now, a fancy computer program tells managers which trucks are heavy with parcels, which light and where the sorts can be micro-adjusted to get each driver out and back in a hurry. The bustle and sense of purpose is palpable.

STARTS AT THE TOP

The contrast could not be greater between this sort facility, and the corporate HQ. UPS moved its worldwide headquarters to Atlanta in the mid-1990's. And not just anywhere, but ground zero for traffic misery, at Georgia 400 and Abernathy Road.

Still, a calm center of woodland creeks and trees keeps the focus on UPS goals, globally.

"Once you get here, we put the workers in an environment where they'll feel comfortable. It's the right thing to do. And our people really appreciate that," says Mike Herr, UPS vice president. He loves the quality of work the woodsy site allows.

UPS says it is important to give its workers options about how to get to work. They underwrite shuttles, carpools, MARTA cards. The parking lot at corporate yields a telling anecdote.

Herr gestured to the lot and reminded me, "We have 2200 people work in this building, we have 1600 parking spaces, and I have never seen those spaces full."

ONE CORPORATE SOLUTION TOGETHER

UPS' attitude is matched at a little-known office high above Perimeter Mall. Yvonne Williams leads all the corporations headquartered at Georgia 400 and 285 in a partnership to improve the area. It's called a Community Improvement District, under Georgia law. The Perimeter CID's efforts are keeping these 5 square miles the most valuable real estate in the Southeast.

DOING TIME AT HAMMOND AND PEACHTREE DUNWOODY DRIVE

Off duty police officers hired by the CID say the growth here has meant chaos at the street lights.

"People get a little more frustrated as their traffic time increases" says Sergeant Bruce Barden with the DeKalb Police.

A little? A Lot! The neighborhood sees traffic as the enemy. And they're paying for an army to fight back. Property owners are taxing themselves to fight, using off duty police officers, building better sidewalks and signals for those they entice out of their cars to walk. And biggest of all, a new bridge over the perimeter interstate, I-285.

"I see 285 every day of my life. 285, obviously is the bottleneck for Atlanta. We all know that," says the CID leader, Yvonne Williams. Grinning under a hard hat, she gestured to a new bridge rising north of the hospitals at Lake Hearn.

"For us, this bridge is a connection, for lifestyle, investment, economics, mobility. It's putting 2 sides together, separated by this massive traffic. It’s not just for cars and bicycles. It's a way to have emergency relief for hospitals right ahead of us."

The bridge languished on a statewide list of important projects until the CID spent some of its own money on design plans. That moved this project ahead of others at DOT. Yvonne acknowledges the importance of putting your money where your mouth is.

“There are ways you can get things through the system if you have the political will behind it, and partnership of public and private working together."

QUICK FIXES

Short of building bridges and re-building Interstate 85 and Highway 316, traffic designers have little solutions that can treat pesky traffic irritations successfully.

Ramp meters, those red and green lights at the end on ramps leading onto interstates, are going in all over metro Atlanta. The Georgia DOT credits those lights with enforcing patience on entering traffic, reducing clogged interstates. Already, in just 9 months along the downtown connector, engineers have noticed a one minute decrease in the travel time it takes from Brookwood to the Grady Curve.

Speed bumps are falling out of favor with many traffic thinkers, in favor of rebuilding busy local roads to make them curve and weave. The idea is to calm traffic, not rip the undercarriage off guilty speeders. The weaving road, like Lindbergh east of Peachtree, or McLendon in Lake Claire, is supposed to slow drivers, and make pedestrians take to the sidewalks with more confidence.

It's working for some people who live in apartments along Lindbergh or beside the Atlanta Decorative Arts Center. More foot traffic to the Marta station is proof of that. But others bitterly complain the design is forcing long-time residents to swerve on streets long familiar and wide. Tire streaks on the new bump outs, and bumper pieces in the landscape is proof there's a learning curve along with the swerve.

But Atlanta Public Works Commissioner David Scott says traffic counts prove the new design is slowing traffic and making the street safer for pedestrians.

A TOLL ON THE TOLLWAY

Earlier, you met Rosa Rountree, the new head of the state toll way authority. Here's one new idea she's bringing to Georgia. She discovered her customers were not buying electronic cards to pass through the tollbooths, not in the numbers in other states. Toll way operators love the electric cards. They're great for keeping traffic flowing, for cutting pollution caused by idling cars waiting to toss change into the baskets, and for reducing the cost of collecting cash.

So why were they not more popular here? She realized her base customers did not know where to get one easily. The website was obscure, the directions unnecessarily complicated.

So she changed the website name, and then cut a deal with Kroger. Soon you'll be able to purchase an electronic pass at the same place you stop for bananas.

Another idea, in her own words:

"We give you dynamic message signs, which says, Rosa, if you're going from point a to point b, and you have an important job interview there, we'll tell you, it's thirty minutes in the general purpose lanes, but to travel the managed lane, going to take you 10 minutes. The decision is yours. At that point you have to decide. I have to get to my job interview. And if I'm late, I could blow that job. Do I need ten minutes, or 30 minutes? The decision is about choice."

In sum, the story is long; we cruised into these traffic woes over decades of growth and under-paying for infrastructure. But good ideas are bubbling up from many sources. A wrap-up:

How did we get into this fix?

Massive popularity. Spending couldn't keep up. Habits of single car driving. Convenience. Land use planning.

Are you going to wait on Government to fix your problems?

UPS example:

Plan ahead, invest, give workers choices, and make your own choices.

Most of all, PAY ATTENTION. IT WON'T GET FIXED ON ITS OWN

Big options:

Tax yourself in your neighborhood

Pay for big choices with your tolls

Re-build streets to smooth traffic (go slow to go faster)

Pay people to car pool

Little options:

Synchronize lights

Set up ramp meters

More hero trucks

Know who your county city and state transportation officials are. Be noisy!

See you on the road... on the bike and on a coach somewhere!