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Posted inDavid Pendered

$1.1 billion in spending approved Tuesday by metro Atlanta voters for roads, redevelopment, schools

by David Pendered

If metro Atlanta voters aren’t willing to pay higher taxes to ease traffic congestion and promote schools and development, that’s not the message they sent in Tuesday’s elections.

Voters approved more than $1.1 billion worth of spending in five jurisdictions – $852 million for projects including roads and urban renewal, and $280 million for the Clayton County school district.

Voters in Peachtree City approved a tax incentive program that favors development. Fairburn voters rejected an identical proposal. Two cities approved Sunday alcohol sales – Dacula and Palmetto. All votes results are unofficial pending certification.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Higher local match for state road funding appears in counties that rejected transportation sales tax

by David Pendered

The financial consequences of last year’s transportation sales tax referendum are starting to appear in the coffers of local governments throughout Georgia.

Counties that passed the sales tax have to match 10 percent to receive money from the state to maintain roads. Counties that rejected the tax – including metro Atlanta and most of Georgia – have to match 30 percent of the grant to receive any allocations from this pot of money.

The first round of checks has been released in the first time this formula has been used. In addition, this is the first use of a new state program the state Legislature created in 2009 in an attempt to streamline the state’s previous method of providing money to local governments to repair and maintain roads.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Smallish transportation projects advance as Sierra Club outlines thoughts on regional mobility

by David Pendered

Additional federal funding for a new bridge across I-75 in north Cobb County and a stormwater project along Ponce de Leon Avenue in DeKalb County were among six transportation projects approved Thursday in a proposed amendment to the region’s long-term transportation improvement program.

Simultaneously, the Atlanta Regional Commission has started the competition among local governments for the region’s estimated $29 million a year in federal funding for projects that reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality. The filing deadline is Sept. 27 for this new round of federal funding.

Collectively, the projects represent the type of recalibration that is surfacing a year after metro Atlanta voters rejected the 2012 transportation sales tax and its $8.5 billion in planned mobility improvements. In a sense, this approach shares similarities with “framework for transportation progress” outlined by the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Managed lanes: Region’s future freeway system being devised along I-75 in Atlanta’s northwest corridor

by David Pendered

Everyone who travels by vehicle through metro Atlanta has an interest in the managed toll lane system the state is to build in Cobb and Cherokee counties.

The system is likely to become the model of how drivers and the communities adjacent to the toll ways will interact with Georgia’s new method of expanding highway capacity in metro Atlanta. More than 150 miles of managed lanes are planned for metro Atlanta, according to the long-range transportation plan approved by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

A lot of little steps being taken just now are to lead to a new method of highway construction and travel in metro Atlanta. Agencies including the State Road and Tollway Authority, Georgia Department of Transportation, and their private sector partners are trying to devise a new paradigm.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Cobb, Cherokee counties so densely developed that I-75 managed lanes project won’t impact environment

by David Pendered

The I-75 corridor in Cobb and Cherokee counties is so densely developed that the 30-mile, two-lane toll road to be built in the corridor will have few negative environmental or social impacts.

This is the conclusion of the environmental impact study of the project completed by the Georgia Department of Transportation. While there’s no surprise in the result, the lack of impact on critters and land emphasizes the magnitude of the existing highway and development in Atlanta’s northwestern suburbs.

“This project is defined as the marginal addition of concrete to a 15-lane road,” said Brian Gist, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “When defined that way, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that it will have no effect.”

Posted inDavid Pendered

GDOT’s approval of I-75 project advances concept of managed toll lanes in region, plan due in 2014

by David Pendered

The state transportation board has chosen a team to build an $840 million network of managed toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties and open it in 2018.

Essentially, the project amounts to building a separate toll road alongside the existing highways. Traffic will flow south during the morning commute and north during the evening. Funding is scheduled from public and private sources.

This new project of managed toll lanes represents the wave of the future in Georgia’s highway program.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Atlanta’s new cycle track is short, but a milestone in city’s mobility options

by David Pendered

Atlanta is poised to complete in August a significant component of its overall plan to provide safer routes for bicyclists.

On its face, the new cycle track seems too short to be notable. It will stretch along 10th Street only the width Henry W. Grady High School, from Monroe Drive to Charles Allen Drive.

