T-SPLOST transit projects don’t address real problems of congestion — or even of MARTA
The chief argument for approving the T-SPLOST in a referendum this year boils down to this: If it fails, what kind of signal will that send to businesses wary of Atlanta’s notorious traffic congestion?
Instead of worrying about a negative message for a couple of years — until Plan B emerged, as it inevitably would — voters ought to be more concerned by what it will mean for the next couple of decades if we spend billions of dollars on projects that don’t improve matters much.
It’s true that some worthy projects would receive funding from the 1 percent sales tax lawmakers are putting to a public vote. To wit: Improved interchanges of major interstates, such as the top end of I-285 with I-85 and Ga. 400, should ease bottlenecks that now back up rush-hour commuters for miles.
But the list is too compromised by other big-ticket items that will tie up tax dollars for far more than 10 years without lessening traffic. Transit projects, which consume more than half of the $6.14 billion expected to be available for regional projects, are the prime suspects.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I am not opposed to transit per se. But let’s review the T-SPLOST list’s obvious flaws by looking at the effects it would — and wouldn’t — have on MARTA.
MARTA is down for $540 million from T-SPLOST for repairs and upgrades to existing infrastructure. This backlog exists even though half of the agency’s sales tax revenue is reserved for capital improvements and maintenance.
In other words, the agency can’t keep up with its maintenance and capital needs now. Yet, a proposed answer is to drop the restriction and allow MARTA to divert maintenance money to subsidize operations. Passenger fares yield a fraction of what it costs to run trains and buses.
Stick with me here: I promise to tie all this together.
A big reason MARTA’s farebox recovery is so low is that its trains and buses too often aren’t full. Having too few passengers forces the agency to cut frequency to make trains and buses more full and thus cost-efficient.
Cutting frequency, however, means fewer people choose to ride MARTA if they have other options. Which leads to fewer passengers, which leads to less fare revenue, which makes MARTA even less able to sustain itself.
The obvious answer is to draw more people into the network, but MARTA’s reach is limited geographically. So, logically, the T-SPLOST list should expand that footprint.
It doesn’t.
Two major transit projects on the list are the Beltline and the Clifton Corridor line. Each exists within MARTA’s current footprint. A third is the line that extends northwest from MARTA’s current rail lines to Cumberland Mall. That’s an expansion of sorts, but the line would still be miles and miles — and more than $1 billion — from reaching the parts of Cobb County where traffic is worst.
Together, these projects consume a third of the money for regional projects while bringing a relatively small number of people just a couple of miles closer to a MARTA station. The real traffic woes lie tens of miles from MARTA’s furthest outposts.
Here’s the kicker: Ending the restriction on MARTA’s sales-tax revenues is being offered in exchange for putting the agency under a regional authority. This new entity wouldn’t actually run MARTA, the Cobb or Gwinnett transit agencies, or any others. Instead, its chief purpose would be to give metro Atlanta a single voice when seeking federal funding for transit.
Why is this important? Because regional leaders think federal funds will be necessary to extend transit out into the suburbs. Why? Because T-SPLOST money is being spent on projects that don’t extend transit to the suburbs!
You can ride a long time in the ruts of this circular logic without getting anywhere. Surely, the commuters who sit in traffic, while T-SPLOST doesn’t address their problems, will do just that.
Two Cobb leaders have asked the Legislature to reopen the region’s T-SPLOST list to move money away from the Cumberland line and toward new reversible lanes on I-75. Some key legislators are hesitant to do anything that could prevent a vote on the tax this year.
My advice? Worry less about getting this done soon and more about getting it right.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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135 comments Add your comment
clyde
February 2nd, 2012
12:24 pm
Congestion isn’t a real problem where I live.We do have one traffic light.I always take another route and avoid it.Some of our roads are even paved.Sorry about the mess in Atlanta,but I didn’t do it.
Do what??????
