So after last night’s Justin Timberlake concert at Philips (spare me the laughter) traffic was an absolute beast.

We parked in the “pigeon pit” underneath the CNN parking deck and right next to the “talent” entrance/exit of the arena. This caused all sorts of problems as a cop who looked like Wilford Brimley/Teddy Roosevelt, both shown below for reference, made us exit the back way onto Marietta Street.

Teddy:

Wilford:


The resulting solution was worse than the problem of congestion itself. Everyone was being routed to Spring Street to get on the highway, while all I wanted to do was take Marietta Street northwest using surface streets to get back to Smyrna, which is how I get home every night from work.

My way:

The highway:

The police tried to re-route traffic entirely – making a stretch of Marietta Street unnaturally one-way – in an attempt to route us all onto the one-way Spring Street and get us out of that corner of downtown by CNN/Philips/Centennial Park as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, there are no less than a dozen decks and lots that feed into that area and, instead of letting the streets do their jobs as designed (not the lights, but the streets themselves), the police tried to route around problems like they were internet routers.

I’m blabbering, but the whole thing was a clusterfuck. I know the area, knew what I wanted to accomplish and had it not been for Mr. Rough Riders/Quaker Oats, I would’ve saved a half hour of sitting in the car, post concert.

Speaking of which, I’m not the biggest JT fan (my wife is) but having seen him perform live I can believe some of the hype. Of course, I don’t take it too seriously.

Maps courtesy of Gmaps Pedometer (thx, james)