The optimistic view of the regional T-SPLOST is that Georgia voters will be faced with a choice of approving the tax to improve regional traffic problems, or allowing our traffic and safety conditions to continue to deteriorate.
However, if the projects list is loaded with pet projects that won't reduce regional traffic congestion, then voters will be faced with a choice of squandering their tax dollars vs. not squandering their tax dollars.
Prior to the vote, regional leaders, working through the Atlanta Regional Commission, will put together a projects list. Will our politicians select a list of cost-effective projects that will effectively and significantly improve safety and traffic flow throughout the region? Or will politicians agree to support each others' pet local projects, raising and spending billions of dollars, but failing to fix our real traffic problems?
The ARC has proposed criteria for selecting the projects, and they are seeking public comment. The proposed criteria provide a heavy allocation to transit, and limit the amount of funding that can go to roads to possibly as little as 20 percent of the total amount. This reflects more of a political agenda than serious transportation planning. Even without any major new roads, 20 percent is a pretty unrealistic number. There are some needed safety and operational improvements that could significantly improve traffic flow.
Their criteria basically prioritize anything that can be built within specified time frames. Almost any projects on their already existing projects list could be approved, as long as it can be advanced within the required timeframes. This is not encouraging.
There needs to be criteria to assure that only projects that will significantly improve traffic flow throughout the region will be included on the projects list.
For the Atlanta region, the criteria need to prioritize projects that would improve traffic flow in major corridors throughout the region. It should include funding for building new transit, as well as funding operations and maintenance for transit. However, it should focus on those transit projects that will achieve the greatest cost-effectiveness, in terms of ridership per dollars spent.
The projects list should not include local projects, such as improving traffic flow through an intersection, or projects that would only improve traffic flow in a local area.
The severity of local traffic congestion does not make it become a regional issue. It just makes it a more urgent local issue.
Severe local congestion impacting 20,000 or 30,000 or even 40,000 cars per day in a local area is still a local problem that needs to be addressed by the local government.
We need a working definition for what should qualify as a regional transportation project. For example, regional projects in the Atlanta region might be defined as those that address:
n?Congestion that impacts 300,000 or 200,000, or even 100,000 cars per day, and
n?Where traffic congestion is impacted for more than 10 miles.
n?Transit projects that are (or would be) part of an integrated, efficient, regional transit network, and would contribute to significantly reducing regional traffic congestion. The Beltline is a good example.
n?Prioritize projects (roads, transit, and other) which demonstrate the greatest cost-effectiveness relative to the amount of congestion relief the project can deliver.
Obviously the criteria would be different in other regions.
To review the currently proposed criteria, go to:
www.atlantaregional.com/File%20Library/Transportation/HB%20277/tp_HB277_Attachment_C_Criteria_Atlanta_Area.pdf.
You can send your comments about the criteria to transportation@atlantaregional.com.
The ARC is requesting that all comments be submitted before Thursday.
If the region seriously expects taxpayers to approve this tax, the projects list will have to be designed to comprehensively, and cost-effectively, reduce traffic congestion throughout the region.
Ron Sifen of Vinings is former president of the Vinings Homeowners Association and former president of the Cobb Civic Coalition.
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Looks like Sam will get his higher office job as AG, while Cobb unravels the mess caused by leadership vacuum. and wonders what happened to its once great future. Clearly, that future has passed us by.
I think she in incapable of doing that, so we are stuck with this mess until we get a qualified leader.
Thanks Sam Olens for doing to Cobb DOT the same thing that is going on at the STATE DOT.
I was driving back from Canton this wkend & wow, what a VISABLE distiction as I crossed from Cherokee back into Cobb on I-575. 1st, I would suggest leadrs of Cobb that keep riding up & down 41 on a bus, fantasizing a light rail system,... why don't you guys go visit areas such as The Bluffs & Riverstone Village in Canton, & the awesome Old Town Woodstock, the mixed use community on Towne Lake Parkway!(see how it's done!!)
Maybe it will help shine the light on how important asthetics & PRIDE are. Driving along Town Lake Parkway,... so lush w/ trees & pretty natual native landscaping, boulders, stone & cedar. Lots of vibrant shopping , resturants & parks.
Cobb Parkway looks like something out of 'Deliverance'. Is everybody here really so out of touch?? Anyway,.. back to my initial thought-- driving along 575 in Cherokee,.. the highway was CLEAN, nice signs, plantings & natural areas, no litter & no overgrown kudzoo. Imediately upon crossing the Cobb County line,... it felt like the worst of Detroit. Totally uncared for-- overgrown kudzoo, weeds,.. fallen trees, tires in the road, trash, trash, trash! WHY would ANY company looking to relocate feel that here in the Smyrna & Marietta area would be a quality place to invest? Why in the world is Cobb so behind everywhere else?
Then if you don't 'get it' after riding to Cherokee,... take your bus tour up through Gwinnett to 316, around Duluth & Swuanee... & up 400 around Windward Parkway! There IS a difference!!