T-SPLOST fails – What next?
Who has a Plan B?
The proposed transportation sales tax met an ugly end Tuesday as voters in ten counties overwhelmingly rejected the plan to raise billions for a controversial set list of traffic and transit improvements. So what should we try next? Raise the gas tax? Toll more roads? Let us know your feelings about the vote and, especially, what ideas Gov. Deal and other leaders should consider for unsnarling gridlock and making our lives a little easier. We’ll include a sample of comments in Thursday’s newspaper along with a special transportation package addressing the aftermath of the T-SPLOST.
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79 comments Add your comment
morerightthanleft
August 1st, 2012
11:46 am
2014? who wants to place a wager that the 400 toll doesnt go away
Quentric
August 1st, 2012
11:38 am
No tea party affiliation here either. I voted no simply because (1) I don’t want to pay another tax to (2) fund projects that only marginally reduce congestion where I travel, and because (3) the high pressure $8 million Chamber of Commerce campaign really turned me off.
BG
August 1st, 2012
11:37 am
It’s really simple simple simple.
Examine where the wasted dollars are going and cut that spending.
That’s what everyone else in the real world has to do.
Why is it so true that government feels that the only solution to managing money is to raise taxes?
When does government feel obligated to adopt a fiscally responsible attitude like everyone else?
This includes all of the wasted dollars spent on government employees in “entitlement” positions that add no value.
MH from Lumpkin
August 1st, 2012
11:34 am
The campaign was stupid! Untie what? How? If you want my money, you had best tell me exactly what you’re going to do with it. Making me dig for the information isn’t going to work.
Toll roads are fine by me. Unfortunately, the “Peach Pass” doesn’t have much reach. We have a lot of traffic passing through Georgia. If they don’t stop, they get a free ride.
too little time
August 1st, 2012
11:21 am
So when did I become part of the tea party? You have to be kidding me, this fringe element is taking credit for my common sense and logical thinking.
Obviously, 75% of Atlanta-metro is not tea party. But, to be fair, it is the MEDIA that pushed the Tea Party view of this defeat. If you listened to the WSB debate on Tuesday, you heard panelists railing against the short-sighted Tea Party… not against independents, the Sierra club or the NAACP in Dekalb. It is the main stream media who made this a tea party “victory”, even though it took a very loose knit coalition of all of these groups to defeat the TSPLOST.
too little time
August 1st, 2012
11:16 am
Plan B = take the Plan A list. Evaluate every single project on the list (honestly) and say: does it decrease congestion. Does it “untie the knot”? Does it do it economically compared to other solutions? Does it require post-SPLOST funds to keep going, and how much? Which projects truly affect the most people?
Hint: The belt line does NOT relieve traffic congestion. It might relieve congestion one day, but as of today it does not do on iota for traffic.
The airport tower in Cobb does not relieve traffic congestion.
A transit project from Cumberland Mall might relieve some traffic congestion, but not in a cost-efffective manner.
Asking these questions of the current lot of projects will remove a lot of “wishlist” projects, and will result in the projects with the most impact to the greatest number of people.
There is your Plan B. Easy, wasn’t it?
jj
August 1st, 2012
11:14 am
I think Sonny and Gena should be held accountable for extending the tolls and ensuring that Georgians will never trust politicians.
John
August 1st, 2012
11:09 am
I see many comments regarding MARTA expanding to the burbs, but state law prohibits MARTA from going into areas that do not pay the 1% sales tax. So they are tied by the laws. We need to remove these restrictions (and others) so that MARTA can expand. As for rail into the burbs, I am all for it, but do we need each county to run their own rail system or do we need a centralized system? MARTA, GRTA, something is needed to coordinate these systems into a feasible and useful group for all patrons,
The simple question is transit, MARTA and Railroad. By extending MARTA north and improving your railroad from TN and SC it take a lot of the cars off the roads.
August 1st, 2012
11:06 am
Enter your comments here
RB from Gwinnett
August 1st, 2012
11:01 am
I actually liked the regional nature of the plan so all of the people of GA know their tax dollars are going to their transit needs; unlike the current gas tax. They should keep that part of the plan. My problem with the plan and suggestions for correcting them are as follows:
1. They gave us a list of well over 100 projects this tax would pay for. Question, if all these projects are on the TSPLOST list, what is on the list to be paid for with existing GDOT money they’re already collecting? Seems to me all this list did was replace existing GDOT project with a TSPLOST list as if it’s an either/or proposition and not an “and” proposition. If approved, I expected to see them divert existing GDOT funding sources to other budgetary needs and saw no guarantee it wouldn’t happen. Solution: Give us a list of the 10 biggest projects you’ll get done that will actually relieve congestion and we’ll give you 2 years to complete them. If you can’t get them done, either YOU or the tax needs to go.
2. The existing GDOT leadership needs to go. These are the same people who had the audacity to tell us they did “a great job” with snow removal last year and wasted our money on ramp lights, HOT lanes, and removal of reversible lanes on HWY 78 without adding capacity even though accident data showed no more accidents than any other road with the same volume of traffic. Millions of dollars wasted without adding a single ounce of relief for traffic congestion. Solution: current leadership needs to be replaced wholesale with somebody who has a clue. Picking up homeless people and letting them run the place couldn’t be any worse than what we’re seeing. If you can’t even sequence the lights on Memorial Drive so it’s a better option than a traffic jam on 78, you need to resign and “seek other opportunities”.
3. Nobody who has been paying attention to how MARTA is run for the last 20 years has ANY confidence in it. NONE!!! Solution: guarantee us you’ll replace the entire decision making and operating body of MARTA with a regional commission represented by each of the counties before the first dollar from the tax is deposited in their account.
While I appreciate Mayor Reed’s comment about the “people have spoken”, he needs to get a clue with the rest of his comment about “changing their minds” and focus on changing the reasons the people spoke as loudly as they did. It’s not because we didn’t understand things, Mayor, it’s because we do!! The sooner you and all the other “leaders” in the area figure that out, the sooner we’ll get some real solutions in place that work!!