T-SPLOST list doesn’t spend the money where the traffic is
If local poohbahs want to derail a regional transportation sales tax, they should give DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis what he wants. Shift tens of millions of dollars away from road projects where traffic is heaviest, put them toward a MARTA extension where it isn’t — and watch the T-SPLOST crash and burn.
It’s one thing to devote 55 percent of the tax’s projected proceeds to mass transit, now used by 5 percent of commuters. But the current project list, due for final approval within one week, compounds the error by spending money completely out of proportion to where the traffic is.
The Atlanta Regional Commission produces maps of the top 10 percent and top 25 percent most-congested roads in the region. Among surface streets, the lion’s share of the congestion takes place in the northern suburbs of Cobb, North Fulton and Gwinnett counties, plus Dunwoody. Among freeways, six of the nine worst stretches are along I-75 in Cobb, I-85 in Gwinnett, Ga. 400 north of the perimeter, or the top end of I-285.
In short, the vast majority of traffic congestion in metro Atlanta occurs between I-75 in Cobb and I-85 in Gwinnett. Only the Downtown Connector can hold a candle to the top end’s troubles.
What’s more, 46 percent of the people in the 10-county region live OTP in Cobb, North Fulton, Dunwoody and Gwinnett. Likewise, 46 percent of the T-SPLOST’s projected revenues — $2.83 billion out of $6.14 billion — come from that northern swath.
Yet, the current project list would leave this region well short of its proportional take. Even if we include some federal funding tabbed for projects in the northern suburbs, they’d get shortchanged by $150 million. And you may as well ignore another $132 million for studying future transit along 400 and 85, since those two projects would be hundreds of millions of dollars and a decade or more away from existence.
Worse, about one in four dollars devoted to the area would go to a single rail project that would barely cross into Cobb.
Still, we are only now reaching the coup de grace. That would be Ellis’ wish to suck yet another $33 million out of the 400 corridor.
Doing so would leave an area that provides almost half the population and revenues for the T-SPLOST — and way more than half of the region’s traffic congestion — with barely one-third of the proceeds.
And for what? Insistence that transit along I-20 in DeKalb be not buses, but heavy rail — the mode that transit advocates pooh-pooh as too pricey, until there’s real money on the table.
What this and other problems with the T-SPLOST process have revealed is that local officials are unable, or maybe just unwilling, to divide the funds in a way that tackles traffic congestion regionally.
So, we get up to $700 million for a train from the Lindbergh MARTA station to Emory University, another $600 million for Atlanta’s BeltLine, and a sales pitch about providing “last mile” transit connectivity to regional job centers. Neither of those projects is bad, per se. At the same time, neither one will do much good for all the people who will still lack “first mile” connectivity.
They’ll be left to seethe along Jimmy Carter Boulevard, Holcomb Bridge Road and Windy Hill Road, wondering why they’re paying a tax to improve mobility where it’s already comparatively good.
If, that is, they don’t first defeat it as a wasted opportunity.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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112 comments Add your comment
DawgDad
October 10th, 2011
8:49 am
“With all of its flaws, however, T-SPLOST is better than nothing. I will likely vote for it.”
Please explain how a huge boondoggle that will make traffic on the busiest and most congested corridors worse is “better than nothing”. I beg to disagree.
Bryan -- MARTA supporter
October 10th, 2011
9:33 am
@ A Conservative Voice October 8th, 2011 8:18 am
First, my job definitely doesn’t depend on MARTA. I enjoy the fact that MARTA is available. Second, MARTA can’t be a bottomless pit because it is so underfunded. Third, most projects are not “shovel ready” so people are going to have to wait for some projects. I’d rather wait and atleast know that it will be done then wait 10 years and nothing is still not done AND not even planned.
People like Conservative Voice and Kyle are the reason transit doesn’t move forward in this area. So many excuses on why not to build transit but never have an alternative other than “build roads wider” which clearly has not worked.
Only 5% ride transit? That’s about right. Even in NYC where they have a little over 1 million rides a day they only have about 5% of the population riding. There are 20 million folks in the NYC metro area.
If you look at most new developments they are now being built as walkable, transit friendly communities to get cars off the road. Building new transit stations will increase this kind of development around stations. I agree density plays a part but it’s still more based on population. This is a car area and folks are going to drive to the stations. 5.8 million people is 5.8 million people, whether they are condensed within 2 square miles or 20.
Rail and mass transit overall brings jobs. Ask how many CEO’s decided to move to a city and said “hey… that sure is a wide highway; we need to move to that city!” Now how many have made a decision based on the proximity to a rail station or mass transit?
Unless these conservative suburbs understand that Atlanta needs to be supported and so does transit, the area is going to fail and you won’t need to worry about transit or roads. Your unemployed tail will be at home! Hope you can pay your internet bill to search for a new job and pay that car note. You’ll need to because you won’t have a bus or train to take to move you around when you can’t.
Karl Marx
October 10th, 2011
9:34 am
Last Democrat,
Highway 20 is already a major though truck traffic route. This 4 lane project is a way to increase that. The DOT knew for years a northern east west route was needed to take truck traffic from I75 to Gainesville and I85. I see everyday how many trucks take 20 to avoid Atlanta. The outer perimeter would have attracted more but the Eco terrorist won the day and kept some of that traffic on 285 so enjoy it while you can
Ya’ll earned it.
Santa's Helper
October 10th, 2011
9:41 am
Grownups like to build grownup trains to play with, especially when they are built with other peoples money.
