12/27: I-75/575 decision has big impact
Moderated by Tom Sabulis
It’s a good news-bad news day.
Georgia’s last-minute cancellation of high-occupancy toll lanes on I-75 and I-575 has hurt its reputation globally and offers little hope for alternative plans.
On the bright side, a new study says the intercity bus industry, which recently gained a foothold in Atlanta with Megabus and Greyhound Express, is seeing some fast early gains.
What are your thoughts on these transportation issues?
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18 comments Add your comment
mountain man
December 27th, 2011
10:57 am
HOT lanes on I-75/I-575 were a boondoggle. If they would have paid for themselves solely from tolls (and the toll lanes built in ADDITION to regular lanes) maybe I could see some value. But not if tax money is spent just to give the rich people their own lane to travel in. Even then, the est of us would have to put up with years of road construction just for this boondoggle, making our commutes hell.
Didn’t we learn from the I-85 and Geogia 400 mess. Don’t feed the DOT monster anymore. It is already too big.
ACC14-SEC14 Booster
December 27th, 2011
11:46 am
By Benita Dodd
Guest columnist
“The [I-75/I-575] project’s promise is being reinforced by the increasing popularity of the I-85 high-occupancy toll lanes that opened in October.”
Increasing popularity? I-85 HOT lanes?
Sounds like Ms. Dodd was drinking very, very, VERY heavily when she wrote this column, because the last I heard, the I-85 HOT lanes were repeatedly found to have less support than the margin-of-error of the opinion polls gaging their “popularity”.
The I-85 HOT lanes have also been found to be less “popular” (more hated) than such notorious figures as Octomom, Kim Kardashian, O.J. Simpson and Dr. Conrad Murray.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
December 27th, 2011
12:14 pm
Over $1 BILLION to build a couple of HOT Lanes on I-75 & I-575 that would have a minimal effect on reducing congestion on the roadway that the lanes are supposed to “serve”?
The I-75/I-575 (& I-85) HOT Lane project(s) deserve to die a quick and painless death before taxpayers got locked into a 60-year contract in which the private partners were demanding that the state come up with $200 million more in addition to the $300 million that the state was already going to pay to make the project more financially-viable for them to invest in.
Gee whiz, has anyone ever heard of COMMUTER RAIL in this town?
Atlanta is the largest metro area on the continent east of the Mississippi River without commuter rail service.
High-frequency commuter rail service between Atlanta and at least Calhoun (but preferably Dalton or even Chattanooga) on the CSX rail line that runs parallel to the west of I-75 and high-frequency commuter rail service between Atlanta and at least Canton (but preferably up to Jasper and beyond all the way up to Blue Ridge) on the Georgia Northeastern Railroad line that parallels I-575, would do much, much, MUCH more to pull local SOV (single-occupant vehicle) traffic off of Interstates than a series of vastly-overpriced and seriously-underused toll lanes.
SAWB
December 27th, 2011
1:19 pm
Like it or not Metro Atlanta traffic will not be significantly reduced by spending Billions on commuter rail. A lot of folks keep bringing this up as the Holy Grail and yes it is a small part of the solution, but a very small part. Regardless of whom you blame for the sprawl that exists it does exist. We have to make decisions based on the way things are and not how we wish they were. The only real answer is to expand and innovate the surface road system.
Hank Guy
December 27th, 2011
1:31 pm
After returning from Dallas for the Holidays, one can see that everything there is a tollway these days, even the LBJ is getting double-decked with toll lanes. Surely if such a Red State like TX is using it, then it must be good for this very red state… Not.
Politicians are cowards
December 27th, 2011
2:23 pm
Again another kneejerk politician..our wonderful governor…pulls the plug on a major transportation project because current polling indicates it would not be popular for his re-election. It was polling not project merits that killed these toll lanes. Same reasoning killed the northern arc, thank you Bubba! How nice would that be right now to go from Cobb, N Fulton and Gwinnet without heading south first.
Whether the project has merit or not, or any futrue project has merit will never be discovered in this state where politicians are unpredictable because they have no passion to lead people to solutions. Plus every major designer or contractor in the country is very wary of working with Georgia now. This project has now been scrapped twice after spending almost 100 million dollars in design and redisign by both the public and private sectors. The original design team has all but blacklisted the State of Georgia. This has made a bad situation worse. Rail might be an answer in the eyes of many, but it will never get a chance for the same reasons. This state has no leaders, only petty men looking to profit from a state office.
MG
December 27th, 2011
2:31 pm
So let’s see… according to all of you a transporation project has to “pay for itself”in order to be successful… well, these new toll lanes apparently won’t, you are all against rail transit because it doesn’t pay for itself, so what do we do? Nothing? God, you people are dumb.
NEWSFLASH: public infrastructure projects are not suppose to “pay for themselves”!! They are built for the public good and to boost the economy. They may not directly pay for themselves, but indirectly these projects do (through jobs, mobility, quality of life, economy, etc). When you fools get it!?!?
Iconoclast
December 27th, 2011
2:41 pm
One of the untold stories about this deb acle is the source of private investment behind the bidding teams: Made in the U.S.A it most certainly would not be.
Perhaps someone should ask the Governor and the Georgia DOT Board how much they agonoized over the notion that improvements to paid-for interstate right-of-way would be financially backed by(and beholden to) foreign investors. Stick that featehr in your Tea Party Patriotic fedora!
