Reed predicts new regional transit
effort to gear up in 2015
December 4, 2014 |
Atlanta Mayor Kasim
Reed predicts another run at a regional transit effort sometime next year,
saying leaders shouldn’t be discouraged by the 2012 failed T-SPLOST referendum.
Speaking at a forum in
Washington sponsored by Politico Magazine, Reed also said he plans to
make early childhood education a priority for 2015.
The mayor was among
several public officials, nonprofit, business and educational leaders invited
to speak at Politico’s “What Works” summit. Reed spoke on panels geared
towards education, cities and transit.
Reed said Atlanta is
thriving with an influx of millennials and baby boomers, adding
that businesses are following the migration into the heart of the
city.
“Suburbs are
continuing to have an appropriate place, but cities are the center of where the
action is,” he said. “I think you’re going to see a greater blend of the
population because I think that smart people, wherever they are, talented
people, wherever they are… are moving increasingly to cities.”
He anticipates this growth will lead to what he called
mega-regions: “When we look at the
country, we’ll be looking at which regions dominate, and how those regions
perform, and that’s going to be driven by cities.”
The mayor spoke about
failed T-SPLOST penny sales tax referendum, noting boosters had their
“heads handed to them at the ballot” when voters shot down the effort in 2012.
But Reed said it takes time to persuade voters and believes regional leaders
will begin working on a similar project sometime in 2015.
Reed has previously
said he expects that a smaller number of governments will pair up to pursue regional transportation projects. The
2012 metro Atlanta vote involved a penny sales tax for a 10 county region.
“We’ve just got to
stop being so soft. Doing hard things is hard,” he said. “When you’re trying to
bring together a community that’s multi-racial, multi-generational and
multi-party…and persuade people you’re better off having a big vibrant economy,
it takes time to persuade people and win those arguments.”
Comments
What we’ve had is a surge of legal and illegal immigrants
moving to metro Atlanta coupled with native population loss, due to real job
loss. Reed needs to be a bit more skeptical about ‘population projections’
coming from ‘Progressive’ planners and began to factor in probable reductions
in federal grants to states. We’ve been using our share to overbuild retail
upgrades built without regard to demand. These developments, like Underground Atlanta
and Atlantic Station will continue to struggle and fail because they don’t take
our economic realities into account. Reed wants to light a fire without
realizing we’re not ‘out of the woods’.
As for public transit, we’re not Madrid Spain Metro with
a 4.9 million population packed in a 750 square mile area. The city of Madrid
has 2.9 million population packed in a 234 square mile area. http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-125.html
Metro Atlanta is the least dense metro on the
planet. Public transit here is
unsustainable and ridership is low. It’s a bad deal. Expansion is suicidal. Trains cost billions, buses cost millions.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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