If the Heat Doesn’t Get You, the Traffic Will

On the first day of Olympic competition, an excruciatingly slow and overtaxed transportation system vied with Georgia’s brutal heat to tax athletes and spectators.

Olympic organizers began reviewing the system in the wake of harrowing transit tales, which included broken-down vehicles, malfunctioning equipment and streets clogged with traffic.

“We’re learning ways to improve the efficiency of the Games every day,” said Bob Brennan, spokesman for the Atlanta organizing committee. “Unfortunately, we cannot start this process as wise in the logistics as we will be at the end.”

Because 13 Olympic venues are located within a three-mile area in and near downtown Atlanta, Olympic officials had urged spectators to use the city’s subway system. But International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch called for a review of the system after it proved inadequate during Friday night’s opening ceremonies.

Spectators complained that subway trains were infrequent and, when they arrived, packed with people.

Problems continued Saturday. The U.S. baseball team arrived for its opening game against Nicaragua only eight minutes before the game was to start, causing a delay.

Even Austrian judo heavyweight Eric Kreiger was affected after suffering a neck injury during a quarterfinal when the ambulance on site for emergencies had a dead battery, forcing him to wait nearly an hour for another one. Kreiger’s status was not known.

Spectators complained of long waits at security checkpoints at athletic venues as well as at subway stations.

“My experience has been a lot of waiting in very long lines. It’s incredibly disorganized,” said Kee Holt of Dallas, as he waited with a large crowd to see the wrestling competition at the Georgia World Congress Center while tens of thousands of others poured out of nearby venues from just-ended gymnastics and volleyball matches.

“I personally think they’re overwhelmed,” Holt said.

Some subway passengers, however, said that their experience could have been worse.

“Oh, it’s not that bad,” said Lisa Boyer. “At some stations people are jamming into trains. We thought it would be worse.”

Temperatures in Atlanta reached 99 degrees Saturday and humidity was 74%.

With an estimated 500,000 people pouring into downtown, air-conditioning broke down on some buses. Several escalators, through which tens of thousands of subway riders had to pass, stopped working, forcing people to climb stairs that in one case measured one-sixteenth of a mile.

At one downtown subway stop, Patrick Butler, a teenager from Sumerville, Ga., talked his mother, Joan, into taking the stairs when a long line formed at the one working escalator. She made it to the top, but needed several rest stops.

“Bad thought,” Patrick said to his mother afterward.

Brennan said of the problems, “Transportation has historically been a problem at the Games during the first day or so, and historically it has shaken out all right after that.

“Never has the [subway] system been taxed as it is now. We are all reviewing the rights and wrongs with the process and trying to correct the wrongs. But some problems will be inevitable.”

Others complained that the subway problems had been in the making for some time.

“I’m not surprised at the problems,” said Marcella Hammett of suburban Atlanta. “The trains were breaking down a week before the Games began.”

She said that passengers were herded off trains because of malfunctions both times she attended gymnastic practice sessions at the Georgia Dome. Each time, the subway train was stopped because of malfunctions and passengers had to wait as long as 20 minutes on the platform for a second train.

The train also broke down a month before when she went downtown for the track and field trials, she said.

“The train broke down every day that I went,” she said.

The first time it happened, she said, passengers had to wait 15 to 20 minutes on the stalled train before they were allowed off.

“[Authorities] said, ‘Please be patient. Please be patient.’ Eventually we were able to get off the train, but we were stuck in there for 15 to 20 minutes,” Hammett said.

A Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority spokesman told Reuters news agency after a meeting of senior management on Saturday that he thought Friday had been “Pretty good,” with no significant mechanical problems or safety incidents.

He said that spectators should allow two to three hours each way when visiting an Olympic venue. In the middle of the afternoon, it took 45 minutes to pass through the turnstiles, board a train and travel one stop downtown.

And the creation of a technologically advanced, federally financed $140-million traffic management system did not prevent the crush of cars on streets and freeways from becoming a problem. The system is supposed to supply travelers with real-time information on traffic to help them avoid congestion.

Organizers have 1,750 buses in operation to handle the Olympic traffic in addition to the MARTA’s normal contingent of trains and buses. Drivers had to be recruited from out of town when enough could not be found locally to man the expanded fleet. But there were reports Saturday that some bus drivers, tired of long hours and verbal abuse from passengers, were quitting.

Sharon Wallace, a spokeswoman at the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, said that she was unaware of any drivers quitting.

“The first couple of days are trial by fire,” she said.

There were other organizational problems, including a problem with sight lines at the Wolf Creek shooting venue. It was difficult to see the shooters from the spectator seats and hard to see the targets from the press seats, leading to crowding in the aisles.

“It’s a zoo,” said Bryan Berrol, press operations manager at Wolf Creek.

Congestion could be worse Monday when downtown workers add to the traffic. Olympic organizers have engaged in an extensive program to educate the public about traffic conditions. Three-fourths of downtown businesses have agreed to shift their hours to get people to work by 7:30 a.m.

As many as 600,000 people are expected to be packed into the three-mile area known as the Olympic Ring on the peak days next Friday through Sunday.

On normal days, downtown Atlanta’s employee population is 150,000.