Will GRTA be able to deliver transportation tax’s bus and rail projects?
’...in the discussions for the last year-and-a-half... there’s not been one single mention of anything political’
- Wikimedia
- GRTA, shuttling you to the comforts of suburbia since 2004
Get deep in the weeds of the regional transportation tax that voters will decide on July 31 and you’ll notice that, if the measure passes, two state agencies will take on tremendous responsibility.
The Georgia Department of Transportation will be in charge of “delivering” all the road projects. The Georgia Regional Transportation Authority, or GRTA, will do the same for roughly $3 billion of rail and bus lines that would be built with revenues from the 1-percent sales tax.
The latter decision caused me and other transit advocates some concern, as I expressed in a recent column.
To understand why, let’s do a quick background on GRTA. Created in 1999 by the General Assembly, the state agency was envisioned by then-Gov. Roy Barnes as a regional force that would fight metro Atlanta’s sprawl and congestion. That included building out Barnes’ vision of commuter rail network that would spider throughout the metro counties.
But when Sonny Perdue took over the governor’s mansion, he scuttled his predecessor’s plans. Since then, the agency’s largely focused on operating “luxury coaches” that shuttle suburbanites into and out of downtown. In addition, the agency’s board is appointed by the governor, who, along with state lawmakers, have paid little attention to the important role that transit does - and could - play in metro Atlanta. (Let’s not forget that transit - particularly MARTA - has been used by state lawmakers as a political football in the past.)
Simply put, the state’s proven that it can’t be trusted when it comes to building rail or supporting transit. And GRTA, which faces its own funding challenges in the years ahead, doesn’t have as much experience in laying track and running massive systems as, for example, MARTA. (That’s not a swipe at the GRTA’s staff, who help a lot of people get to work.)
How do we know that GRTA a.) is up to handle the complex job of building rail and bus lines worth billions of dollars and b.) won’t play politics with the transit projects? I spoke with Kirk R. Fjelstul, GRTA’s staff attorney and deputy executive director, earlier this month about those concerns.