What’s Plan B if T-SPLOST fails here, passes elsewhere?
The claim by proponents of the T-SPLOST that there is “no Plan B” — no alternative to the proposed 1 percent increase in the sales tax and the $6.1 billion in regional transportation projects it would build — has always struck me as silly.
Is there another plan already prepared and waiting in the wings should voters reject the tax in July? Probably not. In that sense, the “no Plan B” talk rings true. But surely no one believes local and state officials would just quit trying to speed up the construction of new roads and mass transit. A second option would emerge, probably sooner than later.
That said, there is one real nightmare scenario for those who would have to create a Plan B: The tax fails in metro Atlanta, but passes elsewhere.
We in metro Atlanta tend not to think about the tax referendum outside our 10-county region. But the rest of the state is divided into 11 other T-SPLOST regions, and the tax might very well pass in some of them.
Legislators discussed the reverse case — that the tax would pass in metro Atlanta and nowhere else — before passing the Transportation Investment Act two years ago. But I never heard anyone consider that traffic-choked Atlanta might turn it down while other regions embraced it.
For argument’s sake, let’s say voters in the three regions comprising Augusta, Columbus and Savannah approve the tax. Those regions represent a quarter of Georgia’s 159 counties and one-sixth of the state’s population.
What alternative could then be taken at the state level? For example, it would be seemingly impossible for the state to raise the motor fuel tax only in counties that rejected the T-SPLOST. It’d also be exceedingly unpopular in those counties, and probably counterproductive: Counties slapped with a higher gas tax would likely bleed some fuel sales, and thus revenues, to unaffected counties.
Counties that approved the tax would not watch idly if the state tried to raise another tax on everyone, just to take care of Atlanta. And they almost certainly would raise heck to make sure regions that rejected the tax were assessed the penalties in the law. Among the poison pills for a “no” vote: requiring locals to match 30 percent of state transportation spending rather than 10 percent.
Those penalties also would seem to prevent the state from simply devoting more funds to transportation in metro Atlanta. Complain all you want that the Legislature tries to control MARTA without contributing to its budget, but there are even longer odds of that changing if the T-SPLOST fails.
So, the likeliest Plan B is a do-over for Plan A. That would be a re-vote on a regional tax, probably with a revamped project list, in 2014; that’s when the tax, by law, would next be allowed on the ballot.
And I must say I’m torn about that prospect — although I’m certain it frightens those state officials who support the tax now and would be in the unenviable position of supporting it a second time while running for re-election (cough, cough, Gov. Nathan Deal).
My main hesitation toward the T-SPLOST is that the project list isn’t focused enough on our region’s worst traffic congestion, and that voting “yes” this summer will use up one of our precious few options for improving transportation. A two-year delay is worthwhile if it means we get it right.
But then, I’m not sure why we’d trust the same people to create a better list next time.
In fact, trust is shaping up to be a big factor in this referendum. But that will have to wait for another column.
– By Kyle Wingfield
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160 comments Add your comment
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
3:44 pm
zeke
May 19th, 2012
11:45 am
I don’t disagree with you, but the state tried to build the outer loop concept before with very bad political results.
Remember the old Outer Perimeter proposal which, due to very intensely negative public pressure, was scaled back to a proposal for an even more negatively-received proposed “Northern Arc” through financially-affluent, politically-influential Gwinnett, Forsyth, Cherokee and Bartow counties.
While the proposed road was received exceedingly well in Gwinnett County, which has kept the right-of-way of the road clear of development for its own road project since the state’s project was cancelled back in 2003, there was a heckuva lot of resistance and hostility to the Northern Arc proposal in Forsyth and Cherokee counties where local landowners wanted to remain free to sell their land to the highest-bidding real estate developers who were continuing to put up new housing subdivisions left and right out in those exurban counties.
There were also old-line landowners out in Bartow County whose land sat directly in the path of the proposed road who had the political clout to get the project halted from within the state government.
After Roy Barnes and the long-ruling Democrats were thrown out head first by angry voters, partly for pushing an increasingly unpopular road project that was expected to mainly benefit real estate developers and land spectulators, don’t expect the now-ruling Republicans who now completely dominate state government to forget the lessons of the 2002 elections and risk their power by supporting the very same Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc concept that helped to get the Dems their heads and a**es handed to them on a platter and cost them 140 years of almost complete rule over Georgia politics.
