As congestion in our region gets worse, some Republican state legislators are proposing bills to limit the expansion of transit in metro Atlanta.
Specifically, two bills that have been percolating in this year’s General Assembly are clearly anti-transit.
One of them, HB 1377, sponsored by Rep. John Carson (R-Cobb County), would have put an eight-year pause on a county’s ability to have a Transit-SPLOST (Special Local Option Sales Tax) after a failed transit referendum.
The bill was designed to prevent Cobb County and Gwinnett County from putting a Transit-SPLOST to voters before 2032. A transit referendum failed in both counties in 2024.
The bill, which passed the State Transportation Committee, did not make it out of the House. Political observers believe it could resurface in the next two weeks before the end of the 2026 legislature, though.
The same is true for a bill that would fold the Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority (The ATL), the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority (GRTA) and the Governor’s Development Council under the State Road & Tollway Authority (SRTA). It reintroduces legislation that was considered in 2024 but did not advance because it failed to pass the House.
The sponsor of that bill, State Sen. Jason Anavitarte (R-Paulding County), clearly stated in a Facebook post that he is pushing that legislation to prevent the expansion of transit in his county and throughout the region. The Senate Transportation Committee could take up this legislation at its meeting on March 18 at 8 a.m.
Neill Herring, a long-time observer of the state legislature and a lobbyist on transportation and environmental matters, said regional transit has little support at the capital.
“It stinks,” Herring said in an interview. “Nobody is interested in it. The governor is not interested in it. It’s going to take a governor who embraces transit as a solution to Atlanta’s largest problem, which, plainly put, is too many cars.”
Everyone interviewed for this column acknowledged congestion is getting worse as the region continues to grow. But efforts to expand transit have stalled, and there are few vocal advocates pushing for mobility alternatives that involve public transportation.
“Atlanta has too many cars,” Herring said. “The only way we are going to get fewer cars is replacing it with transit.”
State Rep. Vance Smith (R-Harris County) is a former commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation. He has seen traffic getting worse as his commute time from Pine Mountain has noticeably increased in the past several years.
Of the 11.5 million people living in Georgia, more than 6 million live in metro Atlanta. As GDOT commissioner from 2009 to 2011, Smith learned you can’t pave your way out of congestion.
“We need to have all modes of transportation, and transit is one of those modes,” Smith said in a phone interview. “Traffic is not going to go down if we keep growing like we have. More people are moving here.”
Smith said both Republican and Democratic administrations have been unable to expand MARTA or transit in the region for decades.
“The more we grow, the tougher it’s going to be. We can’t add enough lanes to move all these people. We have got to keep making a stab at it,” Smith said. “To me, connected transit has got to be integral to the solution.”
That’s why Smith questioned fellow Rep. Carson about his bill to prevent counties in the Atlanta region from going back to voters for Transit-SPLOSTs for eight years after a failed referendum.
Smith asked if local county officials had been involved in drafting the legislation. No. He then said it might make more sense to limit the time frame to four years rather than eight, so it wouldn’t tie the hands of elected leaders. And he wondered if Transit-SPLOSTs should only be voted on when there’s another election on the ballot.
During the March 2 committee meeting, the Council for Quality Growth testified against the legislation.
“The bill came out of left field for us,” said Yarbrough, who interpreted it as a signal of hesitation on transit by not allowing for a referendum until after 2032. “It limits the capacity of the region to do comprehensive transit planning at a time when we see increased desire for mobility options.”
Michael Paris, president and CEO of the Council, said having a transit referendum should be a local government decision.
“Instead of preventing a transit SPLOST election for eight years, putting those elections on a general election ballot makes far more sense,” Nicole Love Hendrickson, chair of the Gwinnett County Commission, said in a statement. “Giving voters the right to vote on major transportation projects is not only common sense, but it’s also good public policy.”
Cobb County Chair Lisa Cupid agreed, adding it would have been helpful if state legislators had contacted the local officials before introducing the bill to discuss some of its implications.
“It’s going to take collaboration of leaders at the state and local level to make sure we have robust transportation options in the region,” Cupid said in a phone interview. “We are all feeling the pinch of traffic.”
As the region continues to grow, Cupid said congestion could hurt Georgia’s economic development.
“It will take leadership that is focused on transportation,” Cupid said. “We need the support of state leaders to look beyond our local jurisdictions.”
The second bill, being pushed by Sen. Anavitarte, would have an even more chilling impact on the ability to expand transit in the region.
The bill he is proposing would eliminate GRTA, which was established by former Gov. Roy Barnes to help expand transit in the region. It would also eliminate the ATL, which was established in 2018, to better connect transit options across the 13-county region.
Personally, it has been frustrating to have an alphabet soup of regional transit agencies while seeing little progress to expand transportation options in metro Atlanta. But that’s the opposite of why this bill is being proposed.
“GRTA was set up with these enormous powers that can tax local governments, can take land through eminent domain, can force transportation systems in counties that may not want them,” Anavitarte said in a video message. “I think a lot of folks get nervous when people start using the word transit in Paulding County.”
Of course, the bill as currently written would limit the ability to expand transit all over the region, and not just in Paulding County.
“We are aware of the legislation,” Yarbrough said. “And we are actively evaluating its impact.”
Meanwhile, SRTA is not talking. As Ericka Bayonne, SRTA’s chief communications officer, said: “As a practice, we do not comment on pending legislation.”
Atlanta is choking on its own fumes and the suburbs want to wring its neck. It’s 1956 all over again in Paulding County.
The solution is to keep your life within 5 miles of where you live and use something other than a car to navigate that distance. Suburbs that adapt this model and accept e-transport will succeed. Those that don’t will either wither or see growth going even further out, like from Paulding County to Polk.
Who are the pro-transit politicians I can support? Even on the local level, I voted for Dickens the first time because he promised to be the “transit mayor” before immediately switching to stopping every transit expansion project he could. It sucks that we in the city are subject to the whims of these rural jackasses that seem intent on making life worse for us.
Dickens really killed transit in Atlanta, and set any meaningful expansion back decades, if not more.
I voted for him the first time, because transit. I didn’t vote for him a second time, because transit.
Our Georgia leadership is incredibly short-sighted when it comes to transit. I yearn for the days of Roy Barnes and Shirley Franklin. Leaders who made a difference.