Tuesday, February 5, 2008
News 'We have to look at alternate modes of transportation'
Posted by Thomas Wheatley @thomaswheatley on Tue, Feb 5, 2008 at 5:39 PM
Gena Abraham, commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, and Carol Couch, director of the state Environmental Protection Division, spoke today at the South Metro Outlook conference held at the Georgia International Convention Center in College Park. Lots of interesting tidbits, but to aid you, dear reader, I've bulleted the eyebrow-raisers of the morning.
- "We have to look at alternate modes of transportation," Abraham said. "We can not build enough roads and bridges to build ourselves out of this transportation problem."
Increasing property and construction costs have presented a challenge to the cash-strapped and mismanaged state agency that for years has been known as "the Department of Roads and Bridges," she said. (Abraham took the reins in December 2007.) While Abraham did not want to jump too far ahead and outline what she thought the metro region needed in terms of transportation fixes, she did say that she would support the findings of the Transit Planning Board. That board is a coalition of MARTA, the Atlanta Regional Commission, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the DOT. View its plans for metro Atlanta here.
- Abraham said that MARTA should be the backbone for the transit system in the state. (I think she meant "city" here. She was speaking about how the transportation dilemma is a statewide problem, affecting Georgia's ports as well as metro Atlanta congestion. Continued inaction would lead to economic impacts, she said. For example, freight traffic coming from the state's ports into the metro region would be affected.)
- "Now, about public-private initiatives," Abraham said. "They are not the panacea. They only cover a portion of these projects. We have to look at alternate modes of transportation in addition to PPIs." Multiple sources of funding exist, she said, and should be explored and considered.
- DOT is in disrepair, but Abraham said she's actively engaged in piecing it back together. The agency has 9,211 projects on its books, she said — 34 years worth. She said 2,470 of those are labeled "active," but some of the people assigned to those projects retired from the agency years ago. In regards to DOT's aims for the future: "The environmental focus is not embedded in DOT," Abraham said. "Land-use discussions are not actively engaged in the department." The agency must look at all those factors, she said.
- "One of Metro Atlanta's biggest challenges is that it needs to diversify its sources of water," Couch said, and applauded Clayton County's efforts in that regard. "One of the ways we need to do that is we need to invest in reservoirs."
- "We need to reduce impervious surfaces," Couch said. "It's a basic thing. It's not very sexy, but it's being done all across the country."
Impervious surfaces, or paved surfaces, disrupt the water cycle by not allowing precipitation and water to seep into the ground. Water hits these surfaces and is then sluiced down into the sewer systems. Impervious surfaces not only include roads, but developments as well. Smart-growth advocates have called for more mixed-use developments and — if there's parking — better design and planning to reduce the area of lots. Sprawl is notorious for its addition of impervious surfaces to an area.
- Air quality was a key issue. Couch noted that alternate modes of transportation must be explored if Atlanta is to improve its air quality. Abraham said that the number of vehicle miles traveled, or VMT, increased to 300 million VMT this year, up from 157 million VMT in 2006. If the region fails to meet federal attainment standards, it would be put on probation for a year. If it still hasn't met standards after that time, the region risks losing federal transportation funding.
- When asked by a member of the audience if swimming pools would be closed this summer, Couch responded politely, "Gov. Perdue will be holding an announcement regarding that tomorrow." The crowd laughed. Legislation has been proposed in the General Assembly that would curtail the EPD director's power to shut down pools this summer because of the drought.
- Abraham on the DOT elections being over: "Thank God!" she said with a laugh. "I'm so glad board elections are over. We support our new members and we support our old members. But thank God it's over."
- Factoid of the morning, delivered by Clayton County Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell: Couch is an avid landscape painter and is currently at work on a series of travel essays(!).
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