The lessons of the 2002 elections are the reason why the outer loop concept remains politically-radioactive to the Republican-dominated state government who doesn’t dare to even say the words “Outer Perimeter” or “Northern Arc” in public.
The angry public backlash against the Outer Perimeter/Northern Arc proposal and the political inability to build such that and other critically-needed roads is also why transit must remain an option, because the inability to build an outer loop means that we are unable to pull truck traffic off of busy urban freeways.
Without an outer loop option, our only choice to improve freeway traffic is to attempt to pull as much SOV (single-occupant vehicle) traffic off of local roads, an option which most drivers won’t necessarily like as further unwanted restrictions on peak-hour personal vehicle use becomes more of an undesired reality (see HOT lanes converted out of existing lanes on freeways).
Though I agree that economic development proposals like the Beltline and streetcars, probably should not be a priority in a regional transportation tax question that politicians at the state level didn’t have the guts to decide on themselves.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 19th, 2012
4:01 pm
To be fair, Last Democrat, Forsyth didn’t like it because it cut right through current subdivisions in more than a few instances, not only removing those existing houses, but having a highway right behind remaining homes in pretty wealthy neighborhoods.
Lugnut
May 19th, 2012
4:02 pm
Untie the knot? Except by the proponents own admission this is only a down payment. Before it was “Freeing the Freeways”. Who can forget Purdue’s “Operation Fast Forward”. Now we have actual real governemt officials stating that your commute time will be reduced to mere minutes vs. your current 1 1/2 hours if you will just jack up that sales tax one more time. In fact, we are told by notable radio commentators that jobs are leaving our area because of the congestion and will actually come here if we just jack up one more tax.
Somehow, in the jobs statement, we never hear why a 6% income tax rate and a 9% sales tax rate are attractive to companies and their employees. Think about it – you pay 6% of each dollar just to earn it and will pay 9% for the privilege of spending it. To boot, you get to hear all about our low taxes. How this compares favorably to no income tax states TN and FL will have to be explained to me again.
Bottom line – create more roads – you create more development – and cause more traffic. The proponents even brag about this as the outcome – remember the attracting employers part.
Vote no. When you do, you get to really PO the folks at the real GA DOT – the CW Matthews Company. http://www.cwmatthews.com/
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
4:05 pm
ScottNATL
May 19th, 2012
1:00 pm
The 50-50 restrictions on MARTA’s sales tax revenues is not really the problem with the agency as the 50% of sales tax revenue that the state requires MARTA to put aside for capital costs doesn’t even cover most of its ongoing capital costs.
MARTA’s biggest problem is that they don’t take in enough revenues from sources other than the sales tax, other sources like parking and traffic fines (in almost every transit-heavy city, fees on parking and traffic fines are fed directly into the coffers of the transit service) and the farebox as MARTA’s revenues from fares don’t even cover one-third of its overall costs (MARTA’s exact fare recovery ratio is 31.8%).
The fact that MARTA doesn’t even recover one-third of its costs at the farebox means that its fares are entirely too low for what it is expected to do to alleviate severe traffic congestion and further mobility at the core of the metro area.
It appears that MARTA could begin to help improve its financial outlook by just simply adopting a combination of a zone-based and a distance-based fare-structrure and raising its base fare from what is a clearly-inadequate $2.50 one-way in a tax-averse political environment where they are NEVER going to be subsidized mostly with tax revenues.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
4:17 pm
Tiberius – Banned from Bookman’s and proud of it!
May 19th, 2012
4:01 pm
“To be fair, Last Democrat, Forsyth didn’t like it because it cut right through current subdivisions in more than a few instances, not only removing those existing houses, but having a highway right behind remaining homes in pretty wealthy neighborhoods.”
You are right, that was a VERY major part, too, as to why the Northern Arc went down in flames.
There’s no way that a bunch of wealthy, politically-influential voters, many of them high-powered lawyers, by the way, were going to stand idly by and let a freeway be run directly through, by and behind their expensive exurban homes.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
4:20 pm
Lugnut
May 19th, 2012
4:02 pm
I agree with your post as that is so true.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 19th, 2012
4:47 pm
Highways don’t pay for themselves — Since 1947, the amount of money spent on highways, roads and streets has exceeded the amount raised through gasoline taxes and other so-called “user fees” by $600 billion (2005 dollars), representing a massive transfer of general government funds to highways.
Okay. Maybe 0.9% of the cost of roads paid for by gas tax was an overestimate.
