Politics gets bumper-to-bumper – Atlanta Magazine

Sreekar Bommireddy leaves his North Decatur apartment at 4:30 p.m., headed for Georgia State University. Cars pile up on Clairemont Avenue, waiting to turn left with no turning lane, and he bobs and weaves his 2011 Toyota RAV4 around them. It’s a Tuesday in late July, and the air-conditioning in his car is almost at full blast. Traffic is clear on Scott Boulevard and Clifton Avenue, but then, near Moxie Burger, cars back up again, waiting to turn right on DeKalb Avenue. He’s 15 minutes into his journey, but according to Google Maps, his estimated 25-minute drive hasn’t budged since he left the house. After his family moved from Tucson, Arizona, Bommireddy learned to rely on navigation apps to get everywhere. “My big issue with Atlanta,” he says, “is that you can’t go with what your gut says. Even if I’ve driven a route a dozen times, you’ll never know.”

Bommireddy, who works at a local rental car agency, wouldn’t normally choose to commute during rush hour. But today he has to pick up his brother from the Georgia State campus en route to dinner at their parents’ home in Duluth. Earlier in the day, he saw a Reddit headline announcing Vice President Kamala Harris’s first campaign rally, held here in Atlanta. But he hadn’t seen where or when.

After he turns onto DeKalb Avenue, it is bumper-to-bumper. Google Maps now shows a red route the length of his phone screen. Bommireddy turns on a podcast to pass the time. He drifts into the middle lane, debating whether to turn left onto a side street. The opposite direction is also backed up, and the stress of turning across traffic isn’t worth it. Either I haven’t driven on DeKalb in forever, he thinks, or this is the rally.

Bommireddy was happy to see the news of Harris coming to Atlanta to set up her campaign, but he found out so late that he questioned how many locals would be there.

He’s sat in unexpected traffic caused by multiple presidential police escorts, including former President Donald Trump attending the 2018 NCAA championship football game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and President Joe Biden getting from the airport to his Morehouse College commencement speech. If Bommireddy had his way, political events would be held farther from downtown, and publicized weeks in advance, so that he could go. “It seems like they do more harm than good getting to the heart of Atlanta,” he says. “I like to joke that, for a city that was burned to the ground, they rebuilt it—at least for getting there—terribly.”

He’s now spent an hour on DeKalb Avenue, with more congestion ahead. DeKalb turns into Decatur Street and passes beneath the interstate. Bommireddy needs to turn right onto Piedmont, but dozens of cop cars are funneling the three lanes into one. The extra security confirms his suspicions about the rally. Every few minutes, a single car from Decatur makes it onto Piedmont, and Bommireddy finally gets his turn. He then makes a left on Gilmer, where his brother is waiting for him in front of the student center.

It’s now six p.m. as Bommireddy merges onto the interstate toward Duluth. Traffic is thinner as rush hour dies down. It’s still bumper-to-bumper the other way; the Harris rally, now behind him, starts in less than an hour. “There’s no truer Atlanta experience than when you see the standstill on the opposite side of the highway, and you’re not in it,” says Bommireddy. “You just feel so good for yourself.”

This article appears in our November 2024 issue.

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