Transportation was on the ballot for Cobb and Gwinnett County voters in November, but both referendums to fund public transit expansion with a local 1 percent sales tax failed.
Long-time transit advocates in the Atlanta region pointed to concerns about the economy as the main reason these initiatives didn’t find more support with voters in 2024.
Gwinnett County voters have repeatedly rejected bids for transit expansion over the years. In 2019, residents voted against the county joining the MARTA rail system. In 2020, a measure to fund heavy rail development over 30 years through a 1 percent sales tax was defeated by about 1,000 votes.
This year, 53 percent of Gwinnett voters opposed the ballot measure, which would have funded as many as 75 proposed transit projects over a 30-year period.
“I was a little surprised, but not too much,” said Charlotte Nash, a member of the Atlanta-region Transit Link (ATL) Authority board and former Chair of the Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners.
“I really had expected that perhaps it would pass this time, but I think the economic situation, the fact that the economy was such a big part of the overall discussion [in this election]… I think that probably had a big impact on the outcome of the referendum in Gwinnett and Cobb this time around,” she said.
In Cobb County, 62 percent of voters voted against funding transit expansion. Voters in Cobb County rejected joining MARTA in 1965, voted against a sales tax that included transit in 1998, and rejected a mass transit SPLOST proposed across 10 counties in 2012, but the issue hasn’t been on the ballot as recently as in Gwinnett.
“Sometimes it takes a while for the public to get enough information to decide whether to go forward,” former executive director of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC), Doug Hooker, said of the Cobb results.
Hooker also noted that concerns about the economy made this bad timing for a vote on raising taxes.
“That was prevailing, to me, in the voters’ minds. They didn’t want to do anything that would increase their cost of living, even though it might ultimately help their cost of living by reducing transportation costs. But I don’t think that was a part of their consideration,” he said.
What’s next?
“Our goal has not changed. Our goal is to provide mobility in Gwinnett County, and we’re still going to be moving toward that goal,” director of the Gwinnett Department of Transportation Lewis Cooksey said of the referendum results.
Ridership for Gwinnett County’s bus service will be well over one million this year, he said.
“I think that there’s a misconception that our buses are empty when we actually have several routes that are running full at certain times of the day,” Cooksey said.
Without the sales tax funding for transit, Gwinnett County is in an evaluation period to examine existing routes and services, improve efficiency where possible and see which parts of the proposed transportation plan might still be implemented, he said.
“Cobb and Gwinnett are going to make their own decisions about where they go from here,” Nash said. “It creates uncertainty about what type of expansion of transit will happen in Cobb and Gwinnett, whether some improvements will move forward without the sales tax referendum or exactly how those counties will approach it.”
Money for transit in Cobb and Gwinnett comes from property taxes, so spending is determined by the local governments.
“We have to look at other [funding] options. We’re looking at every notice of grant opportunity that comes out. We’re also looking for partnerships with cities and [community improvement districts] (CIDs) to see where those may be available,” Cooksey said of potential avenues to fund transit projects in Gwinnett.
He noted that microtransit services, like those in partnership with Snellville, Lawrenceville and Norcross, are essential for mobility in the county.
“I really think that is critical to our future and to expansion,” he said. “It’s through partnerships that we’d be able to move projects forward more quickly.”
Cobb also recently launched a new microtransit program. Nash, who helped develop the framework for the first microtransit project in Gwinnett during her time on the county board of commissioners, said those services have been appealing because they allow more flexibility to work within county budgets.
“The basis on which both Cobb and Gwinnett have expanded microtransit is seeing what works in certain areas without having a huge, long-term commitment for whether those services have to stay in place or not,” she said.
The service has been popular in Gwinnett and helpful in getting residents to certain job and commerce centers, but they’re still relatively niche solutions.
“In terms of mass behavior change, they aren’t going to move the needle dramatically at all,” Hooker said.
What it means for the region
Both Cobb and Gwinnett have some of the heaviest commute patterns in the region, Hooker said. These counties continue to experience rapid growth, with 777,000 residents in Cobb and Gwinnett’s population surpassing one million people earlier this year.
“What transit services exist in any of the individual counties affects what’s available for the region as a whole,” Nash said. “You’re still faced with the fact that you’ve got huge numbers of people continuing to move into jurisdictions, and all of us in the metro area are going to feel the effect of those people being added to our population here.”
Mobility remains one of the most significant limiting factors to Atlanta’s growth and quality of life.
“Even for transit advocates in relatively transit-rich areas, there’s a sense of disappointment that things aren’t being done more efficiently and more effectively. I’m a long MARTA proponent, and I’m deeply disappointed by the way the More MARTA program has crawled along,” Hooker said, despite having a reliable stream of funding for enhancing transit.
He hoped that successful referendums in Cobb or Gwinnett would spur other local governments to put transportation funding on the ballot and eventually lead to a more robust transit network across metro Atlanta. Now, he expects it will be quite some time before either county commission is willing to put the question in front of voters again.
Thinking around transit in the region has to change eventually, Hooker said.
“If you think you can do the growth infinitely with no changes to your mobility philosophy, you’re fooling yourself,” he said.
Claiming with out scientific studies to proof it that the economy is the reason why Cobb and Gwinnett rejected transit is to white wash the issue. These two counties have historically rejected transit of all types in good economic times and bad. I have lived here for almost 40 years and I repeated have been told by people who live in these counties that if they let MARTA in it will increase crime. A ridiculous claim but the real underlying concern, is based in bigotry and a lack of understanding of the issues. Americans including Georgians are spending record amounts on travel, gifts and food this year not because of inflation but because they want to buy and travel. The economy by every measure is strong and inflation is at a normal rate. That is just a cover for the deeper issues that plague transit in this metro area.
It was clear that it was the economy or at least the perception of inflation that ignores corporate America’s increased profits from keeping prices high as well as the increasing tax burden because of increased housing values. Prices are staying high because people keep paying them. Corproate Amercia is not hding that they will keep prices high as logn as peopel pay them yet fior many who haven’t seen income increase to cover expenses did vote against paying any additonal amount for a tax. I heard that on social media from numerous people. And yes part of that is that people are not using transit although there is demand if we can expand the service to get people from where they are to where they want to go which the systems in Gwinnett and Cobb don’t do very well due to lack of funding. The econom’s perception as not being as strong as it is, as you noted, was the underlying issue both in the presidential race and on these referendums.
The problem was with a 30 year tax. No one in their right mind actually believes government would be a good steward of your money for 3 years, much less 30 years.
That’s an excuse by those who believe the lies and misinformation that the government is the problem as Reagan erroneously claimed 30+ years ago. To get Federal funding a government entity must show they are committed for a long period of time.
‘economic concerns’ is a very diplomatic way to say: “we saw that Collie Greenback was not being financially prudent and, we would prefer to not have tax money used for ‘development,’ when in reality it might go to redeveloping Collies driveway at his second, taxpayer-funded, residence. Economic concerns captures that disdain for blatant corruption.
Again misperceptions due to misinfomation being spread by conservatives. There is nothing to even support the notion that the tax money would be used for personal purposes by any government official. Not to say some have misused funds in the past. There is no evidence of blatant corruption. Sharing that kind of nonsense is endemic among conservatives to the detriment of our local governments as well as the state and country.