@@
May 19th, 2012
4:52 pm
T-SPLOST again!!??!!
Georgia’s penny ante poker game has gone into overtime.
Clayton County citizens have yet to see what their last penny was supposed to buy.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 19th, 2012
4:59 pm
Everyone should be required to maintain the length of road bordering their property. It’s the only fair way.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
5:03 pm
@@
May 19th, 2012
4:52 pm
“T-SPLOST again!!??!!…….Georgia’s penny ante poker game has gone into overtime…..
……Clayton County citizens have yet to see what their last penny was supposed to buy.”
Yeah, they have, they’re looking at it….Absolutely nothing….
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 19th, 2012
5:10 pm
CAMP DAVID, Md., May 19 (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama will press European leaders to ease up on fiscal austerity and focus on economic growth
———
Leave it to Marxist Idiot Klown to think that government austerity and real economic growth are somehow linked.
No wonder his unemployment rate is higher today than it ever was during Our President Bush’s eight years.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 19th, 2012
5:17 pm
Georgia’s 2011 Budget Report says the gas tax raised $848 million. A little higher than the $300-some million the knucklehead claimed earlier.
Your number is…
Bull.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 19th, 2012
5:20 pm
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories: Everyone should be required to maintain the length of road bordering their property. It’s the only fair way.
——–
Well, half of it…the folks on the other side of the road can take care of their half!
411: I-20 construction
May 19th, 2012
5:23 pm
Went to Brimingham the other day — what the heck are they doing in the median of I-20?
It looks like a 10 mile long sidewalk. 3 feet wide and miles long in the grass 10 feet from the road. Anyone have insight??
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 19th, 2012
5:46 pm
“Went to Brimingham the other day — what the heck are they doing in the median of I-20?”
Usually that is a cement base to insert center guardrails into. Keeps them from having to put them on both sides of the highway.
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 19th, 2012
5:50 pm
411: I-20 construction
May 19th, 2012
5:23 pm
“Went to Brimingham the other day — what the heck are they doing in the median of I-20?
It looks like a 10 mile long sidewalk. 3 feet wide and miles long in the grass 10 feet from the road. Anyone have insight??”
Maybe they are putting in a steel cable divider in the middle of the highway.
I’ve seen them put those in before by doing almost exactly what you’re describing.
Other than that, I don’t know what else it could be.
Dusty
May 19th, 2012
7:36 pm
Well, after reading all this I am convinced that everybody will soon be working at home. Everybody!
Subdivisions and housing projects will have their own WalMart. Folks just walk over and get what they need.
Entertainmnet centers, airports, hospitals, schools and churches will furnish their own buses.
Who said there are no ideas for the future? You just gotta look!! Call it U-GOTTA.
sheepdawg
May 19th, 2012
8:03 pm
vote no
bluecoat
May 19th, 2012
9:00 pm
Are boarders like renters only with meals thrown in(In toll booths of course)on major hwys.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 19th, 2012
9:08 pm
Isn’t Plan B something liberals use to kill little babies with?
ragnar danneskjold
May 19th, 2012
9:45 pm
I’d say “trust” is the issue. I have not yet seen any reason to trust them with more money.
another comment
May 19th, 2012
11:37 pm
This all shows the Republican stupidity. Of course, this is all due to the elected Republican Leader’s punting their duties as elected officials and making the hard calls on the budget. Which would have been to raise taxes to properly fund transit.
I lived in DC 30 years ago and it amazes me that because Georgia has a bunch of raciest, we stil don’t have a functional Marta system. Look at Washington D.C., Northern Va, and Maryland’s Metro system that extends way out into the suberbs, as well as to all areas of major employment. Area’s where their is a Metro station housing prices have risen, areas are revitalized. All classes of people and races ride the Metro to work. We use to ride it from our College in D.C. out to Silver Spring to go to the Grocery Store to save money. As white middle class kids we were not going to pay inner city prices for limited assortment of groceries. So we took the train to the burbs. The train in DC is set by distance you ride, the majority black population of DC does not complain. The white fools that live in the burbs pay the most. The roads simply have not been built and no one wants to be in a 3-4 hour Friday night car commute.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 20th, 2012
5:46 am
another comment: This all shows the Republican stupidity…raciest…stil…suberbs…Area’s…use to…
———————-
Nice spelling, and I didn’t even get to your grammar, punctuation, and capitalization.
