Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Transit Mayor Reed begins 2012 with eye on transportation tax
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 4:53 PM
OK, so it unofficially began a while back, but today, in his first public speech of 2012, Mayor Kasim Reed made a special point of asking the movers and shakers in the Kiwanis Club of Atlanta to support his vision of a metropolitan area made more navigable by better transit options and more affluent due to a boost in infrastructure construction.
My guess is that if you are a member of any group to which the mayor will be speaking between now and July, you will hear some version of this pitch:
I need you all, as we go through a conversation about the TSPLOST, to care about it. Because I believe this: We need to pass it. I'm not asking you all to come to any conclusion today, but I'm asking you to start paying attention to it and to start caring about it.We've got two major problems facing our state. One is lack of wage growth [compared to] other Southern cities. If you have folks not making the money they used to make, it impacts the ability of the city to compete. The other problem is a lack of high-paying jobs in technology, bio science and construction...
I submit that if you support the regional TSPLOST effort, we will pump somewhere below $650 million and $750 million into the metropolitan Atlanta economy every year for the next 10 years and end up investing about $9 billion.
I believe this is fundamental to maintaining our position as the center of the South. So I need you to be for it.
As has become his style, Reed framed his talk in terms of some of his pet themes: staying competitive, taking risks, going for the big get.
"Atlanta is best…when it's aiming for something and when it's competing. We're not good at shrinking or being small," he told the crowd. "When we take risks and when we stretch, we're the Atlanta that you know and that you care about."
Now, he was talking to a largely business-oriented audience, so it was no surprise to hear him tell folks, "My primary job is to make sure Atlanta remains the center of commerce in the South." But it's not simply a line. That sentence — whether one agrees or not that that's an appropriate goal for a big-city mayor — comes as close to the core Kasim as you're likely to get. It's why he's always jetting off to D.C. or working with the governor on getting funds to deepen the port of Savannah; he wants to get an edge on the competition.
I don't know if the TSPLOST will pass, but it'll be close. Maybe down to the wire. That's why I predict you'll be hearing a lot on the subject from the guy who went from polling at 7 percent to becoming mayor.
Comments (20)
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Kasim Reed looks sunburned in this photo. I didn't know that was possible.
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Maybe he talked about it and you didn't report it; but, I'd like to hear him talk about what the money will be spent on. From what I've seen so far, it's a little for me, some for you, some for them with no semblance of actual regional planning. If that is the case when this comes to a vote, I'll be against it. Nine billion bucks for the sake of "competition?" Not for me.
Dave you simply cannot be seriously asking where the money will be spent. CL has reported in this many times. There is a whole PDF that lists every project. Not hard to find if you know how to use Google, and they aren't spending $9B it's more like $6B.
Scott, you're becoming increasingly clueless on politics in this city. All the insiders believe the TSPLOST will fail. Tell us why you think it will be close? Surely, not because Kasim thinks so...
How could it pass? City dwellers don't want to spend billions to bail the suburbs out of their idiotic sprawled out development pattern and suburbanites don't want to spend billions for transit that they think is socialist and only serves poor people and criminals. Seems like the only ones for it are those who stand to benefit financially and those who live directly next to one of the projects on the list. That list isn't quite long enough for there to be a project for everyone. There are too many losers and too few winners in this contest.
Yea the project is here http://www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com/d…
But Scott that list doesn't answer Dave's questions. its all a hodge podge and frankly its tilted towards the north side and will only exacerbate the problem we have of the population shifting to the north.
Another thing the list doesn't answer is what exactly will be built.
The Clifton Corridor transit is still a dream and the money allocated won't build it.
And the Cobb transit fiasco should really worry folks. At the last minute they switched out an identifiable light rail proposal for something called "Enhanced Premium Transit Service Acworth / Kennesaw Town Center to MARTA Arts Center Station"
What is that? .... Well who knows because they pulled that one out of their assess at the last moment and stuck that in. Its not going to be built anytime in the next 10 years. Ok maybe they will buy some fancy buses and build some nice benches.
Until the region learns how to grow up and plan we should slow down. Throwing money at uncoordinated projects isn't going to fix anything. And throwing money collected in a highly regressive fashion (groceries are taxed but Delta is exempt on fuel purchases as is regular gas as it that portion of a car purchase over $5,000 [only the first $5,000 is taxed]
Unfortunately there will be a heavy push funded by developers and businesses that own and manage office towers and malls as well as the folks supplying the asphalt and consulting work. That push will convince people that this will relieve traffic and save their jobs.
The TSPOLST will fail because it was designed to fail. Anything that tries to link the interests of Cobb-Gwinnett-and-exurbs with Atlanta, Dekalb Co. and south is designed to fail.
What TSPOLST would give us is at least take MARTA off of life support and onto only the cronically ill list.
InAtl what in the world other funding mechanism would you suggest? User fees are certainly not less regressive. I have ridden MARTA probably 3 times in the past 3 years and via the 1% tax have put thousands into the system. The same with all of those Alpharetta and Roswell residence.
This will get voted down, because so many people think like my brother-in-law in Gwinnett. After the Lexus Lanes came out he stated he would vote TSPLOST down because of the mess he sits in on I-85 every morning. Yeah, you vote it down and sit in traffic! That will show them! LMAO.
^^
pretty much this— a vote no is plucking out your own eye to spite your face. Is the project list ideal? No. Is it reliant on people with dramatically different ideologies and deep mistrust of each setting aside their differences for shared benefit? Yes.