Common Sense
October 10th, 2011
9:45 am
Do you know what you are talking about Bryan Marta Supporter?
NYC has 10 times the percentage of riders using mass transit. Over 54% of daily commuters.
That comment alone from you is not even close to being accurate.
Dumb and Dumber
October 10th, 2011
12:58 pm
Just kill this suburban road tax.
If y’all want to sit in traffic in the burbs, fine. Just don’t expect us folks who live ITP to pay for your roads.
Question: What’s the quickest way to get to Alabama from Little 5 Points?
Answer: 20 miles in any direction. Once you cross 285 its all Alabama.
Enjoy your car!
Don
October 10th, 2011
8:07 pm
DawdDad at 8:49
Simple. These boondoggle projects spread thin around the region do add some capacity to the transportation network. It might not be cheap or particularly effective capacity, but it still adds capacity. For the region to grow, capacity is needed. It will grow where you add the capacity. So, short term, this stinks. Long term, not quite so much – but still not great.
We haven’t added any real capacity to the networks since King Roy’s GRTA/GCT/Express buses. Equivalent capacity to carry single passenger autos in highway lanes would have cost billions to construct.
It’s past time to do something, anything!
“T-SPLOST list doesn’t spend the money where the traffic is” « Jim Gilvin for Alpharetta City Council
October 11th, 2011
9:10 am
[...] encourage you to read the whole column here. LD_AddCustomAttr("AdOpt", "1"); LD_AddCustomAttr("Origin", "other"); [...]
Bob Ross
October 12th, 2011
12:08 am
Last Democrat…
Researcher Bertaid didn’t simply divide the total 10-county population by the total land area to calculate density; he examined the population density of every individual census tract in the region. He then overlaid the bus & train rider catchment areas to see the density of areas served by bus & train stops.
He also compared the number of jobs proximate to bus & rail stops in 1990 and 2000 (2010 census data wasn’t available for the study). Of note, the number of jobs within a half mile of transit stops declined dramatically- on the order of 50%. Clearly, businesses did not put a premium on locating close to transit in our metro region.
Bertaud went on to examine whether new residents chose to situate near transit stops, and found that 85% chose not to.
A very interesting and illuminating study, and easy to follow with it’s clear illustrations. Google his name (Alain Bertaud) and ” Atlanta” to read a PDF copy.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
October 12th, 2011
2:43 am
Bob Ross
October 12th, 2011
12:08 am
“Clearly, businesses did not put a premium on locating close to transit in our metro region.”
Can you blame them? Transit, along with transportation in general, is pretty much a joke in this town, and not a very funny one at that.
MARTA runs what has devolved from one of the top-10 transit systems in North American down to a bare-bones operation in noticeable decline with plans to cut operations even further.
Commuter rail is non-existent, even after four million newcomers to the region in 30 years.
Virtually no new capacity has been added to the freeway system in the nearly two decades since the opening of the Georgia 400 Toll Extension in 1993 despite adding the equivalent of the population of the entire Denver Region during that time.
Build The Outer Perimeter
October 12th, 2011
7:14 am
@Last Democrat-Are there any politicians that will push for commuter rail? It seems to make sense as one of several methods of addressing the congestion.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
October 12th, 2011
5:09 pm
There is a state legislator in Cobb County who is pushing somewhat for the option of putting commuter rail on the existing CSX and Georgia Northeastern Railroad lines that parallel Interstates 75 and 575 in Cobb and Cherokee Counties as an alternative that would be much more sustainable over the long-term than the proposed light rail line running from the MARTA Arts Center Station in Midtown to the Cumberland Mall/Galleria area near the junction of Interstates 75 and 285.
Governor Deal just also created a regional transit oversight agency/transit authority about a few weeks ago which is rumored to be funded with another regional tax besides the proposed T-SPLOST to fund it, which is ironic because GRTA was created to supposedly do the same thing about a dozen years ago, but never did.
The Clayton County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell has also been very vocal in demanding some of the T-SPLOST funds be directed towards implementing commuter rail on the Norfolk Southern rail line that parallels Hwy 19-41 between Atlanta and Macon that already has secured around $100 million in startup funding from the Feds that is just sitting there waiting to be used.
There’s also a group of advocates who continue to support implementing commuter rail on the CSX line between Atlanta and Athens (the “Brain Train” project).
The Georgia Department of Transportation even has a rudimentary rough draft kind of blueprint of what a regional commuter rail system would look like in the Railroads section of its website at http://dot.ga.gov/maps/pages/Railroad.aspx.
The only thing is that, other than the regional blueprint on the GDOT website, there does not seem to any cohesive plan for a regional commuter rail system, but rather a whole bunch of different transportation plans competing against each other, often within the same branches of local and state government agencies.
Hard to believe, especially after the Atlanta Region has added close to four million new residents in the last 30 years, but the current not-all-that-well-thought-out TSPLOST referendum is the area’s first ever real attempt at regional transportation planning….and it shows.
Up until now, the closest thing to “planning” that had ever gone on was by land spectulators and developers scouting new locations for spectulative residential and commercial developments as the Atlanta Region’s population has been so explosive over the last three decades that developers could just build it and consumers would just literally come and buy it up.
Well, our “build-it-and-they-will-come” approach to transportation “planning” has finally caught up with us and in a very big way, which isn’t too great for a region and state that don’t like to or even seem to know how to invest in infrastructure.