If you’re going to call others stupid, you might want to pay a bit more attention to your own posts.
Pot, kettle.
tom rankin
May 20th, 2012
6:59 am
In a time where too many businesses and industries have shut down and too many jobs have been lost…gas and groceries costs have risen…Is not the time to add another tax burden on the taxpayers…especially when trust
for state and local official is at an all time low…
@@
May 20th, 2012
8:39 am
Los Angeles, May 20 — Actor Will Smith slapped a male reporter who tried to kiss him while walking the red carpet at an event.
The reporter from a Ukrainian television station was attempting a pre-screening interview when he grabbed the actor and tried to plant a kiss on his lips.
Smith lost his composure and gave the reporter a light slap and said: “Hey man, yo man, what the hell is your problem buddy,” reports tmz.com
“Hey sorry, he tried to kiss me on the mouth. Joker. He’s lucky I didn’t sucker punch him,” said Smith.
Homophobe!
schnirt
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 20th, 2012
8:41 am
Actor Will Smith during a French television interview this week:
Smith: I have no issue with paying taxes and whatever needs to be done for my country to grow. I believe very firmly that my ability to sit here—I’m a black man who didn’t go to college, yet I get to travel around the world and sell my movies, and I believe very firmly that America is the only place on Earth that I could exist. So I will pay anything that I need to pay to keep my country growing. . . .
Interviewer: Do you know how much in France you would have to pay on earnings above one million euros [under new French President Francois Hollande's proposal]? Not 30%. 75%.
Smith: 75?! Yeah, that’s different, that’s different. Yeah, 75. Well, you know, God bless America.
—————————–
Typical know-nothing libtard Democrat.
Higher taxes for thee, but not for me.
Don Abernethy
May 20th, 2012
8:47 am
For those of us who stay out of down town Atlanta at all costs this will not benefit us. How much of the money generated will fall into the personal bank accounts of politicians involved???
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 20th, 2012
8:47 am
…and the typical know-nothing Democrat notion that paying taxes is what makes the economy grow is just plain ignorant.
Lil' Barry Bailout (Revised Downward)
May 20th, 2012
8:48 am
I was going to go to downtown Atlanta the other day but realized my passport was expired and I hadn’t had the shots.
Tiberius - Banned from Bookman's and proud of it!
May 20th, 2012
9:29 am
Another comment, you really shouldn’t be posting at 11:37 following a night of drinking and smoking dope.
Just sayin’ . . . !
@@
May 20th, 2012
9:37 am
The Washington Post’s, Al Kamen, is a conspiracy theorist?
Bilderburg…Skull & Bones…they’re out to take over Ze Vurld!!!
I can recall many of the AJC’s leftist bloggers claiming the same thing. But now they have Obama to save them.
Obama wasn’t eager to turn his support of gay marriage into an election-year issue. But….
Gay activists to Obama: What’s next?
No good deed goes unpunished.
@@
May 20th, 2012
9:40 am
Last Democrat:
Yeah, they have, they’re looking at it….Absolutely nothing….
Beggin’ yer pardon.
Our jail is getting an expansion. Wasn’t covered under SPLOST, but still…
it’s something.
A Conservative Voice
May 20th, 2012
9:46 am
@Ray
May 18th, 2012
7:21 pm
I will never vote for any Sales Tax Referendum that includes streetcars, a tourist attraction doomed to be supported by taxpayers, forever and ever.
Ray, I am with you 100%. That is an idiotic idea that will do nothing to help the traffic in Metro Atlanta. That, along with giving money to MARTA is what’s gonna doom the Referendum. Folks, this a “Forever Tax” that will never, I say NEVER go away if voted in. Our State, Counties nor the Great United States of America DO NOT NEED ANY MORE TAXES…….we need to spend the revenues we have better and eliminate those that are an obvious waste. NONONONONONONO to the July 31 Referendum.
Now with Ten Percent Fewer Calories
May 20th, 2012
10:23 am
Plan B is that Deal will make sure that sufficient funds are diverted to cover his road construction/widening obligations that he made in order to get those jobs here from companies like Caterpillar. Those sure are some expensive jobs. Just the widening of 441 for Caterpillar alone is millions.
Bob Loblaw
May 20th, 2012
11:21 am
The state can’t vote a gas tax increase for a particular county.
