Ga. keeps getting left behind at the train station
OK, take a deep breath. Ready?
Austin; Boston; Charlotte; Dallas; Denver; Fort Collins, Colo., Hartford; Honolulu; Houston; Miami; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York City; northern New Jersey; Oakland; Orlando; Portland, Ore.; Providence; Riverside, Calif; Roaring Fork Valley (Aspen, Colo.); Salt Lake City; San Bernardino; San Jose; San Francisco; Seattle; Stamford, Conn.; Tucson; Vancouver, Wash., Washington, D.C.; Wilmington, Del.
Those are the cities scheduled to receive a total of $1.8 billion for transit projects this year from the Federal Transit Administration. As you may have noticed, traffic-congested metro Atlanta is nowhere on that list. Nor is any other Georgia city.
Through the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Transit Planning Board, metro leaders have made it clear that they want transit to play a major role in the region’s transportation future.
But through the state Legislature, the governor’s office and the state Department of Transportation, leaders at the state level have made clear their opposition to rail transit.
That’s why no Georgia city is on that list. It also explains why last week, North Carolina received $545 million in federal funding to help build high-speed rail and Florida got $1.25 billion, leaving Georgia the crumbs that fell to the floor in the form of $750,000 in planning money.
And when U.S. Reps. David Scott and John Lewis correctly blamed that failure on the state’s lack of leadership and its clear aversion to rail, Gov. Sonny Perdue’s spokesman tried the Old Bamboozle.
“It’s so funny to me that Congressman Lewis and Congressman Scott are blaming Republicans, when it’s the Democrats that control the White House, the Congress and the agencies making these grants,” Bert Brantley told the AJC’s Jim Galloway. “Too bad they couldn’t use their influence to help our case.”
They couldn’t “help our case” because thanks to Perdue and others, we have no case to help. Georgia’s leadership has made it perfectly clear by any number of means that it opposes light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail and high-speed rail. That opposition has been so clear that Brantley’s defensiveness passes for a sign of hope — it suggests that maybe, just maybe, they’ve begun to feel heat.
Unfortunately, the layers of dysfunction in Georgia politics are many, particularly when the issue is transportation. And every time you think the logjam might have been broken, it gets worse.
Back in 2008, Perdue called a press conference to announce his “full support” for the metro region’s first commuter rail line, a project that has had federal financing for more than a decade but the state never funded. Perdue also lauded the leadership of the state Department of Transportation, calling it “the best state transportation board I have had the privilege to work with.”
A year later, Perdue was attacking that same board as incompetent and perhaps even corrupt, and led an effort to limit its power.
Less than a month ago, Perdue reversed form again, with his office announcing that the governor was “convinced that the state’s transportation governance system is functioning well, and is regaining the trust of Georgians.”
A week ago, Perdue was back to lambasting the board, accusing it of “a clear defiance of state law and a frightening lack of concern for our state’s financial systems.”
(Oh, and in the two years since announcing his “full support,” Perdue has proposed not a penny toward that commuter rail project.)
In the next few days, the governor is expected to release details of a plan to give metro Atlanta and other regions the right to tax themselves to pay for regional transportation. Conceivably, that offers a way to fund transit regionally that the state refuses to support. But it will be interesting to see how much power the metro region will be given to set its own future.
Early indications are that Perdue wants to give the state transportation bureaucracy a great deal of control over how metro Atlanta spends its money. And to be frank, that bureaucracy has provided no cause to trust its vision, its competence or its word.
It’s not a question of personalities. The state transportation planning director — a post now filled by Todd Long — serves at the pleasure of the governor, which means Long could be replaced when a new governor takes office in January.
That could put metro Atlanta’s transportation future — and its self-generated tax revenue — into the hands of, say, John Oxendine, the GOP frontrunner for governor.
Oxendine, you recall, wants to solve congestion by building a 15-mile interstate beneath Midtown and through East Atlanta, destroying thousands of homes in its path. That’s not exactly the vision of metro Atlanta’s future expressed by those elected to lead this region, those who understand and love it best.
It’s a simple proposition: Give those who pay a regional tax a strong say in how that tax is spent.
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152 comments Add your comment
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
February 5th, 2010
8:40 am
Like the choo choo in Bookman’s mind, this column runs nowhere, just sayin….
Mick
February 5th, 2010
8:41 am
At first, I didn’t think much of high speed rail but have you flown lately? If there was a high speed rail grid in this country that was competetive with airlines, why not?