TSPLOST fails, and its not as if there's going to be another, better authored, better received regional transportation plan in another six months. This is the result of politics being the art of the possible.
zedsmith, I'd think I would be plucking out my own eye if I could see the shared benefit of the projects. Sometimes the possible isn't a good idea and maybe denying the pols, the consultants and the contractors the fruits of the possible will make them, and us, actually sit down and think regional transit though.
Maybe, rather than asking you to be specific about what you *don't* like about the current TSPLOST, Dave (which is my first impulse), I think I'd like you to tell me what your idea of a regional transportation plan is. Not to put you on the spot, they can be some very broad strokes, but what are the guiding principles, and interested parties in your alternative?
"a vote no is plucking out your own eye to spite your face"
I don't agree with that. The 1% tax is doing more to increase road capacity than it is increasing transit access and use. Doing so only encourages more sprawl. Since Georgia will never enact sane regional land use policies, the best way to encourage development of brownfields (such as auto grave yards along the beltline) or areas south, like Fort Macpherson is not to throw more money at sprawl subsidizing road projects.
True I like the Beltline - but that's not much cash, heck the rebuild of the 400 and 285 interchange is just as expensive, and for what? to encourage more auto dependent development. There's already a MARTA alternative for 400 and the bus and should lanes on 400 provide decent service farther north on 400 - granted once you get off all those exits from the bus you are screwed.
Scott, a better funding mechanism? Well a gas tax makes much more sense, maybe its regressive though not as much as a 1% tax on groceries. I'm opposed to having the poor without cars or those who live their lives so as to responsibly reduce their carbon footprint by not using to much asphalt and oil pay for more roads everytime they buy a gallon of milk.
If they don't want to tax gas then the state supporting MARTA via the income tax on people and corporations is better.
The one question mark I have is just what all the MARTA capital projects are doing on the list. I thought it was the operating side MARTA was short on. If MARTA isn't expanding how is the 50% for capital that was used to expand the system not enough to maintain it. How in the world after 2 years of rehabbing the escalators can the bill for rehabbing the escalators be so high? And wayfinding and speaker systems for the platforms when they have perfectly fine Signpost with train arrival and all other info in each station?
Is this all about trying to sidestep the silly provision in this bill not allowing for operating funds for existing MARTA to be covered by the tax? Are they funding capital projects and hoping they will be able to remove the 50/50 split, regionally take over MARTA, and thus open up even more cash for operating the regional system from the current MARTA 1% tax?
As to the fact you don't use MARTA, well it saves DeKalb and Fulton money by reducing road use, raises revenues by encouraging office development in the activity centers where it goes so it helps those living in Fulton and Dekalb. True people will say Roads encourage development and thus increased revenues, but the negative consequences of roads also create more costs and negative effects that the local counties have to pay for - Storm water, police [MARTA funds its own police but Roads do not], emergency response, more strain/demand on local streets (funded by property taxes) serving the main streets, reduced property values from road noise, blight and pollution.
InAtl, the funding mechanisms you describe are a fantasy. The Georgia DOT takes the position that using the Gas Tax money for transit is not even legal by the State constitution. You might as well be asking for funding from Mars - there is zero political way any of that happens.
The road projects you describe are going to get built and funded. That's what the Ga DOT does. These funds will hasten them getting built, but they will get built.
What will not get funded via any other means is the transit.
This is the one shot we have to get $3B funded into transit.
I don't happen to like all of the transit projects. You mention the Beltline, and while I love the Beltline from a path/parks perspective, transit on the Beltline is a boondoggle and we should be putting that money elsewhere first (like the I-20 expansion).
But I have come to the realization that this is one shot to get $3B put into transit in the Atlanta area. Hence I will be voting 'Yes', warts and all. A 'No' vote just ensures the status quo (read: more and more road solutions) for the next 10 years.
atlantans should be ashamed that charlotte can build a brand new light rail line and all we can do is eternally yell at each other
Scott you really think you'll see 3 billion spent on transit in 10 years? Guess I have my fantasy and you have yours ;-) Even if it happened just a minority portion of that 3 billion is going to new transit options.
Unfortunately the area is not conducive to transit. Its impossible to give enough "supply" to sprawl we got to start addressing "demand" by not supporting sprawl and getting development to locate near existing rail stations or the beltline.
I do think raising the gas tax by 10 cents and getting AG Sam Olens to render an opinion freeing up certain types of revenues generated from the sale of gas is a lot easier than going to Mars. I mean really Gas went up 10 cents over night from Monday to Tuesday. People won't notice that not any more than they will notice the 9% printed on their sales receipt from Chick fil a.
Eric, we are going to build a street car, a street car specifically designed more for encouraging sustainable development than for the fantasy of relieving congestion.
If it works and development trends continue towards people escaping the hell that is sprawl than the TADs will be able to provide funding for the Belt line.
What if we just vote "no" on TSPLOST and continue to bumble along? Hasn't the Atlanta metro area has done OK throughout the years with no transit planning and meager investment? What if we just accept what we have and deal with it?
Scott: you owe it to yourself to see the direction beltline will be taking transit this year. The plan is *not* for a light rail ring road. Its segments will integrate with the downtown street car, and run across either tenth or north from the east side beltline segment (to start).
I'm kinda surprised nobody is reporting on that.
Anyone care to take a guess how Fulton Co mulling a property tax hike is going to make voters feel about another sales tax vote -?
Not necessarily good timing~
Get a copy of the list of projects. You will see that most do not relieve conjestion and are mostly a disjointed set of projects that are nothing more than than perks to the various local governments and Marta to get their support..
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