Big D
May 20th, 2012
12:05 pm
Never give politicians money with out strict and specific instructions. Never think a tax once approved will ever go away. Never think politicians will use the money wisely. Never count on the money being beneficial to your neighborhood. Never allow unelected officials to decide how the money is to be spent. Never think the tax will end when what ever project it was for is completed.
Hillbilly D
May 20th, 2012
1:58 pm
Big D
Words to live by.
Michael H. Smith
May 20th, 2012
2:56 pm
Plan A: Vote No!
Plan B: Vote, HELL NO!!
There’s your Plan “B”.
Now, do you really want to go for Plan “C”?
Most of the politicians in this State don’t have the political moxie to deliver on your nightmare scenario Mr. Wingfield. In fear that we voters might just give them their worst nightmare come true.
Plan “C”: Voted out of office and made powerless.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm! Just sayin...
May 20th, 2012
4:41 pm
Despite winning three Pulitzer Prizes, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman bombed on Jeopardy! Friday.
By the end of the show, he had amassed a pitiful $1,000 placing him third behind CNN’s Anderson Cooper and NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell.
And look at how lame his competition was, geez.
DagnyT
May 20th, 2012
5:44 pm
The toll on 400 was supposed to be gone after 10 years, but Sonny and his friends extended it behind our backs.
Cobb says vote for the SPLOST or we’ll have to cut back on libraries. It passes by fewer than 100 votes and they cut library hours anyway.
On the list of TSPLOST projects for Cobb… An airport tower and runway improvements. Did we all
DagnyT
May 20th, 2012
5:48 pm
(cont) get George Jetson cars and I missed out? I don’t know anyone commuting by air.
Lastly, if I biked to work, those in the next cubicle wouldn’t like me much. Should I ask my employer to install a shower?
The list is stupid. It makes no sense. Vote NO
Will the last Democrat in Georgia please turn off the lights?.....
May 20th, 2012
5:57 pm
DagnyT
May 20th, 2012
5:44 pm & 5:48 pm
The state shouldn’t have lied and said that they would take the tolls off of GA 400 when the bonds were paid off, especially when they knew that they needed to build the two missing ramps between GA 400 & I-85 and that the GA 400 & I-285 interchange needed to be rebuilt.
These are items that the state was well aware of the increasing need of when they starting the constructon and planning of the GA 400 Extension through Buckhead back in the 1980’s.
The state just should have been straight up and said that it would be a permanent toll instead of lying for political expedience.
@@
May 20th, 2012
9:30 pm
A democrat who knows his business.
Surrogate for Obama Denounces Anti-Romney Ad
“I have to just say, from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity,” Mr. Booker said. “To me, it’s just we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.”
Kewl!
DagnyT
May 20th, 2012
10:56 pm
Democrat
So why should I trust them now if they planned to lie about Georgia 400 all along? How do I know the projects will cost what they say they will, that the projects will be completed, that my drive to work will be shorter? From the looks of it, I don’t expect to notice a commute difference.
iggy
May 21st, 2012
7:59 am
TSplost…HELL NO!
A Yes Vote!!!!
May 21st, 2012
8:29 am
I’m voting Yes.
I live in South Fulton which won’t get all the benefits of the splost at all but i do realize this is comprehensive and not just about my neighborhood.
What’s good for cobb is good for south fulton?
You can’t punish this splost for the toll roll authority. that is a different law and honestly, the toll is only 50 cents.
NoWayOnSplost
May 21st, 2012
8:37 am
No one with a functioning brain, can vote for this T-SPLOST. 400 tolls still exist (they shouldn’t) and when was the GDOT audited last? Never? The GDOT had it’s chance to fix this decades ago – they ignored the problem. Which is exactly why you can never trust any politician or anyone in the GDOT.
SBinF
May 21st, 2012
9:18 am
Another penny sales tax…so we can turn all of the highway shoulders into extra lanes?
No thanks, I’ll be voting “no.”
Wingfield On T-SPLOST & Plan B — Peach Pundit
May 21st, 2012
9:43 am
[...] of T-SPLOST at the GOP convention this weekend. Kyle Wingfield has a good piece from Friday that’s worth a full read. An excerpt: For argument’s sake, let’s say voters in the three regions comprising Augusta, [...]
Wingfield On T-SPLOST & Plan B
May 21st, 2012
10:19 am
[...] of T-SPLOST at the GOP convention this weekend. Kyle Wingfield has a good piece from Friday that’s worth a full read. An excerpt: For argument’s sake, let’s say voters in the three regions comprising Augusta, [...]