This short segment will provide a separate cycle track that will connect tip of the Atlanta BeltLine’s Eastside Trail at Piedmont Park to Charles Allen Drive. Because a bike lane already exists on Charles Allen Drive, the cycle track will provide one of the last links of connectivity for cycling and walking along a route from Inman Park neighborhoods through Midtown and across the Downtown Connector to Tech.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Tollway authority uses reserves to cover first budget without Ga. 400 tolls – $12.2 million drops away

by David Pendered

As Chris Tomlinson made the rounds after his appointment in March as head of the State Road and Tollway Authority, he joked that the pending end of the unpopular tolls on Ga. 400 provided him with an easy start to the job.

The SRTA budget approved June 25 suggests the honeymoon is over and the hard task of governance in lean economic times has begun.

SRTA projects a shortfall in its operating budget of 36.7 percent, or $7.6 million, in an expense budget of $20.7 million. SRTA intends to cover the shortfall with $5.8 million in reserves and revenue from two other sources.

Posted inDavid Pendered

As transportation sales taxes roll in elsewhere, metro Atlanta ponders how to provide traffic relief

by David Pendered

Three regions in Georgia where voters in 2012 passed the 1 percent sales tax for transportation have raised a total of $54 million from January through May, according to a report last week from the state finance commission.

That may not seem like a lot of money in comparison to the billions of dollars the tax would have collected if metro Atlanta voters had approved it. But it’s a pot of construction money some may envy as municipal officials in metro Atlanta continue to raise the question of how to ease traffic congestion in this region, where voters rejected the sales tax referendum.

Transportation was the sole subject discussed during a June 24 luncheon that was part of the annual conference hosted in Savannah by the Georgia Municipal Association. More than 120 municipal officials attended the lunch, according to the July newsletter of the Metro Atlanta Mayors Association.

Posted inDavid Pendered

MARTA, developers may start projects at three stations by early fall

by David Pendered

Proposed developments at three MARTA stations are so hot that they could start in a matter of months, according to MARTA records.

The proposals involve the stations of Avondale, Chamblee and King Memorial. Each proposal has “advanced to the point of the board’s decision/action and could be put into action this summer or early fall,” records show.

MARTA can’t wait for a consultant to be hired in May to handle the proposals. Instead, MARTA seeks to hire a consultant to work on these projects over the next 60 to 90 days. Bids for the consulting position close March 25.

Posted inDavid Pendered

A relation between stadium deal and stalled MARTA bill? Who’s to say

by David Pendered

There may be no relation whatsoever, but the plan to build a new Falcons stadium is moving forward and the proposed legislation to restructure MARTA and privatize some of its operations appears to be fading for the 2013 session.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration delivered a final deal within two months after receiving a troubled proposal from Gov. Nathan Deal. Reed’s team provided the $200 million in construction financing, plus somewhere around $100 million in public/private funds to fix up the area around the future stadium.

Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Brookhaven) indicated Tuesday that he’s done about all he can to sweeten his team’s proposal to reorganize MARTA. Jacobs has offered to eliminate the privatization provision in House Bill 264 and to resolve in MARTA’s favor all but one concern MARTA has raised. Still, the bill is stalled in the Senate.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Metro Atlanta’s transportation funding clobbered by recession, dip in federal support, ARC study shows

by David Pendered

Some truly jaw-dropping numbers that reveal the harrowing impact of the recession on transportation funding in metro Atlanta were presented Wednesday to the board that oversees GRTA.

All the numbers relate to the amount of money that will be available to build and maintain roads and bridges, and transit. The revenue figures are down – across the board – from federal to state to local dollars.

Here’s a wry observation of Georgia’s expected share of the federal transportation bill that President Obama signed in 2012: “We were excited to see it, until we began to look at the money in it,” said John Orr, a senior planner with ARC who made the presentation to GRTA’s board.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Reed supports Obama’s national infrastructure repair plan, although it’s been drowned out by sequester

by David Pendered

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed on Wednesday strongly endorsed one of President Obama’s domestic proposals, even as it has been swept from the stage by debate over budget cuts known as the sequester.

During Obama’s State of the Union message, the president reintroduced the idea of repairing the nation’s transportation infrastructure. The plan he discussed is to fix worn roads, bridges, ports, water and sewerage, and transit – and to pay for the upgrades with measures including a national infrastructure bank.

Posted inTom Baxter

Chattanooga: Eating our lunch in liveability

Avatar photo by Tom Baxter

When Atlantans look around for other cities to compare theirs with, they think major league all the way. They measure their growth against Houston and Dallas. They travel to Denver and Seattle to find civic inspiration and worry that Charlotte and Nashville are gaining on them.

