Soapbox: ‘We cannot allow for this system to die...’
MARTA officials recently asked lawmakers to loosen state-mandated spending restrictions on its main funding source. If not, officials warned, drastic service cuts were inevitable for the metro region’s largest transit agency. In the op-ed below, Mayor Shirley Franklin, Fulton County Chairman John Eaves and DeKalb CEO Burrell Ellis — elected officials whose jurisdictions pay the one-cent sales tax — ask lawmakers to ease the restriction.
For more than 30 years, visitors and residents of Atlanta and Fulton and DeKalb counties have paid an extra penny in sales taxes so our region might have mass transit. Needless to say, the benefits of mass transit have extended far beyond the borders of Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb. Can you imagine the Centennial Olympic Games choosing Atlanta without a means of moving millions of people? Or that major conventions, the lifeblood of our local economy, would locate here if their attendees were unable to move around? MARTA has been a major economic generator not just for Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb, but for our region and the entire state.
Which is why we are asking, in a time of severe economic crisis, for the Georgia General Assembly to help MARTA. This year, we are not asking that the General Assembly commit one extra dime to help MARTA — though other state governments across the nation promote the economic benefits of public transit and routinely appropriate millions for both operations and expansion. We are only asking the Legislature to give MARTA the ability to use the funds it already has at its disposal during this time of great economic need.