The problem the proposed transportation sales tax, or T-SPLOST, purports to solve would seem obvious. Here’s how the first advertisement by a group pushing the tax framed the issue:
“Metro Atlanta, we have a problem: one of the longest average commutes in America, over an hour a day. Five hours a week you don’t spend with your family; 260 hours a year.”
But what if the length of our commutes isn’t a problem we can solve? At least, that is, not by building new infrastructure to relieve congestion.
That’s the implication of new data from INRIX, a private company that tracks traffic information.
The latest INRIX Traffic Scorecard, updated this week with data through April, shows traffic congestion increases the average commute in metro Atlanta by only about 10 percent — less than six minutes a day.
Let me repeat that: Congestion adds less than six minutes to the average metro Atlanta commute. And to reduce — not eliminate — that six-minute problem, we are asked to tax
Continue reading T-SPLOST: Is traffic really a problem in Atlanta? »