USinUK
February 5th, 2010
8:44 am
Unemployment fell to 9.7% as 541,000 people in the national household survey reported that they found a job …
can’t malinger around … busy with with the PIIGS … have a great day!!!
Granny Godzilla
February 5th, 2010
8:45 am
Such Foolishness.
Love the trains….and it’s Friday.
Let’s hit the club car early?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awWhFChwHJk
Brad Steel
February 5th, 2010
8:49 am
No big deal. Atlanta has never had any need for trains anyway.
The region should continue to brag and promote it’s #1 attribute: the country’s most crowded and chaotic airport.
danjonglee
February 5th, 2010
8:49 am
Such an idiotic state run by idiotic people. Why would anyone want to live here?
Bosch
February 5th, 2010
8:55 am
But horse and buggies really are the best way to travel.
Shawny
February 5th, 2010
8:59 am
High speed rail?!? We don’t need no stinkin’ high speed rail.
We need 1 HOV lane in each direction into and around the city. Encourage drivers to carpool, in effect, removing cars from the road. That will reduce traffic immensly.
Extend existing HOV lanes (like I-85 to Hamilton Mill).
They work great.
No, we don’t need those stupid HOT toll lanes. That does not encourage removing cars from the road (carpooling).
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
February 5th, 2010
8:59 am
A sharp increase in the number of people giving up looking for work helped to depress the jobless rate. The number of ‘discouraged job seekers’ rose to 1.1 million in January from 734,000 a year ago.
But the libs still celebrate.
Odd, isn’t it?
TaxPayer
February 5th, 2010
9:00 am
Are you planning on doing the “I’ve been everywhere” Friday tune, Jay.
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
9:04 am
“Through the Atlanta Regional Commission and the Transit Planning Board, metro leaders have made it clear that they want transit to play a major role in the region’s transportation future.”
The Atlanta “leaders” need to understand one important issue. This is the State of GEORGIA not the State of Atlanta.
High speed rail, light rail etc…just another govt boondoggle. Can you say Amtrak.
TaxPayer
February 5th, 2010
9:04 am
High speed travel within Georgia would essentially eliminate the original basis for our outlandish number of counties so just forget any change that would allow one to travel farther in one day than currently possible. We would not want folks to start thinking outside the box and reduce the number of counties and the associated overhead for taxpayers, now would we. Such a fiscally conservative thing would be so un-Republican.
Jackie
February 5th, 2010
9:04 am
Does this mean the solution to the Atlanta-area traffic problem(s) is more roads?
TaxPayer
February 5th, 2010
9:05 am
Jay,
If you are out there, what held up my 9:04.
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
9:06 am
Obama or someone or something reduces unemployment by 0.3% BRAVO!!
Dudley Do Right
February 5th, 2010
9:06 am
Why build high-speed rails and give the terrorists another track to tie our womenfolk to?
No, the solution to Metro-gridlock is lower speed limits, staggered work start/stop times, bicycle lanes at the connector, horse-riding trails through cabbage town, hitchhiking on 75/85/285/675, and organized traffic-jam practice-sessions. I think there’s a traffic jam practice tomorrow at 6am on spaghetti junction.
Be there. We need your Camry.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
February 5th, 2010
9:07 am
“Brown’s whole candidacy was shown to be a joke today when he was sworn in early in order to cast his first vote as an objection to Obama’s appointment to the NLRB,” Patrick Kennedy said Thursday, in between lines of coke and popping sedatives, just sayin…
Call it like it is.
February 5th, 2010
9:10 am
While not a great fan of Marta, it is sad to me that more has not been done to help Atlanta’s traffic issues. Not many people know this, but Atlanta has a Maglev testing track in our own back yard in Powder Springs Ga. We already have a company with a working train, and a working test track in view of the city. I just wonder if any of our leaders know it exist and have ever taken a test ride on it?
http://american-maglev.com/index.php
Go to projects, then test tracks. Jay did you know about this?
Scout
February 5th, 2010
9:12 am
If you yankees hadn’t stolen the General we wouldn’t be having any of these problems.
getalife
February 5th, 2010
9:12 am
“”Dems favor Saints, GOP likes Colts.”Politico.
Get your stinkin politics out of my football.
Geaux Saints!
jconservative
February 5th, 2010
9:13 am
I would hate to think that an allegedly conservative governor and legislature would actually allow a region to tax itself only to have someone else spend their money. That smacks of 100% pure Liberalism.
