I-85-285 southwest of Atlanta, 1968, purchased from historicaerials.com for the exorbitant price of $10. The short and high-volume weaves make this probably the worst interchange I've ever personally driven through. In fairness, the problems with this interchange are as much from planning as from engineering. That is, it's simply impossible to design an economical interchange for these movements, especially with Spur 14 and the service interchange with GA 279 Old National Highway in the picture. Fittingly, it was replaced in the mid eighties with the largest and most complex interchange in metro Atlanta, with sixteen lanes on six separate roadways under Old National Highway.
The east-west I-285-Spur 14 component was built first; I recall that the bridges were
dated 1959, but historicaerials shows the section
still under construction in 1960. I-85 north followed in 1964-65 or so, I-85 south a bit later, then I-285 north probably in 1967, though it looks brand new in this view. Spur 14 was a temporary connector to US 29, which eventually became the eastern end of the South Fulton Parkway, but, except for that, it was relatively useless once I-85 to the south was opened a mere five years or so after Spur 14. Could a case have been made for not building Spur 14? Or perhaps running I-85 along that route and then southwestward on the west side of Union City et al? Maybe so!
Contrary to my own memory, the 85-285 concurrency was six lanes from day one, with the forty-foot median typical of early Georgia Interstates surviving until the eighties reconstruction. While more capacity there would've been good to have, apparently GDOT decided that adding lanes would be so operationally unsound as to be more trouble than it was worth. What I do remember correctly is that the westbound roadway
jumped from three lanes to five, with a mainline lane being added on the right simultaneously with the onramp from Old National Highway.
