Setzler wants the Cobb delegation to go over the 10-year tax’s project list at a Monday meeting, as well as hear from Cobb commissioners and school board members about proposed redistricting lines.
Setzler said the proposed light-rail line connecting Cumberland to MARTA’s Arts Center Station in Atlanta doesn’t do enough to justify its cost.
“The rail line that’s being proposed spans a grand one mile into Cobb County,” Setzler said. “A billion dollar project.”
Take the 250,000 households in Cobb, and that means every Cobb household will pay $4,000 just to construct the line, he said.
“Four thousand dollars just to construct it, and it services Cumberland Mall? I mean, 5 percent of the people in Cobb County might be able to use that as a transit tool, but every household’s going to pay $4,000 just to build it?”
It would be delightful to have a light rail system through the county, Setzler said, but the trouble is that it costs $100 million a mile to build. Moreover, the average light rail line in the U.S. is 77 percent subsidized by taxpayers, he said.
“I mean, the best ones are 70 percent subsidized,” he said. “And if you think about a 77 percent subsidy on top of a $4,000 per household cost for that line, and it services Cumberland Mall? Goes one mile in Cobb County? How does that serve the interests of people across the county?”
Fortunately there is time to change the project list, since it doesn’t have to be finalized until Oct. 13, he said.
Setzler said he wants to get a conversation going so voters will understand what they’re being asked to approve next year.
“I don’t think Cobb County voters have looked this project square in the face, understood it and been heard on it. I can tell you the delegation who helped support the TSPLOST concept to create the project list created a process whereby the region could vote down the project list or accept the project list or change the project list for a reason, so that good projects and only good projects would ever be put on the ballot,” he said.
Next year, voters in Cobb and other metro Atlanta counties will decide whether to pay an additional 1 percent sales tax for 10 years to finance road and transit projects. The tax is estimated to bring in more than $7 billion region wide over the decade. On Monday, the regional roundtable group finalized its list of $6.14 billion worth of projects the regional tax would pay for. Of those, Cobb would get about $1.1 billion worth of projects, with the costliest being the light-rail line at $857 million.
Also on Monday’s agenda, Setzler said he would like to hear from Cobb school board members and county commissioners about redistricting. No reapportionment maps for the school board or commission would be adopted until January, he said.
“This is a chance for the BOC to be heard about their ideas about maps, and any school board members that want to be heard about their ideas about maps,” he said.
On Aug. 10, the Cobb school board moved forward, 5-1, with David Banks opposed and Lynnda Eagle absent, in its adoption of a reapportionment map.
The Board of Commissioners, while eyeing a few proposed maps of its own, has not yet adopted one, spokesman Robert Quigley said.
Setzler said it would be the delegation that ultimately decides the boundaries.
“It is the legislative delegation’s job to draw maps for the county BOC and for the school board,” Setzler said. “The school board and the BOC’s recommendations are just kind of requests and ideas. I think our delegation takes their job of drawing them very seriously. And I, as delegation chair, am going to do nothing to cede, to give away or to fall short of our delegation’s obligation to draw the maps.”
The meeting will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday in Room 506 of the Coverdell Legislative Office Building, located at 18 Capitol Square, SW, Atlanta.
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And they bring all the riff-raff and crime with em too!
Back in the 20th Century, we just didnt need no trains!
I say take all that money and four lane ever road in Cobb County. That way I can drive faster and burn more of that cheap gas-o-line to git to work.
The world's changed a lot since you last checked in, Mr. Setzler.
The suburbs are a lot different. We recently discovered that we built more houses than we got people. and Gas Prices are never gonna be cheap again....ever.
Mr. Setzler.....wake up to the new reality and lead.....or get out of the way. Right now, you are demonstating very poor leadership.
It's not too late for Tim Lee and Mark Mathews to redirect the Cobb money. It appears that it's up to them to fix this and save the TSPLOST.
No way the TSPLOST passes if our only two Cobb reps insist on MARTA.
. . . on the other hand, I appreciate Setzler's and Ott's points about the tax, and those pushing for the proposed rail line seem to be equally shortsighted in estimating its overall impact as well as its development and operating costs.
Forget any light rail extension beyond Cumberland north into Cobb County. This is an Atlanta/Cumberland CID project pure and simple with no intentions of extending north.
Let's call it the Reed/Leithead line.
I am amazed that the elected representatives and business leaders in Cobb are complicit, either thru stupidity or collusion, in using Cobb County taxpayers via the TSPLOST, to extend and enhance MARTA. Shame on you!!
My prediction: The next extension won't be north, but east along I-285 to the Perimeter area!!
But look at the bright side. This will give Cobb another whole mile of light rail before it crosses the river into Fulton County!! WOW!! Two whole miles and it will only cost Cobb taxpayers a couple of billion dollars! What a deal!
Actually, when you think about it, this is the segment (east to Perimeter) that needs to be built before the Arts Center to Cumberland line.
It actually goes to where the jobs are and where most Cobb County folks work and/or want to go for shopping and entertainment. It also has the added benefit of addressing the real AM and PM congestion that exists on I-285 (not I-75 south of 285) and it can tie into existing MARTA stations at the Medical Center and Dunwoody to go north (eventually) or south (now).
It's a fallacy to expect that just because the proposal originally included a Phase 2 that would extend all the way up through Cobb County, that it will ever be built. The regional officials who winnowed the current list tossed out that part, as well as most of our other less costly projects. If, after Phase 1 to Cumberland Mall gets built (10 years from now) we ever want to see it extended, Cobb will either have to do it ourselves or count on regional support for a part of the project that serves Cobb much more than the rest of the region (so good luck with that!) Forget about Phase 2 for now (desirable though it may be) and realize we're being asked to vote for a sales tax increase to build a line from Atlanta that goes 1 mile into Cobb County.
"KSU Student" and "Out on a Rail" are actually correct that doing the Cobb County part of the line first would do more to alleviate our traffic problems, but of course they need to realize there's no reason why the rest of the region would vote to do that first. So bottom line is that either both phases needed to be included in the same SPLOST, or it's not worth doing one separately.
For recognizing a boondogle when you see one.
How is it that a transit line from the Arts Center Station to Cumberland, of which 90% is in the City of Atlanta, is considered a Cobb County project?
Wouldn't it make more sense for Atlanta to use the $600M allocated in the TSPLOST for the Atlanta Beltline Transit projects, that have absolutely nothing to do with "regional connectivity", to build the line to Cumberland?
Then use the $857M to extend it to Marietta, Kennesaw, Acworth, North Cobb and Cherokee County where it would actually reduce congestion on I-75.
Wouldn't it make more sense to abandon trying to get federal funding which demands that we tie in to MARTA as a first step?
Wouldn't it be smarter to simply fund a system that provides a much broader area of coverage across the county, "spreading the honey" as the late Joe Mack would've said?
Wouldn't a system that serves a greater area have greater appeal to more riders, thereby increasing its chance of being self-sustaining?
HighRoad Rapid Transit System, I believe, is the answer we need right now!
Change the T-SPLOST before it's too late!!
www.OTG-Inc.com
Unless the train stops within a block of someones office, they're NOT going to ride a train.
And everyone says they're afraid of crime. But that issue is never addressed. My wife worked at Lennox Mall when the marta station opened there. Ask anyone who was in that area at that time what happened. It's just fact.