Spring street used to be 4/5 lanes, and went down to 3/4 lanes (depending on the block) with the cycle track addition. With construction, it's been down to 2 lanes for much of the last year in a couple places, for example south of 8th street. And it hasn't caused a traffic apocalypse. I wish they'd keep it at 2 lanes after the construction is finished. Contrary to the OP, I've found that traffic is
lighter in midtown this year because so many office jobs have gone remote. But that's just anecdotal. It would be great to see actual data since I have such a different perception than the OP.
Edit:
According to ARC, interstate traffic in metro Atlanta 2021 was lower than in 2019, despite the growing metro population.
This article is very light and doesn't have data, but implies that by April 2022 traffic volumes on GDOT roads in metro Atlanta were almost back to what they were pre-pandemic.
Someone should do some data crunching
using these GDOT data. Just from poking around it looks like traffic volumes in 2021 were lower than 2019 in most places, but increased in some rapidly growing areas (e.g. Memorial drive).
As of Nov 2022
office worker visits were down 43% from 2019. That would imply a significant corresponding reduction in rush hour traffic.