Openness, ideas can get Georgia rolling
By Kelly McCutchen
To get transportation policy back on track, Georgia must embrace projects with clear impact and broad support, rebalance infrastructure spending and rebuild public trust.
Rebuilding trust involves transparency and reform. Simply streaming Georgia Department of Transportation meetings online, as do many state agencies, will open them to the public. Reform begins with addressing the common complaint of the “alphabet soup” of agencies; consolidating some could simplify governance and cut costs.
Georgians also need to understand how individual projects fit into a long-term vision. For example, Georgia has an opportunity to cut congestion in Atlanta by investing in projects that will divert through traffic away from the metro area. Estimates suggest this could reduce truck traffic in Atlanta 30 percent to 60 percent. This helps improve our freight network and is far more affordable than adding capacity inside Atlanta.
Technology, too, can maximize the value of existing infrastructure. Atlanta should have a premier Intelligent Transportation System: technology to synchronize signals at intersections, dynamically react to incidents and transmit real-time traffic data to drivers. With autonomous, “driverless” vehicles already being tested in real-life traffic, Atlanta should be ahead of the competition.
Transit’s long-term vision should be an interconnected network reflecting commuting patterns. Atlanta’s only realistic network approach is a focus on rubber-tired transit: Bus Rapid Transit vehicles that look and feel like light-rail vehicles. They can escape traffic via HOV, HOT or managed lanes on interstates and dedicated lanes where needed on arterial routes, offering competitive trip times and costing far less than rail.
The state should lead this effort by providing transit funding in metro Atlanta and statewide. Transit enhances economic opportunity by providing access to jobs and education, plus mobility for the disabled or elderly.
How to pay for it? The best policy on transportation funding is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Several possible sources exist.
All new capacity, where possible, should be funded by tolls. Dynamic tolling creates routes that are congestion-free even during rush hours, helping both commuters and transit riders.
Less than half of Georgia’s sales tax on motor fuel is dedicated to transportation. Shift some of those dollars back to transportation. Understandably, this will have to be phased in to minimize the impact on the general fund budget, but it will provide flexible dollars for both transit and roads.
Georgia is among the top 10 in the nation in education capital spending and the bottom 10 in transportation capital spending. Correct this by allowing counties to voluntarily replace the local sales tax that funds education brick-and-mortar projects (E-SPLOST) with a fractional sales tax, up to 1 percent, for education capital spending and/or transportation spending.
This approach enables Georgia to start enhancing quality of life and economic opportunity immediately and meaningfully, without raising taxes.
The Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s proposals are simply a framework to get Georgia moving. Now, Georgia’s leaders must find the common ground for a targeted, fiscally sound approach to transportation that moves the state and the economy forward.
Kelly McCutchen is president of the Georgia Public Policy Foundation, an independent think tank.
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14 comments Add your comment
Vince
October 8th, 2012
6:46 pm
You want to establish public trust? Take down the toll booth on highway 400. It was set to expire in 2011, but our political leaders have betrayed public trust by extending that deadline until the end of the decade. Increase speed limits city-wide. Start running the state with competence.
SAWB
October 8th, 2012
7:25 pm
Maybe we should let Gwinnett County Prosecutors complete their investigation of the County Government before we suggest they implement new taxes related to transportation. I would like to at least know the felons are out of office and then we can start on the simply incompetent.
Selah
October 8th, 2012
8:08 pm
If we want to fix the traffic problems in Georgia, we need to EXPORT all the rude, foul-mouthed, ill-tempered, poor-driving yankees who have infested our State over the last 20 years and clogged up our roads with their incompetent driving.
An observer
October 8th, 2012
8:14 pm
Did the author say that less than half of the gasoline tax goes to transportation projects? If that is true, the public needs to fire every politician that advocated the T-SPLOST. Georgians are being abused by government!
Zen Galacticore
October 9th, 2012
4:06 am
More rapid rail and light rail people, that’s what we not only need, but have to have in order to be a World Class City.
Chip
October 9th, 2012
9:07 am
Well, what’s surprising about this? Another “expert” from a “policy foundation” advocating MORE government, MORE high-dollar boondoggles, MORE social engineering and people-control, paid for with MORE taxation… all of which will benefit the power-hungry control freaks and the well-connected cronies.
Here is reality: anyone who wants to, can get around Atlanta just fine. If people couldn’t, MANY WOULD MOVE AWAY, but they don’t… proving that normal people who must deal with traffic adapt and do so as grown adults who accept it as part of the price of living here for whatever reason. Personally, I travel all over the metro region at all times of day and never really worry about it.
Who screams and rants about traffic all the time? Liberal local media and liberal control freak activists who can’t stand the idea that people are free to live, work, and travel where they wish; liberal local media who need “stories” and headlines; elitist liberal in-towners who need yet another reason to look down on anyone different from themselves; and big-government power types and connected cronies who will score millions of taxpayer dollars off all these magical proposed “solutions.”
Enough already! OBVIOUSLY the taxpayers see right through all the baloney, as proven by the overwhelming vote results the other month. And by the way, having traveled large parts of the world, I can assure you that Atlanta will NEVER be a “world class city.” Atlanta is a silly, hopelessly corrupt provincial joke of a small town with a bungling, useless Third World quality government. If you want to live in a world class city, start packing.