February 2nd, 2012
12:25 pm
Wow, looks like Kyle has his hands full today with some of these bloggers.
ByteMe
February 2nd, 2012
12:31 pm
ByteMe do as many Cobb County people go downtown as Atlanta people come to Cobb Cy?
I don’t know. Do you have any facts to show one way or the other? And do you have any facts to relate crime to transit buses in Cobb?
I’m still waiting for facts. Which are facts. Not anecdotes I have to go get from someone else who doesn’t have facts.
Will
February 2nd, 2012
12:44 pm
TSPLOST does not spend money to solve the problems we face every day. I say vote no. Make the leadership fix our problems instead of subsidizing those who think transportation is a way to reengineer our lives.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 2nd, 2012
12:44 pm
Obozo on his dream of higher taxes: “But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that ‘for unto whom much is given, much shall be required,’
——–
I bet you libtards really wish Obozo would stop trying to force his beliefs on you, eh?
Kyle Wingfield
February 2nd, 2012
12:45 pm
I will never understand why @@ is the target of choice for so much handle-jacking.
Jefferson
February 2nd, 2012
12:49 pm
Face the facts taxes have to be raised, plans need to be made. You can’t just keep all your money and expect things to happen. Look at who’s running the state for answers.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 2nd, 2012
12:49 pm
I was going to make a joke about discussing @@’s imposters and jacking, but that would have been crude.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 2nd, 2012
12:55 pm
“You can’t just keep all your money”
———
^^^ The Democrat credo.
It would be really nice to be able to keep sixty or seventy percent of it. Obozo’s base won’t understand that statement, but the productive class are all nodding in agreement.
Jefferson
February 2nd, 2012
1:05 pm
The problem with know it alls is they don’t know it all.
Don
February 2nd, 2012
1:15 pm
Transit for metro Atlanta isn’t so much a matter of “if and when” as it is “what and how”.
Kyle is right that the focus should be on getting good, functional transit connectivity for the region. New, light rail and bus rapid transit make great projects for the designers and builders of these things, but maybe not so much for congestion relief right now. Doing ancillary commuter rail is by far, the best bang for the buck and it should only take a couple of years to get going, even with the myriad of gov’t regs and required reviews.
Another feature that’s long overdue is zoned fares for MARTA. Even when MARTA is convenient for a trip, the flat fare can be a killer. $2.50 to go the two miles from Arts Center to Five Points to meet a friend for lunch? Really? Or a quick trip from Midtown to Lenox to do some shopping? Compare to BART in SF, which is a lot like MARTA. $1.40 for travel within downtown, $5 to go to the airport (15 miles out). We have had Breeze cards which can do this in place for a couple of years now. What’s taking so long!
Even with all the “stupid” baked into it, I’m still for the T-SPLOST because a half a “stupid” is better than nothing at all.
Don't Tread
February 2nd, 2012
1:21 pm
Teleworking (reducing demand on the existing infrastructure) is the real answer to the problem – not throwing billions more into a corrupt system, and not attempting to force people into lifestyles they don’t want.
ragnar danneskjold
February 2nd, 2012
1:25 pm
Dear Kyle @ 12:45, I can answer. Friend @@ is not only brilliant, she has a wicked sense of humor and clever way with words. Leftists cannot stand to be mocked.
Albert Shelby
February 2nd, 2012
1:36 pm
What is not mentioned in this article or in the comments is the TSPLOST will free up MILLIONS in Federal and State funds to be used for road congestion solutions. That’s money that was going to the list available for the TSPLOST funds.
VOTE YES!!!
Kyle Wingfield
February 2nd, 2012
1:41 pm
Don @ 1:15: I’m with you until that last sentence. File the pressure to pass this tax under “tyranny of the urgent.” We have time to get this right.
Don’t Tread @ 1:21: I agree, there should be much more policy focus on teleworking. If we are going to spend money to address the problem of congestion, we very likely could have much more impact for a fraction of the cost with incentives for people to eliminate their commutes altogether (or, at least, reduce the frequency of their commutes).
