In Atlanta, Georgia, the Downtown Connector or 75/85 (pronounced "seventy-five eighty-five") is the overlapped connector of Interstate 75 and Interstate 85 through the core of the city. Beginning at the I-85/Langford Parkway interchange, the Downtown Connector runs generally due north, meeting the east-west Interstate 20 in the middle. Just north of this is the Grady Curve around Grady Memorial Hospital. Continuing north, the terminus of the Downtown Connector is the Brookwood Interchange or Brookwood Split in the Brookwood area of the city. The overall length of the Downtown Connector is approximately seven and one-half miles.
The highway was constructed in the early 1950s as a six-lane thoroughfare, and was numbered State Route 295, and was slated to carry U.S. Route 19 and U.S. Route 41 at one point. The route was heavily reconstructed during the 1980s as part of the Freeing the Freeways program to widen Atlanta-area interstates. Today the highway carries as many as 16 lanes of traffic in some sections, placing it among the widest roads in the world. In addition to the general purpose lanes, there is a High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lane in each direction for the entire length of the highway. The proposed Interstate 485 was originally planned by GDOT to carry some north/south traffic through the eastern side of the city, but most of this was cancelled in the 1970s under Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia. (Parts of that road are now Interstate 675 and State Route 400.)
The Downtown Connector carries more than 323,000 vehicles per day at its busiest point — between Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Edgewood Avenue, while no portion of the Downtown Connector carries fewer than 236,000 vehicles per day. The area around the connector and associated interchanges are considered one of the 10 most congested stretches of interstate in the U.S.bm_0207trafficslide_6.html?thisSpeed=6000" target="_blank">http://www.forbes.com/2006/02/06/cx_bm_0207trafficslide_6.html?thisSpeed=6000. Due to this fact, many motorists often compare Atlanta to _Los Angeles, California, which is also known for its notoriously-congested freeway system.
The highway is fully instrumented with Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) devices. There are nineteen closed-circuit television cameras between the Langford Pkwy interchange (south end) and the Brookwood Interchange (north end). Additionally, the Downtown Connector has three large overhead electronic message signs, and four smaller HOV-dedicated message signs on the median barrier wall. Traffic flow data is gathered through a video detection system, using pole-mounted black-and-white cameras spaced every 1/3 mile on both sides of the roadway. All video and data is fed into the Georgia Department of Transportation's Transportation Management Center (TMC), via fiber optic cable located under the shoulders of the roadway.
Atlanta's skyline, both Downtown and Midtown, can be seen from the highway, especially at the northern and southern ends. The route also goes directly past Turner Field; formerly known as Centennial Olympic Stadium, where the opening and closing ceremonies and track and field events were held for the Centennial 1996 Summer Olympics.