Citizen of the World
February 5th, 2010
9:17 am
The train has pulled out of the station and Georgia’s not on it? No surprise there.
Georgia can’t look forward because it’s conservative Republican leadership is too busy looking backwards, wondering why things can’t be like they used to be, when government didn’t have so much power and influence over the way things progress (or don’t) — only they don’t realize that the move away from rail transportation would not have happened so quickly and thoroughly in the first place if government had not set policies in the 50s and 60s that hurt trains and supported roads.
Now we need the government to set policies and incentives to bring rail back — lots of people and businesses want this — but Georgia’s Republican base is so anti-government that we’re locked in the status quo and we have legislative gridlock in addition to gridlock on our roads.
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
9:19 am
“lots of people and businesses want this”
Lots of people wanted O-Dumb-dumb for President also and you see where that has taken us.
Normal
February 5th, 2010
9:20 am
The first battle of Bull Run was won by the South because they rapidly moved re-enforcements into the battle by rail. Maybe the Neo-secessionists should take note and plan for the future…
Sam
February 5th, 2010
9:23 am
i like sonny but he shouldve stayed on the farm..
Joey
February 5th, 2010
9:36 am
“And to be frank, that bureaucracy (State Transprotation Dept.) has provided no cause to trust its vision, its competence or its word.”
No argument here on this statement. However, just a few articles ago Jay was opining that the State of Georgia should give MARTA the funds to do its will. Yet MARTA has provided no cause to trust its vision, its competence or its word.
Double standard?
Citizen of the World
February 5th, 2010
9:41 am
Outhouse @9:19, I like where President Obama has taken us — toward addressing our problems instead of just sweeping them under the rug and pretending that everything’s great, we’re great. George W. Bush (notice how I’m resisting the urge to call him a name?) avoided transportation, infrastructure, health care, the environment, etc., because to try to address these problems would have been to acknowledge them, and to acknowledge them would have been to admit that we’re not just the greatest in every way. We were all supposed to pretend that the Outhouse didn’t stink.
Jenifer
February 5th, 2010
9:44 am
When they said “train”, Porky Perdue thought they said “rain”, so that’s what he prayed for.
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
9:47 am
Hey Citizen…9.7%
NEXT!
mike
February 5th, 2010
9:48 am
Every liberal needs to read this article. They are specifically talking about people like Jenifer, Citizen of the World, and getalife.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/04/AR2010020403623.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
Bosch
February 5th, 2010
9:51 am
Hmmmmm. Mike wants people to read an article about Jenifer, Citizen, and getalife. I wonder what it’ll be about?
mike
February 5th, 2010
9:52 am
“George W. Bush (notice how I’m resisting the urge to call him a name?) avoided transportation, infrastructure, health care, the environment, etc., because to try to ”
Bush definitely did not do much on most of those issues, but you can’t say that he ignored healthcare. Remember the Medicare expansion that is contributing to our massive debt?
Now he try to address other issues that rank far higher in the minds of Americans according to polls: Social Security, immigration, and education. Obama has paid little attention to these matters, but that is understandable. Presidents need to pick a few things to focus on.Bush just happened to focus on things that Americans care about more than the things Obama has chosen to focus on.
Daedalus
February 5th, 2010
9:53 am
Yo Jay — you forgot to mention Phoenix. Which opened up a light rail line last year and is beating all ridership expectations. The heritage foundation is eating some crow on that one. They claimed that nobody would ride it.
Also, check out this story about Portland getting $75 million last year for new streetcar lines. Oh, and the streetcars are being built right in the Portland metro area.
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/10/us_inks_deal_for_millions_for.html
That money was held up for years by the Bushies.
Just another example of how local, state and federal politicians can get together and promote regional transportation solutions. Of course, it could never happen here. Everyone in the Georgia GOP knows that public transit is only for welfare queens and gangstas.
mike
February 5th, 2010
9:54 am
“Hmmmmm. Mike wants people to read an article about Jenifer, Citizen, and getalife. I wonder what it’ll be about?”
Nothing too bad. He just addresses the fact that liberal belief that they are smarter and more moral than conservatives is leading them to ignore what voters are saying.
“Don’t they understand Massachusetts?
Well, they understand it through a prism of two cherished axioms: (1) The people are stupid and (2) Republicans are bad. Result? The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.”
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
9:54 am
LOL!!!
