Revisit and revamp

In light of yesterday's collapse of a section of highway near the interchange of Interstate 85 North and Piedmont Road, there's a number of lessons learned. The mere avoidance of any injuries or fatalities is a miracle and blessing, and the comparisons of the collapse of a major thoroughfare to a city's sports team during the most watched sporting event in the country (and arguably the planet) leave things up for debate, there are a few things worth noting and discussing.

The section of highway is constructed in 1984. Given the continued expansion of the interstate in the city, including the Cobb Cloverleaf (Interstates 75 and 285) in the area where SunTrust Field, the new home of the Atlanta Braves, is set to open this weekend (due to a Billy Joel concert and eventually the start of the 2017 baseball season), it is making people take a step back and revisit a few measures. Ranging from a new discussion on the expansion of the MARTA (Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority), including longer hours and routes (for the bus and rail/train system) to alternatives other than simply building another highway, yesterday does give people a moment or two to pause, assess, gather information, set a timeline for additional gathering of information, along with other projections for a situation that is going to clearly complicate an already challenging traffic situation.

Sometimes our business, related projects, and other areas of interest take on a parallel "collapse". Even the best laid plans sometimes do not go into fruition, and at times, we have to revamp our structure, supports, ideologies, and other means of doing business or otherwise. You hope it doesn't require some epic incident (some people may allude to it as an "epic fail"), but sometimes, things simply go in a direction that is not accounted for, and I'm sure just as traffic-goers didn't have a collapsed section of road on their "to-do" list, the same holds true when unexpected things happen, some of which can prove to be impediments to your pathways and goals.

Again, we all understand things can happen, even with the best planning or other measures taken. You hope that when things happen, they are not so adverse to where you have to completely revamp, but be aware that every once in a while, it may happen. And while an infusion of some humor can lighten and relax the mood, the focus still has to remain on identifying what went wrong, what additional information needs to be obtained, along with the creation and execution of a template or action plan that can be even more encompassing than previous ones. We may not ever have all of the answers and account for everything, but we are in a position to adjust our scope and reach in order to have better outcomes to where the reviewing and revamping is done as a means of evaluation and improving instead of having to clean up a total mess.

Let alone, remain standing.