Don McKee
Now there’s an analysis of the sales tax plan by a transportation policy analyst with the national Reason Foundation that calls in question the priorities of the Transportation Investment Act, also known as TSPLOST, expected to produce about $8.4 billion for projects in the 10-county metro Atlanta area.
For starters, analyst Baruch Feigenbaum, who did the research for the non-profit Georgia Public Policy Foundation, concluded that “funding transportation infrastructure with a sales tax is not optimal, primarily because such a tax has no relationship to usage of the transportation system.”
Transit, the major focus of the TIA sponsors, “is important for metro Atlanta’s future and deserves some regional and state funding,” the analyst said. But the TIA list “allocates proportionally excessive funding to transit. Increasing transit service, a laudable goal, should not come at the expense of developing and maintaining a quality highway network — the overwhelmingly preferred travel mode in the region.”
Feigenbaum said, “Several projects have purely economic development benefits; others have purely environmental benefits.” These, he asserted, “have no role in a transportation project list that was to be based on the best use of taxpayer dollars.”
“The biggest problem is the significant dollars allocated to rail projects,” he said. “Fixed-rail transit is most effective in an extremely dense region, which Atlanta is not. If the region wants to fund fixed-rail projects, better options would be routes along the Perimeter, in Gwinnett County, commuter rail to Athens and commuter rail to Lovejoy. The proposed I-75 rail line from Midtown to Cumberland serves a corridor with existing, quality express bus service while ignoring the far busier and more congested I-75 corridor from I-285 to Acworth. While this rail project was theoretically removed, $700 million is an extraordinarily high cost to improve bus-rapid-transit service in the corridor.”
Feigenbaum presented his findings to the TIA Regional Roundtable on Wednesday but took no position on how voters should vote, saying they have “justification for approving or rejecting” the sales tax and it’s up to them to decide. Amen.
Strong opposition was voiced at a Tuesday night panel discussion in Canton, as the Cherokee Tribune’s Kristal Dixon reported. State Rep. Sean Jerguson (R-Holly Springs), a non-voting member of the Regional Roundtable executive committee that finalized the TSPLOST projects, declared himself now“adamantly opposed” to the tax plan. He said the allocation of $600 to MARTA for maintenance and operations violates state law.
Agreeing was state Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), another non-voting Regional Roundtable executive committee member — and presumably a legislator with clout. He said the process should start over and has even contacted legal authorities about how to do that. Rogers had a recommendation for the Canton audience: Vote down the tax plan July 31.
That’s good advice from someone who knows.
dmckee9613@aol.com
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Let's go back to the drawing board with this debacle and come up with something that makes sense.
The proposed TIA project list is a recipe for disaster and should be thrown out.
It is the product of self interested developers and ambitious poiliticians who have manipulated the TIA project list to serve their own agendas.
It will be much more closely scrutinzed and the elected, hopefully in two years the newly elected, officials will be held more accountable.
Certainly the state legislature will pay more attention whether they want to or not.
Also the referendum would not be subjected to a Pro TSPLOST multi million dollar, carpet bombing type propaganda campaign.
I doubt the CID's are going to be willing or able to finance that kind of expensive effort again. Especially if they see a project list that doesn't disproportionatly benefit them like this one does.
This first attempt helped flush out many of the "bad"projects and those are not likely to show up again. They have been exposed for the special interest boondoggles that they are.
The underhanded strategies of the TSPLOST supporters have been revealed and their sources of propaganda funding have been largely depleted.
and
I am sure you have heard the idiom
"Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me."
Instead of a referendum on a T-SPLOST/sales tax to fund a clumsily put-together mish-mash of road and largely-effective and very-costly transit projects, this should be a referendum to ask voters whether or not they want to raise the gas tax to fund improvements to existing (and selected new) surface roads ONLY.
NO public tax money needs to be spent on new expressways and transit upgrades and expansions because new expressways can be SELF-FUNDED with USER FEES in the form of TOLLS while transit can be both SELF-FUNDED and SELF-SUSTAINED with USER FEES primarily in the form of zone-priced and distance-based FARES and traffic fines.
