GA Transportation Bill Flawed

We have NO CONFIDENCE that the project lists coming from the new Transportation Tax will do much to relieve Metro gridlock. We expect it to contain the disjointed projects we rejected in the 2012 T-SPLOST vote.  The new urban planners at GDOT have their own ax to grind.  They are UN Agenda 21 implementers with backing from ARC and no common sense whatsoever. They are out-of-touch “climate change” believers.

We are confident that most of the $800 million will go to streetscapes, art work, parks, bike lanes, multi-use paths, trollies and all forms of “economic development” not designed to alleviate road traffic gridlock. This Bill would have avoided a lot of opposition if it had restricted projects to road congestion relief.

No one disagrees that Atlanta Metro needs help with commuter congestion.  My favorite solution is to stop building where this congestion is the worst.  High density breeds high traffic congestion.  The move of the Braves’ stadium to I-285 in Cobb is the latest in our effort to totally destroy movement on West I-285 around game times.

A highway grid that crosses to connect I-285 from Smyrna to Tucker would be the normal solution to take the strain off the North end of I-285, but that isn’t happening.  Giving interstate traffic a by-pass solution isn’t happening either.  Correcting the mistakes GDOT has already made over the years is happening, but the effort pales against the gridlock we have built. 

Road maintenance remains unacceptable and the worse we let it get, the more it will cost to repair.  Road bed rot is abundant and costs twice as much to fix as milling and resurfacing the asphalt.  It gets very expensive when you let your road beds rot.  Road maintenance is the other legitimate use for auto related taxes.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader