One hallmark of our times has been the inability to reach consensus on many political issues. It should be noted that your “gridlock” is my “checks & balances”, but even with all that, we should be able to reach an acceptable agreement on political matters. We certainly did in the past, but not these days. What used to be Advise & Consent has devolved into Devise & Assent.
So it is with the approaching transportation sales tax referendum in metro Atlanta. While the entire state of Georgia is having similar referenda, Atlanta really is the center of the action. In any case, when the subject was first raised about funding regional transportation projects with an additional 1% sales tax, I mistakenly assumed that there would be regional solutions offered. Silly me.
Instead, the “projects” chosen by leaders outside of I-285 were a hodge-podge of lane widenings, intersection improvements and the like. As I ran down their list of these transportation projects, I realized that in many cases, I had no idea where these projects were located. Even more so, I probably had not driven over any of those stretches of highway in recent decades, if ever. Yet, I was being asked to support them.
Not to be outdone, inside of I-285 “leadership” chose similar projects, but at least I was somewhat familiar with some of them. The projects chosen by the City of Atlanta were primarily devoted to the Beltline, which will not produce improvements in Atlanta’s traffic situation for many years, if not longer. And, rather than devote all their financial energy to one segment of the Beltline that would serve a goodly number of people, they chose to split things up into two disparate segments for political expediency. If you’re interested, my earlier coverage on the Beltline project is located here.
This Beltline expenditure proposal was made after already having received a substantial amount of Federal transit money. That money, along with local funding, has been allocated to a project that will do nothing for the average Atlanta commuter. Not a great moment for the Atlanta region.
I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with one of the Atlanta Journal Constitution’s more liberal opinion columnists. In the January 8, 2012 print edition of the AJC, Jay Bookman writes “Region should run transit“. He’s right about a couple of issues, most notably:
- Rather than take the political risk of deciding what projects should be built and which should not, they forced that decision upon local elected leaders in the region.
and
- If the money to fund transit is to be raised from taxpayers in this region, with no state aid involved, then those taxpayers should have a regional governing authority that they can hold accountable. And if elected leaders from the Atlanta region are required to put their jobs on the line in designing a regional transit system, those same leaders should have substantial authority over how that system operates.
Presumably, the voters already sense that this process is badly flawed. Thus, people like Sam Massell, a respected local political expert, view the upcoming transportation tax vote as unlikely to pass. So do many of the local political pundits. Right now, there’s just nothing compelling for the average voter to choose to add another 1% sales tax to an already high burden. Add to that the fact that Fulton County and DeKalb County have already taxed themselves 1% for decades for local transportation.
[It should be noted that former Mayor Massell, although he is unsure of the possibility of this tax's passage, is sure that such a tax is necessary. Please see his op-ed, "Mass transit brings freedom" in the January 17, 2012 edition of the AJC. Also, please see John Sherman's Q&A, "More feasibility research needed" in the same edition. ro'c]
Regardless, when the subject of Atlanta traffic comes to mind, this is the poster child:
However, the hard reality of this situation is two-fold.
- We could add 50 lanes of highway in each direction and it would eventually look like this again during rush-hours each weekday and on game days.
- Many of the people stuck in this traffic do not vote in elections held in Atlanta; they’re from someplace else. Besides the suburbanites, this traffic is filled with people driving to Florida. They’re from the snow-belt, and they don’t vote in Atlanta. Or they’re driving a tractor-trailer truck making a local delivery (or, just as likely, sneaking through the center of town to shave off an hour of drive time, even with the backed up traffic).
No. By leaving transit decisions in the hands of local politicians, the inevitable outcome was a melange of projects designed to garner local political support. People driving from the snow belt will never see one of our local elected best snipping a ribbon at the opening of a new highway. Nor will they care. Much less vote for them.
The voters themselves have apparently signaled that they view this process as bogus and will presumably respond appropriately when the transit tax comes to a vote. The elected class also seems to understand that things are going awry. There is talk of change in the air, and with the State General Assembly beginning its annual session, there may be change.
We need leadership on this issue. In part this leadership needs to be cheer leading for transportation improvements. And those improvements need to make some sense. If we’re being asked to tax ourselves, we need to feel that the money is being properly allocated and not going down some rat hole for the benefit of some politician’s brother-in-law.
Everybody talks transparency, but delivering it is much harder. We need to overcome our problem with reaching consensus about political matters. In our information age, reaching agreement about political matters has become problematic at all levels of governance.
In this case, we need leadership to address a problem which is killing Atlanta, one rush hour at a time.