Transit can also be SELF-FUNDED and SELF-SUSTAINED with sin taxes on adult entertainment, alcohol & tobacco as well as Tax Increment Financing (property tax revenues from future development along transit lines) and donations from pro-transit taxpayers when they file their state taxes.
Not-to-mention that transit can be paid for with the same type of public-private partnerships that the state was going to originally use to fund the I-75/I-575 HOT Lanes where the partnering private companies were going to put up to between $400 million and $700 million to fund a large chunk of that transportation corridor that is crucial to Georgia's economic and political success.
The fact that a transportation company was willing to put up such a large chunk of money to finance a road project in that very busy and important corridor means that those same competing private company would also be willing to put up a really big chunk of money to fund rail transit projects in that same critical I-75/I-575/US 41 NW Corridor.
Transit does NOT need to be and should NOT be funded with sales taxes or taxes of any kind, especially with all of the numerous other financing options available.
If a politician tells us that they need to increases taxes to fund and build transit lines, then the public needs to tell them where they can go as a transit line does not need to and should not be built or implemented if it cannot pay for itself.
Your criticisms, if true, may be valid in the sense that Senator Rogers could have done a better job than he did when this whole debacle was initiated. That criticism could be applied to many who were involved.
but
at least he seems to have recognized the TIA for what it has been turned into: a taxpayer scam.
That's why I agree with him and think we should revisit the project list.
Let the Atlanta folks pay for their own bad ideas.
DOT should be over roads ONLY,... NOT rail!!Obviously these charlatans are banking on an uneducated voting block to vote yes.
If, IF this was a sincere attempt to FIX Atlantas traffic nightmare,.. there should be a CLEAR , easy to understand the PLAN.
But, TIA is NOT a CLEAR plan for Atlanta- none of it makes sense.
Are there any other counties, besides Cobb, conducting multi-million dollar studies, that won't be conclusive(if even), until AFTER the July 31st vote?
RAIL and ROADS should be seperate!!
SEPERATE!!
Like Denvers FasTracks!!
There should be a comprehensive , DETAILED PLAN for RAIL in metro Atlanta- what it would look like if it connected to counties north and south. What would timelines look like-
projects/timelines/costs/station placement-detailed by project, fit into an overall mapped out plan- such as Doraville to Norcross, Sandy Springs to Galleria, etc and how it fits the overall picture!
There should be ONE MAP, encompassing ALL metro Atlanta & counties w/ what the future lines/ costs of MARTA/rail/transit would look like & what kind of tax it would take to accomplish in 5 year increments!!
Let people vote in 5 year project blocks -if it's working, the vote would continue to support it!
Then a SEPERATE, but just as CLEAR highway projects list & MAP, that is easy to understand HOW it would help w/ traffic flow for ALL of Atlanta Metro!
Again , 5 year increments w/ absolute FINISH dates on projects!
There doesn't seem to be any projects as far as highways,.. that look like will really help unsnarl Atlantas traffic.
Just a bunch of little 'pet' projects.
Atlanta needs to grow up & be run more efficiently and effectively.
Charlotte, Denver , Dallas & Seattle are doing it!!
This idiotic and blatantly political process should NOT start over. Instead it needs to be thrown into the scrap heap of history, never again seeing the light-of-day as a functional proposal.
If the Georgia General Assembly really felt the need to fund more roadbuilding and maintenance then they should have made this a referendum asking voters to raise the gas tax instead of trying to pull a fast one on the voters by attempting to fool to them into supporting the establishment of a free-for-all slush fund for crooked politicians and their well-connected land spectulator and developer cronies.
The voters shouldn't being asked to raise their own taxes to fund poorly thought-out connections to and ongoing subsidies to an agency as incompetent and as mismanaged as MARTA.
If transit is not competent enough to stand on its own by funding itself in an environment where people don't like it then it does not need to be built.
The roads that everyone drives on and uses everyday should be the first, if not only priority, especially when it comes to public funding!