Sorry folks, that’s just the way it is.
Stan
October 9th, 2012
10:21 am
An outer perimeter to minimize truck traffic on 285 is a great idea. Toll roads are the way to go as well.
Every other part of the country uses toll roads; we need to get with the program if we want the region to continue to be vibrant, and not stagnate due to traffic!!
MANGLER
October 9th, 2012
10:34 am
The “Dynamic toll lanes” in use make congestion worse by removing traffic lanes from an already over capacity highway. The only way to justify that statement would be if the toll lanes were new and separate from the existing lanes. They wouldn’t be reducing capacity as they are now. Not to mention the existing ones that cost $56m to construct and $4m in year 1 to operate and yet brought in $2M while worsening congestion in the process.
The transit minds have never quite realized that not everyone in Atlanta lives OTP and is commuting into downtown. 5.4 Million people in the metro and 800k work in the city. The majority of us don’t follow the commuting patterns that transit seems to want us to. Until there are transit options OTP to OTP criss-crossing those darned suburbs (you know, where most metro residents live play and work), congestion will remain an issue. MARTA is a nice concept, and I see a bus occasionally here and there, but try using transit options when you don’t ever go into the city.
As for redirecting money from Education to transportation … might as well pave shiny new dynamic toll roads directly to the State funded private charter schools.
Quoshanique
October 9th, 2012
2:45 pm
“With autonomous, “driverless” vehicles already being tested in real-life traffic, Atlanta should be ahead of the competition.”
That pretty well exemplifies the naivete and cluelessness of the entire article. Even if we did deploy driverless vehicles the author would have us buy into the notion that other cities (”the competion”) wouldn’t use the technology too. Like the leaders in Charlotte and Birmingham would say “nope, can’t use driverless vehicles here, they already do that over in Atlanta”. What a farce.
Rick
October 9th, 2012
3:42 pm
No one is going to trust Governor Deal to be open and ethical. Look at his actions, the number of warranted investigations, and even his most recent threat of one of the strongest community activist when it comes to ethics and open records.
Christopher Sanchez
October 9th, 2012
10:08 pm
I thought we voted about this already? Enough with the “talking heads” and so-called “experts” trying to tell those of us who actually live in the metro ATL how we need to do this and do that. We do not have a problem funding clearly defined projects that will actually reduce traffic congestion. We have a problem with garbage (a.k.a. economic development/MARTA) disguised as relieving traffic congestion being shoved down our throats. We voted and said overwhelmingly NO.
On outer perimeter makes good sense. Get the project plan together, present it, and sell the voters on the benefits of funding it. A lot of ATL traffic will be relieved from that simple solution. There are others.
We the people don’t trust much of state government to be good stewards of the public purse. Since the current crop of politicians prefer to use ballot initiatives (relieving them from being responsible for the decisions) to actually leading, the people have much more input on these kinds of projects. Wanna know how to get some things done in Georgia? Simple, the state needs real leadership rather than partisan bickering.
Road Scholar
October 10th, 2012
7:13 am
” It was set to expire in 2011, but our political leaders have betrayed public trust by extending that deadline until the end of the decade. ”
Gov Deal has said that the tolls and the booths come down at the end of this year…not the end of the decade (2020).
Outer Perimeter….who wants to lead the public involvement? I wonder if a responsive route can be found due to the unchecked/planned development that has occurred. GDOT was within one month of having an approved route with an approved environmental document, but Sonny nixed it for his republican friends. Within a month those same people wanted it to move the OP a few miles from their new homes. Alignments/locations had already been defined, reviewed, analyzed, and the best alignment was chosen…only to be tanked.
BHG
October 10th, 2012
8:56 am
IMHO, the only way to really alleviate traffic congestion is to get cars off the roads. Do a better job of encouraging tele-work, bicycling, living closer to the job, public transit, car-pooling, etc. Take an example from the D.C. area, where there are bike routes all over, and the metro system actually takes people from where they are to where they want to go. When I lived there, I drove my car maybe once or twice a week. (Not saying D.C. traffic is all that great, either – there are some examples that should be learned from, not copied.) Unfortunately, an all-around approach requires the kind of outside-the-box thinking that GDOT just doesn’t seem to have. It seems like every proposal coming out of these think tanks is “build more lanes, maybe with tolls”. But new lanes quickly fill up, and we’re no better off than before.
HarryA
October 10th, 2012
11:08 am
In all the talk of moving traffic one major item continues to fail to get any recognition: accidents caused by excessive speed and inattentiveness. No where in the Atlanta area is traffic running at the posted speed limit. In consequence, any accident slows the most wide 6 or 8 lane highway to a standstill creating backups and potential further accidents. Likewise those who do drive at the posted speed limit actually create potential accident events by “obeying posted traffic signs” and creating slow spots in the traffic flow.
My other wish is that “someone in a position of authority” over road signage would actually drive the highways and see how inefficient and hazardous the current placement of road signs are. Take the east bound section of I285 at Glenridge and 400, this perennial misdirection is caused by the sign placement, or lack thereof, causing continuous backups and potential accidents.
The lack of planning by “Traffic Engineering” really is deplorable.