But as we contemplate the hotter, wetter future we discussed last week, we might be better off taking a look at Chattanooga.

Yes, Chattanooga. Seldom do we think of our neighbor across the Tennessee line as much of a competitor. When they built an aquarium, we just built a bigger one. But for nearly three decades, since a group of civic leaders got together in 1984 and committed themselves to doing something about Chattanooga’s image as the dirtiest city in America, and in the view of some the dullest, they have been eating our lunch on the playing field of liveability.

Posted inGuest Column

Atlanta prepares for its future as it builds its first modern streetcar

by Teresa Johnston

By Guest Columnist LEON EPLAN, former commissioner of the City of Atlanta’s Department of Planning and Development

As work progresses on the Atlanta Streetcar, the city has aken a giant step towards confronting its current and future traffic problems.

Construction on the entire 2.6-mile loop will continue until the day the line is open for public travel, now scheduled for spring, 2014. By then, planning for additional lines will have already begun.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Plan for big changes at MARTA receives little push-back, except from union; ready for vote at Capitol

by David Pendered

The most significant proposal in decades to reform MARTA is sailing through the legislative process at the state Capitol and could be up for a vote in the House as early as next week.

So far, no serious objections to the proposal have been raised in public by MARTA or the three governments that control MARTA – Atlanta, and Fulton and DeKalb counties, though union has voiced concerns. The sponsor said the bill intends to help MARTA serve its current and future riders.

“I hope that the bill is received in the way it is intended – and that is to improve MARTA’S financial conditions so that we can, hopefully, see some future expansion of the system,” said Rep. Mike Jacobs (R-Brookhaven), who chairs the MARTA oversight committee.

Posted inDavid Pendered

GRTA quietly making case to state lawmakers to fund Xpress bus service

by David Pendered

GRTA is working diligently at the state Capitol to support funding for Xpress, the regional bus service that is in line to receive $8.7 million in state funding, if state lawmakers support budget requests by Gov. Nathan Deal.

GRTA, which manages the bus system, is making the case to help lawmakers see the value in state funding for a transit system that reportedly takes 1.5 million cars a year off metro Atlanta’s roads with its 2.4 million boardings in fiscal year 2012.

Jannine Miller, GRTA’s executive director, on Wednesday walked GRTA board members through the presentation the agency is delivering to lawmakers. The message is simple: Xpress represents a good fiscal policy for lawmakers to support.

Posted inSaba Long

Transportation Camp attracts usual suspects to explore transit advances

by Saba Long

Technology is disrupting nearly every aspect of the transportation industry — whether its state-of-the-art robotics revamping the automobile assembly line to a computerized conductor system navigating the railroad tracks or a mobile application providing real-time train and bus locations.

Nearly 250 technologists, planning students, professional experts and other transportation enthusiasts gathered at Georgia Tech for TransportationCamp South, an “unconference” organized by New York City-based Open Plans — a transportation technology and planning startup. Previous launch cities include San Francisco, New York City, Montreal and Washington, DC.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Buckhead Trail to move ahead with design/build agreement with GDOT

by David Pendered

Atlanta made a final step Wednesday, perhaps the conclusive one in terms of creating needed bureaucracy, in the journey to build a new park system along Ga. 400 in Buckhead at minimal public expense.

A proposal that formally brings Georgia’s Department of Transportation into the design and construction of the planned Ga. 400 Greenway Trail was approved unanimously by the Utilities Committee of the Atlanta City Council. The council is expected to approve the deal at its Feb. 4 meeting.

Hopes for the trail are high: “This project has the chance to be an example of inventive use of space that people will fly in to see,” Atlanta Councilman Howard Shook said Wednesday evening.

Posted inDavid Pendered

Buckhead a study in contrasts: Mobility to improve as office market sags, construction slumps

by David Pendered

Buckhead provides an interesting glimpse into the mixed bag that is metro Atlanta’s commercial real estate industry, a vital piece of the region’s economy.

The good news is two major transportation projects should improve access measurably in a region where prestigious buildings are surrounded by traffic congestion. One project involves MARTA’s Buckhead Station, while the other addresses the interchange of Ga. 400 and I-85.

The not-so-good news is the office market continues to drag. Buckhead was one of the region’s five submarkets that lost tenancy in fourth quarter 2012, though Buckhead showed an overall gain in the year, according to the latest vacancy report from Cassidy Turley, a commercial real estate services provider.

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