Richard Bagge
December 27th, 2011
2:45 pm
In fairness to Ms. Dodd, the popularity of those lanes on I-85 have probably increased. From about 0.8% of users to 0.9%.
Rock Gaines
December 27th, 2011
3:08 pm
I’d love to see more transit alternatives. I haven’t used Megabus yet, but I have used Red Coach to Orlando and Miami. It’s 8 hours from Atlanta to Orlando. There’s only 27 seats onboard, allowing you to recline in leather seats up to 140 degrees. There’s also wi-fi, movies, and power outlets at every seat.
I agree with Last Democrat. Commuter rail would work here in the Atlanta metro, and it wouldn’t be too hard to implement. If I remember correctly, CSX and Norfolk Southern was willing to operate the trains over their tracks for rush-hour service. A good start would be Atlanta to Woodstock, ATL to Macon, ATL to Conyers. You can remove many cars off the road.
We have enough roads already. Some improvements can be done, but we really need more options for local travel.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
December 27th, 2011
3:12 pm
Politicians are cowards
December 27th, 2011
2:23 pm
Actually, in this case, plugging-the-plug on the I-75/575 HOT lane project may have been one of the best decisions that a Georgia governor has ever made as the state would have been severely restricted from making much-needed improvements to parallel routes for at least the next 60 YEARS. like Hwy 41 Cobb Parkway, and infrastructures, like adding commuter rail service on the paralleling CSX and Georgia Northeastern rail lines between Atlanta and Cartersville and Atlanta and Canton, respectively.
It was great idea to stop this project before it started as the private investors wanted the state to pony up close to $500 million instead of the $300 million that the state was prepared to spend no more than to make the project more financially viable for them.
Also, the state would have had to have paid a huge penalty to the partnering private investor or investors, in the hundreds-of-millions of dollars, if the state would have wanted (or needed) to get out of the contract before the 60-70 year period was up. This was something that happened in California over a decade ago when the state had to pay over $300 million to get out of a 50-year contract with a private investor after a public-private toll road project proved to be underused (meaning projections were too high as very few drivers used the toll road, instead opting to take another route without tolls) and very unpopular with the public.
Add to all of that the fact that, by GDOT’s own projections, the project would have had minimal positive impact on traffic congestion in the existing untolled lanes.
The I-75/575 HOT lanes project had “COSTLY NIGHTMARE” written all over it and pulling-the-plug on it was one of the best decisions EVER that a Governor has ever made on behalf of the citizens and taxpayers of Georgia.
mountain man
December 27th, 2011
4:43 pm
“public infrastructure projects are not suppose to “pay for themselves”!! ”
Building extra lanes for the rich to use to bypass regular commuter traffic is not what I call “infrastructure projects”. If they want it, they need to pay the full cost themselves.
Road Hard (and put up wet)
December 27th, 2011
5:04 pm
Public infrastructure project don’t “pay for themselves”. They ARE publicly-funded. As such they are paid for by the public.
To suggest otherwise conveniently ignores the enrmous (public) subsidy our nation’s highways provide to tire, auto, and fuel producers.
Aquagirl
December 27th, 2011
5:29 pm
The only good news out of this: we can shove this news up the wazoo of the tightwad libertarian crowd. Despite the cries of these loons, private enterprise would never provide a transportation network.
Logical Dude
December 27th, 2011
5:34 pm
Put more money into all around transit solutions, and fund it from the state level.
Another edition of easy answers to easy questions.
Now we just need a state government with the spine to actually fund transit like we are aiming to be a state of tomorrow instead of a state that used to be.
Chris Sanchez
December 27th, 2011
5:38 pm
Cancellation of so-called HOT lanes in Cobb and Cherokee Counties is the best Christmas gift the citizens of those counties could have received this year. The same lanes in Gwinnett county have served as an excellent example of how not only to make traffic worse but to also ignore the citizens of that county. As a citizen of Cherokee county I could not be more pleased with this welcome news. Now perhaps a sensible discussion can be had about how to best address congestion through this corridor.
Steve Barnett
December 27th, 2011
7:48 pm
Ms. Dodd cleverly omits the fact that the reason the governor halted the project was that the private investors demanded that the taxpayers put up $300 million with no guarantee of repayment (ever.) This shows that all three of the “interested teams” were in cahoots in trying to extort the $300 million. If it were a truly free market the three would have each made bids to do the project the cheapest. Maybe one would have only demanded $200 million. Who knows?
After all her whining about an opportunity lost she presents no real alternative. Why not? Because her organization is largely made up of people demanding that there be no new taxes under any circumstances. Georgia should have raised its gas taxes to levels similar to surrounding states long ago. It’s particularly infuriating that as soon as you cross the line into SC gas prices go down. Even with our lower gas tax. No, it has nothing to do with the special formulations required of Atlanta gas stations. Atlanta doesn’t reach to the SC line. It’s because our politicians are beholden to their oil company masters. That’s the real problem. We are getting ripped off at every turn.
MobileNana
December 30th, 2011
9:10 am
I took Megabus from Mobile to Atlanta for $8.00 one morning last week and would do it again in a heartbeat. Left at 7:00 AM CST and arrived at 2:00 PM EST (of course, no rush hour traffic). Angela did the driving and saved me $40 in gas money. That said, I’m a transplanted city girl so I value public transportation. Happy New Year y’all!