It’s a given. The City of Atlanta will go to voters in November to propose an additional half-penny in taxes over the next 40 years for MARTA. That tax alone initially is expected to generate more than $50 million a year.
But the City of Atlanta also has the option to ask voters whether they want to approve another half penny for five years for general transportation projects.
Atlanta has a wonderful opportunity to lead the region by showing how to seize the future. It can become the model for the rest of the region. As Atlanta proves that transit is giving it a competitive edge, the rest of the region will find out the hard way that it’s a day late and a dollar short – and forced to play catch up.
By Guest Columnist MIKE DOBBINS, professor of the practice of planning at Georgia Tech’s College of Architecture and a former commissioner of planning and community development for the City of Atlanta
Transit is a good. In an ideal world it gets people where they want to go, cleanly, efficiently, and affordably. Transit fills a need. Twenty percent of Atlanta’s citizens are living at or below the poverty line; additionally, a growing percentage of the population doesn’t drive. This might be because they’re too old, too young, or because they simply don’t want to.
Atlanta is poised to create a citizen’s commission to advise city officials on on-going efforts to promote safe walking and bicycling networks in Atlanta.
The maker of Atlanta’s beloved Segways have just received an ounce of prevention from the federal government, which shut down the import of devices built with technology stolen from Segway.
Starting next week, the public will have its final chance to comment on GRTA’s first major overhaul since its bus service started in 2004. GRTA plans to implement new bus routes that affect all service corridors on Sept. 6.
By Guest Columnist JOHN MATTHEWS, a commercial real estate investor and an MBA graduate of Goizueta Business School
A debate seems to still be occurring in Georgia and our legislature about transit versus roads for the Atlanta region. Still? It is time for the debate to stop, and it is time to begin implementing solutions. Because the logic of transit is not a subject of debate.
Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves met with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed last week to work on possible “local legislation” compromise for transportation funding that would address MARTA’s expansion plans.
A consequence of the transportation funding bill approved in 2015 by the General Assembly has prompted archaeologists to present their opposition Monday at the Capitol to a measure they say would cripple historic research and preservation.
It is natural for any city to brag a little about itself … but in Atlanta, boosterism is a way of life. That, however, does not change the fact that there are many things about Atlanta that are worth bragging about. I guess we were just in a little bit of a reflective mood this […]
“Delay, delay, delay.” That was presidential candidate Donald J. Trump’s response to President Barack Obama’s forthcoming nomination of a Supreme Court Justice to replace conservative Antonin Scalia.
Transit skeptics in Fulton County and at the state legislature are using the same tactic to shortchange a long overdue MARTA expansion.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, speaking to a gathering of civic leaders Monday morning, gave a glimmer of hope that the MARTA referendum may not be dead after all.
At a conference about the “opportunity gap,” Reed said that if there were a transportation referendum without MARTA, “just count me out.”
The mixed use development planned at MARTA’s Brookhaven Station has been put on hold by Brookhaven city officials, who want to have a broader discussion about the area’s infrastructure before homes, shops and a hotel are built at the site.
President Obama has announced his intent to appoint MARTA GM/CEO Keith Parker to a national council that advises the president on issues related to the security and resilience of the country’s critical infrastructure systems.
MARTA is upgrading its paid parking system and wants to know its options for taking pictures of each driver and license plate as vehicles enter and exit a MARTA parking facility.
Fulton County Commission Chairman John Eaves has been working for months to build consensus among all the mayors in his county on how to move forward with transportation funding.
At Tuesday’s meeting of Fulton’s mayors and county commissioners, the various political leaders moved a step closer to consensus – with the exception of Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle.
Shifting Atlanta from a city centered around cars to one focused on people on foot or bicycles faced a reality-check on Friday.
Alexis Hyneman, a 14-year-old student at Grady High School, lost her young life when a car hit her while she was riding her bicycle Thursday at the super-confusing intersection of 10th Street, Monroe Drive and the Atlanta BeltLine.
For decades, Georgia has had several road-building initiatives geared to attracting new companies to the state.
They’ve been called developmental highways or the Governor’s Road Improvement Program (GRIP) – and they’ve all involved spending hundreds of millions of dollars of state money to build four-lane roads to almost every corner of the state.
Georgia’s new formula for funding road projects has enabled the state to create, and more importantly to fund, a 10-year plan of improvement that will improve safety and mobility throughout the state, Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry told state House lawmakers.
It may seem like old news in metro Atlanta, but a new demographic study of Washington, D.C. by the U.S. Census Bureau has determined that well-educated, high-earning young people disproportionately reside near a transit rail stop.