Kyle Wingfield
February 2nd, 2012
1:42 pm
Albert Shelby: And what is not mentioned in your reply is that the state DOT, if it wishes, can choose to spend that money on those very same projects with or without the T-SPLOST. Also, that I am not advocating dropping the T-SPLOST altogether, but taking the time to make sure we get it right.
Junior Samples
February 2nd, 2012
2:06 pm
Hey Kyle,
I do understand many of the points you’ve made. But let’s not forget the main reason why Cobb and Gwinnett don’t have Marta rail lines, they don’t want it. They’d rather sit in a traffic jam they created than share the ride with their neighbors on a public train. Sure, they will cite crime as the main reason. But with that same logic they should shut down the on-off ramps on the interstates since I-85 and I-75 are the reason for the drug trafficing they’re dealing with now.
Another reason is short mindedness. They won’t pay now for improvements in the future like DeKalb and Fulton have and do. Marta has incremented further east, west, and north slowly. But not in Cobb and Gwinnett, and that’s their own fault. Let them waste their time and money sitting on asphalt. Clayton should get more attention, but they need to drawup the plans.
So I understand why projects like the Beltline and Clifton corridor get attention and potential funding, the people who live there want it, plans have been made, studies performed, just add water… Sure, it makes sense to modify an intersection here or there to ease conjestion, but it’s a temporary fix. As the past has shown adding more lanes is short term thinking. Even in cities with a larger and far reaching rail options have major traffic problems on their roads.
So it’s time to add a one or two cent tax on transportation and fund whatever projects seem worthwhile, and wanted, from here until we’re all wearing jetpacks. I think the only change to t-splost should be this, either your county wants in or out. Period. In time those that opt out will regret their decision.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
2:15 pm
The chief argument for approving the T-SPLOST in a referendum this year boils down to this: If it fails, what kind of signal will that send to businesses wary of Atlanta’s notorious traffic congestion?
That we’re just not that into ‘em? Funny…Georgia being a red state and all.
Liberals, on the other hand, want rapid transit to “and fro”.
Fickle lovers, they…
ByteMe
February 2nd, 2012
2:17 pm
Fulton and Dekalb should insist that since no one else wants to pay for MARTA, cars entering the two counties should have to pay a toll of $2.50 to use the major highways that pass through those two counties. Wake a few people up!
markie mark
February 2nd, 2012
2:22 pm
I have said this before, but it bears repeating in this blog….my father, who died when I was a child in 1964, used to say to my mother (he was a die hard UGA fan) that every 6 months the GADOT hired the GA Tech engineering graduate with the worst GPA and put him in charge of Atlanta’s roads….after 6 months they fired the poor s.o.b because he was beginning to figure it all out and hired the next worst graduate…..now you have to understand, this was in the 50’s….
In 1983, as a joke, I told that story in a liquor store on South Cobb drive…..(I was a liquor salesman in my 20’s). The clerk behind the counter (in his late 70’s/early 80’s, turned redder, and redder, and…..finally, he exploded and cursed me for all I was worth….turns out he was the #2 in the state road division that was trying to deal with Atlanta’s growth….”young man, we expected a 30% growth rate in the 50’s, and we got 50%+”….he proceeded to “educate” me that no matter what was planned in Atlanta’s growth in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the reality exponentially beat the projections….they got behind then, and we have never caught up. I always remember that when this discussion comes up….seems we have had poor road planning for the last 50+ years in this town….
Do what??????
February 2nd, 2012
2:33 pm
“I will never understand why @@ is the target of choice for so much handle-jacking.”
It’s trolls from Bookman’s blog who do this. @@ also had her e-mail hijacked by some crazy idiot from Bookman’s blog.
