USA: OLYMPICS 96: ATHLETES COMPLAIN ABOUT BAD TRAFFIC CONGESTION

(22 Jul 1996) English/Nat Olympic athletes are up in arms at the chronic traffic congestion in Atlanta which has meant that some athletes nearly missed their event. The Olympic committee apologised for the problems and says it is doing everything in its power to alleviate the situation. With hundreds of thousands of sports fans and tourists descending upon Atlanta this summer - one topic is foremost in local's minds: traffic. Officials from the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games have had to take another look at the drawing board as angry commuters and late tourists voice their anger. The Atlanta organizers are also under orders from the International Olympic Committee to fix an often-unreliable shuttle bus system between downtown Atlanta and the game sites. The traffic is so bad that some athletes nearly missed their event. SOUNDBITE: I know that one of our fencers left an hour and a half before his event. He had to go two miles and ended in only getting there ten minutes before his fight. That was a bit difficult for him. SUPER CAPTION: Canadian team member. SOUNDBITE: Last night coming home from dinner I had to wait. Seven trams went by and they were all full. I must have been standing out there for half an hour, forty-five minutes. Either that or walk. SUPER CAPTION: Bahamian team member. All around the city the story is the same: either gridlock, or very slow moving traffic. SOUNDBITE: I think if the athletes are missing their venues without reason then I think it's disgraceful , but if their missing it because they don't know where they are going then it's their own fault. If you're going to an event you shouldn't really take a bus. Have your manager bring you or something like that. SUPER CAPTION: Irish team member. It's been an embarrassing spectacle for the Atlanta Committee. But they put on a brave face as they met with the media after promises of a good commuting day that never surfaced. SOUNDBITE: "It's not unusual at the level of the summer games especially to have that kind of problem. You have to realise that many people are coming in town - many kind of different people. Basically the movement people are the same - the same time - so it's a huge machine to start. And it is absolutely usual that in the first days of the Olympic games that we experienced some problems." SUPERCAPTION: Michelle Verdier, IOC Director of Special Projects SOUNDBITE: (English) "One of the greatest, the great fear I guess that we have - is that an athlete will miss his competition or her competition because of our failure to provide timely transportation." SUPERCAPTION: Bob Brennan, ACOG Press Chief To add insult to injury for the athletes the computers have also been playing up. It's been a trying day for the committee and one which they hope can only get better. Some athletes have become so angry with the appalling traffic conditions that they took the situation into their own hands. They had been waiting for approximately forty minutes for a bus despite officials saying that one would arrive in less than five. So they took action and formed a road block until one stopped for them. SOUNDBITE: "There were a bus load of us there - the Polish were there , the Ukraines were there the Danes were there and so we took charge of the situation and said OK , we're going to block the road and either you get us a bus otherwise we'll block the road. So we blocked the road and there were 25 buses all backed up , not none of them for the rowing and we just sort of said, we'll take the first one that comes along." Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...