Radio
Commentary, WMVV 90.7, WMVW 91.7 New Life FM, July 6, 2012
By Sue Ella Deadwyler
Good morning, Jim. T-SPLOST,”
short for “transportation special local option sales tax,” will be on the
Primary Ballot on July 31st. T-SPLOST
is a one-percent sales tax that will last for ten years, probably longer. Transportation spending will go up
96-percent to pay for $6.14 billion in traffic relief for a 10-county metro
Atlanta region and will increase in other regions, as well.
During the debate in 2008-09, state leaders agreed a
constitutional amendment would be required to create multi-county regions where
a single regional vote would be binding on all counties involved. Since
then, legislative staff attorneys issued a written opinion questioning the
Transportation Investment Act’s constitutionality, but the constitutional
problem remains.
No county can opt-out of T-SPLOST, if a majority of voters in the
region vote for it. Slick
political maneuvering blocked an opt-out vote and the Transportation Investment
Act passed, allowing a single region-wide vote to control all counties in the
region, although a majority of voters in some of the counties might have
rejected it in some of the counties. That’s
particularly unsettling, since 100-percent of the 180 representatives in the
2009 legislature supported an opt-out.
Districts that reject T-SPLOST will be penalized. They’ll lose 20-percent of road
maintenance funding, meaning local governments would pay triple what they pay now
for maintaining their roads simply because they reject T-SPLOST.
The projects list shows more than 50-percent of the $6.14 billion
will pay for projects that do little to relieve traffic congestion. However, that won’t stop the flow of
money. The additional penny
sales tax will cost each metro Atlanta household an average of $3,000 over ten
years.
On February 8th, Representative Ed Setzler introduced
H.B. 938 to authorize neighboring counties to form a transportation district
and opt-out of proposed projects that weren’t to their liking. His bill, also, required a
project/cost list to be approved or rejected by counties before they signed a
transportation district agreement and MARTA would not receive T-SPLOST
funds. His bill
died. Now, it’s up to us to vote NO on T-SPLOST July 31st. For Georgia
Insight I’m Sue Ella
Deadwyler, your Capitol correspondent.
Here are the facts of Region 3 TSPLOST, as presented in the "final project list":
ReplyDeleteTHINK about how many of these projects will help "untie" (or NOT) the traffic knot:
Note: numbers are rounded
Summary:
TOTAL: $6.1 BILLION
1) $2.90 BILLION for "roadways"
2) $3.16 BILLION for "transit"
$3.16 BILLION for "Transit" breaks out this way:
1) $3.2 million for updates to a Cobb County airport
2) $24.1 million for bike paths
3) $1.23 BILLION for MARTA repairs & upgrades (tracks, elevators, lighting, signals, etc.)
4) $37 million to extend MARTA from Northsprings station to Holcomb Bridge Road (approx. 7
miles)
5) $95 million for GRTA bus service
6) $382 million for other bus service
7) $602 million for Atlanta streetcars
8) $700 million for DESIGN of new rail service "Lindbergh Center to Emory / Centers for Disease Control"
9) $95 million for DESIGN of "I-85 north corridor" rail
10) $20 million for rail - Atlanta to Griffin
These are the facts.