DawgDad
February 2nd, 2012
2:34 pm
NO – to TSPLOST. The “SPLOSTs” are aptly named (”LOST”) – pointed reminders in each election cycle of how much economic freedom we’ve turned over to politicians, and their endless greed for more.
We ALREADY pay taxes to fund transportation infrastructure expansion and maintenance.
Proposals to expand MARTA rail are pie-eyed fantasy. The core system we have now is economically unsustainable and it provides essentially zero transportation value to the vast majority of taxpayers funding it. So you want to EXPAND the corruption and cost for an almost worthless system? You want to put toll lanes up I-575 instead of relieving traffic? [Don't think for a minute we trust our leaders on this one]. This is LEADERSHIP in government? No, it is not. It is some group of people wanting MY money for THEIR personal benefit. NO!
JohnnyReb
February 2nd, 2012
2:39 pm
ByteMe @ 2:17
The biggest thing against Fulton and Dekalb counties is, they are Fulton and Dekalb Counties.
Dekalb just approved letting county employees purchase appliances through payroll deduction. The leadeship there is hopelessly lost. The only ones that may surpass them is Fulton.
When it comes to Fulton, every municipality of responsibility either has separated themselves or is trying to do so. I hope Milton comes to pass; it will serve Fulton right. The county and ATL won’t get on track until they stop voting in Democrats who only know how to stick out their hand.
What does this have to do with T-SPLOST? Who in surrounding counties their right mind would vote to give their money to Fulton and Dekalb?
GodHatesTrash, Superstar
February 2nd, 2012
2:53 pm
The Perimeter had just opened in 1969, and whites had begun fleeing the city of Atlanta in droves. There were 300,000 white people in the city of Atlanta in 1960. 60,000 left in the late 1960s, and another 100,000 in the 1970s. The white citizens of the City Too Busy To Hate weren’t so busy that they couldn’t move. The population of Cobb almost doubled from 1965 to 1970, and it more than doubled again by 1980. The white separatists/segregationists made sure that MARTA would stop at the county line, as did the folks in Gwinnett.
(MARTA was dimensioned in the early 1970s, when white flight was at its peak. The system was designed not so much for commuters but for people who didn’t have cars – to provide blue-collar labor and domestics for hotels and businesses downtown.
(When gas was $1 a gallon like it was for decades, the stupidity of racism was less expensive, and commuting from Smyrna did not take near as long as commuting from Barrett Parkway or Canton.)
The white flight of the 1970s provided the impetus for suburban development that was most of the time was the fastest in the nation – Cobb and then Gwinnett were always among the fastest growing counties in the US.
I suggest Kevin Kruse’s book White Flight – Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism as some interesting backgrounder for your understanding of MARTA and some of the problems that it has, Kyle. While we generally think of ‘white flight’ as a northern city phenomenon, it happened in Atlanta seemingly overnight, and drastically changed the area. As more and more of Atlanta’s ‘burbs become slurbs and outright slums, residents of the area can’t afford the racism of the oogedy-boogedy crowd any more.
Junior Samples
February 2nd, 2012
2:54 pm
Johnny Reb,
A little history for you. Twice upon a time Sandy Springs left Fulton, then came back on their hands and knees because they couldn’t make it on their own. This is just their latest attempt at ‘independence’. I wish them, and you, luck because I’m tired of this part of history repeating itself.
But just like a child that fails to make it on their own and moves back home, we let you back in… Because you’re still family.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
2:58 pm
HEY!!!!
I will never understand why @@ is the target of choice for so much handle-jacking.
Me either. Did “I” have anything important to say?
schnirt
Back to the topic. Doesn’t an increase in sales tax have a negative impact on the poor?
Yes it does.
I can only imagine how leftists feel about THAT. It’s a dog eat dog world?
@@
February 2nd, 2012
3:05 pm
GHT:
The white citizens of the City Too Busy To Hate weren’t so busy that they couldn’t move.
To hear my black neighbors tell it, they moved out of Atlanta to escape the congestion and crime. Needed room to breath.
I’ll take ‘em at their word if that’s O.K. with you.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
3:35 pm
Romney is a bit clumsy in his delivery. I’m guessin’ it’s the codpiece? O.K….it was taken out of context…but still. The Obama campaign is gonna have a heyday with Romney’s clumsy delivery.
Gingrich has blasted Romney for the remark over the past two days, declaring Wednesday that he is “fed up with politicians in either party dividing Americans against each other.”
It’s more like pigeonholing.
On Thursday, Gingrich said that “we should care about the very poor — unlike Governor Romney. But I believe that we should care differently than Barack Obama. Both Governor Romney and Barack Obama seem to believe that a ’safety net’ is all the poor need. I don’t believe that. What the poor need is a trampoline so they can spring up and quit being poor.”
Excellent!
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 2nd, 2012
3:36 pm
Obama Announces 2012 Launch Of “African-Americans For Obama”
Obama, on behalf of his reelection campaign, announces their strategy to court African-American voters, a voting bloc that he heavily secured during his first run. In 2008, Obama received 95% of the black vote. Obama’s campaign statement is below.
Today, we’re announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama.
———–
Barry Obozo, uniter.
Linda
February 2nd, 2012
3:40 pm
Al Gore has already solved all the traffic problems for the little people: bicycles.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
3:54 pm
Ah “The Grandiose K-Street Historian” getting in a bit of that “right-wing social engineering”, sanctimoniously of course.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
3:59 pm
Liberals joined in attacking Romney’s defense of Catholic hospitals. But that defense did not last long.
The same day the Globe ran its editorial, Romney held a press conference. Now he said his legal counsel had advised him the new emergency contraception law did trump the 1975 conscience law.
“On that basis, I have instructed the Department of Public Health to follow the conclusion of my own legal counsel and to adopt that sounder view,” Romney said. “In my personal view, it’s the right thing for hospitals to provide information and access to emergency contraception to anyone who is a victim of rape.”
http://townhall.com/columnists/terryjeffrey/2012/02/02/creators_oped
So Romney was for it before Obama was!!??!!
Mums the word.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
4:04 pm
Like Gingrich was for Cap and Trade with Pelosi and for Hilary/Obumercare before he was against it!
Just a wee-bit more of that “right-wing social engineering”, sanctimoniously of course.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
4:07 pm
How did the women of Florida vote? Romney 58% to Gingrich 33%
Linda
February 2nd, 2012
4:08 pm
Obama made an oops. 6 members of the Supreme Court are Catholics. The other 3 are Jewish.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
4:23 pm
Howzit goin’, Mikey. I’ve heard tell you’ll eat anything (no sexual innuendo implied).
Like Gingrich was for Cap and Trade with Pelosi and for Hilary/Obumercare before he was against it!
When it comes to financing, the devil’s in the details. Are you privy to those?
Gingrich is no different than Tim Pawlenty and Mike Huckabee…both of whom advocated responsible stewardship.
Gingrich has had plenty of practice responding to complaints about the commercial from the likes of Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh, who argued on his radio show that the former Georgia congressman had been aiding the “enemy.”
“I’d do a commercial with Al Gore,” Gingrich said last May in an interview with the website Human Events. “My point is conservatives ought to be prepared to stand on the same stage and offer a conservative solution.”
Did he elaborate on those conservative solutions
Maybe he’s become enlightened since Climategate.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
4:25 pm
Oh I’m so broke up over the news about MARTA Kyle, I’ll not sleep a wink tonight – NOT!
@@
February 2nd, 2012
4:31 pm
Mikey:
How did the women of Florida vote? Romney 58% to Gingrich 33%
While I love Florida’s beaches, I’m not impressed with their “female” voters. All women are not the same or haven’t you noticed? Some are more petty than others.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
4:34 pm
Pretty good @@ie
Those old devils do pop-up on Gingrich from “all sides”, especially from the various ones he has taken on the issues! Oh but hey, he learned better, as no one else can, right? YEAH, HOOEY!
