Posts

By David Pendered

In the end, there is no magic bullet that promises to kill traffic congestion, no gee-whiz technological solution to end gridlock in metro Atlanta.

The region’s transportation options will look a lot like they do today, even if the region embarks upon a 10-year, $6.14 billion construction program that would be funded by a proposed 1 percent sales tax collected in 10 counties.

If voters approve the tax next year, MARTA is to build its long-awaited rail line to Emory University; Cobb County is to provide express bus service linking north Cobb County and Midtown Atlanta; and Atlanta will install transit along the BeltLine. Scores of roadways and interchanges are to be improved in hopes of hastening traffic.

By David Pendered

When Atlanta reaches for money to help build the BeltLine transit system along North Avenue, the city intends to turn to one of its boldest methods for jumpstarting development.

Atlanta plans to use revenues from its tax allocation districts to help pay for the transit system. Atlanta is one of the few local governments in Georgia that embrace this financing method, which is used widely across the country.

The TAD money could help cover BeltLine costs that exceed the $602 million Atlanta is earmarked to receive from the proposed 10-county transportation sales tax, if voters approve the tax next year. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said local funds, and perhaps other alternative sources of money, will bridge a funding gap.

By David Pendered

The question of how to pay for transit remains a central stumbling block facing metro Atlanta leaders as they assemble a transportation package they can put on a ballot next year.

As the issue now is framed, the question is whether to pay up to $80 million into GRTA bus service by shifting money from the amount earmarked to help pay for other transit programs: MARTA; Atlanta’s BeltLine; and two future transit routes – one to Cumberland Mall and one toward Emory University.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed urged the Atlanta Region Transportation Roundtable to delay any decision. He called on members to deliberate the prospect of getting the state to pay into GRTA.

By David Pendered

Proposals to reduce funding for the Atlanta BeltLine, the Ga. 400/I-285 area, and transit lines to Emory University and Cumberland Mall are up for discussion at Thursday’s meeting of the Atlanta Region Transportation Roundtable.

These reductions are among more than $730 million in amendments proposed to the $6.14 billion draft project list the roundtable adopted last month. Almost $12 out of every $100 dollars in the draft list would be redirected, if the amendments are adopted into the referendum for the 1 percent transportation sales tax.

The proposed commuter rail line from Atlanta toward Macon also is back in play. Clayton County proposes to keep it alive with $20 million that would be trimmed from plans to develop Tara Boulevard into a major roadway.

By David Pendered

Emory University and its environs would benefit from the single largest transit investment that’s planned in the proposed 1 percent sales tax for transportation.

The route called the “Clifton Road Corridor” is earmarked to receive $700 million in sales tax funding. The new line would stretch 4.3 miles from MARTA’s Lindbergh Station to a proposed station at the junction of two CSX rail lines, near the corner of North Decatur and Clairmont roads.

The route would serve Emory, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a $250 million mixed use development started last summer by Cousins Properties and Gables Residential.

By David Pendered

Metro Atlanta does not have a clear picture of what sort of entity may be created to govern more than $3 billion in proposed transit investments that will be on the ballot in next year’s vote on a 1 percent transportation sales tax.

Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee cited the lack of clarity in governance as a reason Cobb wants to shift some funding from a proposed rail line, which would link MARTA’s Arts Center Station in Midtown with the Cumberland Mall area, to improving Windy Hill Road and establishing bus service from north Cobb to Midtown.

If any clarity is to come, it isn’t likely to arrive before the waning days of the 2012 state legislative session. State lawmakers could well take the entire session, possibly into April, to haggle over and adopt whatever recommendation comes from Gov. Nathan Deal’s Transit Governance Task Force.