Fresh Loaf

Transit advocates had high hopes for SR 845, the constitutional amendment that would’ve allowed voters in a region to levy a local option sales tax to generate funding for transportation projects. Backed by a variety of diverse and influential interests, it was tagged as an innovative approach to financing projects and a shoo-in to pass.

Only, it didn’t. The House approved it, but the funding strategy failed the Senate three votes shy of a necessary majority. And with that disappointment now behind them, so begins the Monday-morning chagrin of advocates who pushed for the bill.

From Citizens for Progressive Transit, an Atlanta-based grassroots advocacy group whose members viewed the resolution as a fresh way to bolster the region’s lackluster transit system and invest in its future expansion.

Atlanta, GA – Citizens for Progressive Transit expressed disappointment over the Georgia Senate’s failure to achieve a two-thirds majority on a new transportation funding measure, but also expressed confidence that transit expansion plans will continue.

“This is a setback, but while we did not get two-thirds in the Senate, we still won overwhelming majorities in both chambers,” said Lee Biola, president of the transit advocacy group. “This is proof there is broad consensus about how to resolve our transportation problems.”

Biola credited hard work and good faith negotiations between members of the business community, county commissioners, transportation contractors, engineers, environmental organizations, and transit advocates that got as close as possible to a solution that would give Georgians a way out of traffic and rising gas prices.

The coalition, known as Get Georgia Moving, forged a new consensus about what transportation funding should look like. The plan would have made possible significant expansions in Georgia’s mass transit system.

The plan called for counties to create a transportation project list and submit it to voters along with a sales tax to pay for it. Voters in various regions of the state would have been able to accept or reject the tax increase and project list.

“Fortunately, having the counties come up with a project list is not something that requires new legislation,” said Biola. “There is no reason counties can not come together now and create a project list for voters to approve and then get the legislature’s blessing next year.”

Counties in the Atlanta region are already close to completion of a transit expansion plan through the efforts of the regional Transit Planning Board. The Transit Planning Board was created by the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA). Public hearings on “Concept 3,” the Transit Planning Board plan, are currently underway in all Metro Atlanta counties.

Bookmark It

Posted in News | Leave a comment