The good news is @@ie <strong"The Donald" fired Newt(not exactly executive material) and endorsed Mitt.
Seems The Donald approves of Mitt’s “CONSERVATIVE TRADE POLICIES” et al China Inc.
Well it’s supper time @@ie. Perhaps later….
@@
February 2nd, 2012
4:46 pm
The good news is @@ie <strong
That, I am…strongly independent too!
Hillbilly D
February 2nd, 2012
4:51 pm
All women are not the same or haven’t you noticed?
I know an ol’ boy who thinks it’d be smart to sit this one out. (IW&SH)
TruthBe
February 2nd, 2012
4:53 pm
What about toll road 400? Didn’t these same crooks promoise us that as soon as 400 is paid for the tolls would come down. And it had a sundown law attacted to it that the T-SPLOST abandon, Simpy they broke the contract. Where is the outrage? They can’t be trusted. And that means you Gena Evans.
@@
February 2nd, 2012
4:58 pm
Hillbilly:
I was cleaning out my fireplace this afternoon. Found the remains of a roasted duck. I feel terrible just thinking about his/her demise. I’m waiting for my husband to dispose of the remains (feathers only).
My chimney is capped. How it got in there, I do not know.
Ah pooh!!!!
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
February 2nd, 2012
4:59 pm
I remember my last train ride, it was the Metro in DC, and what I recall the most was the gropers, freaks, perverts and other assorted liberals circling around my family. It wasn’t a bad experience overall because I got to show them my new Beretta PX Storm .45ACP and then watch them slink back into their filthy holes.
You can have your little socialist choo choo.
TruthBe
February 2nd, 2012
5:01 pm
“Lil’ Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
February 2nd, 2012
3:36 pm
Obama Announces 2012 Launch Of “African-Americans For Obama”
Obama, on behalf of his reelection campaign, announces their strategy to court African-American voters, a voting bloc that he heavily secured during his first run. In 2008, Obama received 95% of the black vote. Obama’s campaign statement is below.
Today, we’re announcing the 2012 launch of African Americans for Obama.
———–
Barry Obozo, uniter”
Obama and his black only followers are RACIST. Forget the Black vote, they will never get off the Democrats Plantation. Obama was and still is a member of the Black Liberation Theology Racist Pigs. LaRaza is the Latino version of this racist hate groups.
Hillbilly D
February 2nd, 2012
5:01 pm
@@
Your duck burned up but the feathers didn’t??? Oh well, if you can stand the heat, stay outta the fireplace. Goes for ducks, too.
Michael H. Smith
February 2nd, 2012
5:02 pm
Yeah and I’m strongly independently wise enough to know that people like Santorum and Gingrich running for President as religious zealots and anti-abrotionist cannot win the Independent voters approval in this years elections. And among the evangelical, “Values Voters”, as the media likes to call them they won’t vote for a man that has had three wives, I doubt many pagan will either.
Without those “independent voters” that are need to win, obumer gets a second term and the America we knew shall no longer exist. Now go in peace and establish these independent facts @@ie
jm
February 2nd, 2012
5:20 pm
kyle, you’re being too logical
@@
February 2nd, 2012
5:25 pm
Hillbilly:
Your duck burned up but the feathers didn’t???
I don’t know about the duck…that’s why I’m letting my husband dispose of what remains. There may be bones but I don’t wanna see ‘em.
Mikey:
Yeah and I’m strongly independently wise enough to know that people like Santorum and Gingrich running for President as religious zealots and anti-abrotionist cannot win the Independent voters approval in this years elections.
It has more to do with religious freedoms than it does abortions. People should be free to practice their religious beliefs without interference from the government.
Would you prefer Romney/Obama serve as your conscience?
@@
February 2nd, 2012
5:27 pm
…or a bill. I sure don’t wanna see a bill!!??!!