“The dim, led by the malicious, vote incorrectly.”
mike
February 5th, 2010
9:55 am
I can’t tell you how many of my liberal friends have provided that analysis that Krauthammer describes.
jewcowboy
February 5th, 2010
9:57 am
Whether you are for or against transit/high speed rail/commuter rail the fact is that there are other cities and regions in the South East willing to make the investment…and are seeing the economic benefits of doing so. Employers want to be centered around places that make it easier for their employee to get to work…period.
Watch as cities like Charlotte and Tampa eclipse Atlanta. Watch as Fortune 500 companies and small companies decide to relocate their headquarters and manufacturing centers to these other cities.
If you build it, they will come…and leave Atlanta a faltering has been with only a mega-airport where people do not stop…just change plans.
So regardless of your stance on rail…if you are for economic development for Georgia…then you must get on board.
Granny Godzilla
February 5th, 2010
9:57 am
Charles Krauthammer…..Bless his heart!
Mick
February 5th, 2010
9:58 am
Outhouse
Hey Citizen…9.7%
That’s better than 10.3% Give this pres a break, why don’t ya?
mm
February 5th, 2010
9:58 am
Jay,
The smart ones among us know that Republicans can’t lead. They just try to bring down the ones that DO try to lead. The result – status quo.
professional skeptic
February 5th, 2010
9:58 am
Since praying for rain worked so well here in GA, I’m going to start to praying for rail transit. Maybe it’ll fall out of Georgia’s sky. Oh, and funds for education. And a winning lottery ticket while I’m at it.
Oh yeah, and Georgia’s state politicians are puppets of the road builders, which is why we see no investment in rail.
JohnD
February 5th, 2010
9:59 am
JC — you are dead wrong. Its a core conservative principle in Georgia to take tax dollars from liberal Atlanta and spend them in conservative rural Georgia.
Its been going on for years. Sure, rural democrats used to control the house and senate in Georgia — but they sure weren’t liberals. They were just as mighty-whitey-righty as you are. The only reason they didn’t call themselves Republicans is because of that little dust-up about abolishing slavery.
There has never been progressive state government in Georgia. Whether its dems or Repubs, progressive they are not.
Fergit hell.
Mick
February 5th, 2010
10:00 am
**“Don’t they understand Massachusetts?**
Simple analysis: the better candidate won, nothing more – nothing less.
Outhouse Go-Kart
February 5th, 2010
10:02 am
A break? Kinda like Obama is giving the unemployed?
LOL!
Well we will see what the coming months jobless rate number are. Hopefully they will improve.
Jenifer
February 5th, 2010
10:02 am
Wallace Awkwardly Tries To Defend His ‘Hope’ That Palin Will Sit On His Lap During Their Interview.
I will give Imus a tip of the hat for his beautiful setup of Wallace.
Other than that it would be fun to see the look on Wallace’s face when (and if) Palin swishes into the studio to do the interview.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/05/wallace-palin-2/
Joey
February 5th, 2010
10:02 am
But the Atlanta Commuter’s opinion stays constant, “As long as I have a parking space I will drive my car. Alone.”
Jenifer
February 5th, 2010
10:06 am
Bosch, 9:51,
It’ll be worth your time, I guarantee it.
Matilda
February 5th, 2010
10:06 am
OMG, now THIS is the train we need today! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2urpAl081kY
jewcowboy
February 5th, 2010
10:07 am
Outhouse Go-Kart,
“The Atlanta “leaders” need to understand one important issue. This is the State of GEORGIA not the State of Atlanta.”
Yes…and what area of the state contributes the most income for the state? Rural GA is tied to cities such as Atlanta, Savannah and Macon, as surely as those cities are tied to rural GA.
“High speed rail, light rail etc…just another govt boondoggle. Can you say Amtrak.”
Boondoggle…or economic development? Employers want their employees to have easy access to their job site…and have shown willingness to relocate to areas that provide that access…say hello Charlotte…wave goodbye to Atlanta.
Amtrak…yes great if you want to go to Birmingham, AL or Colombia, SC.
mike
February 5th, 2010
10:07 am
Mick:
“Simple analysis: the better candidate won, nothing more – nothing less.”
There is no doubt that she was a terrible candidate, but lets not forget that we are talking about Massachusetts and we are talking about a landslide. Let’s also not forget NJ, VA and the massive anti-incumbent mood.
I hope that most liberals believe the way you do. It is exactly the kind of self-delusion that Krauthammer is talking about.