Voters in Gwinnett County GA
voted NO on an additional 1 cent sales tax to fund the expansion of MARTA to
Gwinnett. The vote was 49,936 voting No
and 41,985 voting Yes.
The population of Gwinnett County is 920,260. The MARTA vote total was
91,921 voters.That’s less than 10% of the population.
Gwinnett County Transit currently runs bus routes for $15 million per
year. MARTA would have cost $45 million
per year.
All public transit should be privatized and de-politicized. MARTA is
the “gorilla in the room” with unrivaled lobbying power. Politicians are not
allowed to question MARTA’s low ridership, empty trains and buses, lack of
safety, doubled travel times, relentless expansion campaigns and perpetual
reliance on tax dollars. Gwinnett needs smarter commissioners and smarter
voters.
All bus transit should be private. The MARTA train system should work
on improving its processes, ridership and financial performance within its
current footprint.
Gwinnett MARTA election
results: Voters say 'no' by WXIA, 3/18/19.
Gwinnett County's MARTA referendum was one of the
highest-profile issues on the ballot in the March 19 election.
Residents were set to vote on an additional one-cent sales tax
that would go to fund a major MARTA expansion that would build heavy rail and
the bus rapid transit lanes. All told, the expansion would cost more than $5
billion.
But voters rejected that plan, comfortably voting down the measure
54.3 to 45.7 percent. There were nearly 92,000 votes cast, according to
the Gwinnett County
government page.
The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners approved the 30-year proposed transit plan back in
July 2018.
That proposal called for an expansion of heavy rail lines from MARTA’s
Doraville Station to Gwinnett Place Mall along the I-85 corridor, ending at
Jimmy Carter Boulevard. It would also add dedicated bus lanes to county
roads.
Initial bus rapid transit lines are expected to start between 2025
and 2029, and the proposed heavy rail line connecting it to existing lines
already in DeKalb, Fulton and bus lines in Clayton counties - could be built
within 20 years.
In December 2018, the Gwinnett County Commission closed a deal to purchase over 100
acres of the OFS Brightwave Solutions site on I-85 at Jimmy Carter Boulevard.
County officials hope it could be used as a possible transit station in the
future. The county paid $35 million for the 100 acres. $35 million
Gwinnett purchase may be part of major transit plan
Officials estimate it will cost between $200 and 300 million per
mile to build heavy rail, and the bus rapid transit lanes between $25 and 50
million. All told, the expansion would cost more than $5 billion.
Comments
The arrival of Uber
has answered the question about getting grandma to the doctor’s office and
airline customers are close enough to existing MARTA train stations to park or
get dropped off and picked up. It is clear that traffic gridlock must be
reduced by expanding the roads and highways and continuing to migrate to the
exurbs. Gwinnett needs to spend its $500 billion on roads.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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