January 2009 Newsletter Available
January 26, 2009
The latest newsletter is available by clicking on the following link.
House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith Unveils Transportation Funding Concept
January 19, 2009
During a meeting of the House Transportation Committee on Wednesday, January 14th, Chairman Vance Smith unveiled a statewide transportation funding plan that is still conceptual in nature. Below is a memo GCAA received from Scott Maxwell who was in attendance at the meeting.
January 14, 2009
Memo to: GCAA
From: Scott Maxwell
Re: Vance Smith’s Transportation Funding
Chairman Vance Smith addressed an informal meeting of the House Transportation Committee and an audience of interest groups Wednesday afternoon regarding a bill to provide funding for transportation.
He said he had “a concept.” No bill. No handouts. But, he wanted to discuss a basis to build upon and that he wanted everyone’s input.
His proposal (which he might call the Citizens Transportation Funding Bill) is for a one-cent statewide sales tax on “everything” that would be a constitutional amendment, that if passed, would be put on the ballot in November of 2010. (It wasn’t discussed, but I think it unlikely the tax could take effect by the following January, so we may be talking about the tax being effective July 1, 2011.) There would be a 10-year sunset on the tax.
Chairman Smith thinks people will want to know what projects they are voting to tax themselves to build. He made a list divided into the following four major categories:
I. Intersections at interstates.
These might be at the top of that list:
I-75 at I-285 at Windy Hill Road (Cobb County)
I-75 at I-16 in Macon
I-285 at GA 400 in Fulton Co.
I-20 at I-285 West of Atlanta
I-20 at I-285 East of Atlanta
I-285 at Roswell Road in North Atlanta
II. Freight Routes (Getting trucks around Atlanta and across the state from Savannah and
Brunswick Ports)
The top of this list might include:
U.S. 27 connector to I-85 on the west side of the state
From the Savannah Ports to the Fall Line Freeway.
A transfer station around Dublin with expansion of U.S. 441 North to I-85.
III. Economic Development Corridors
The top of this list might include:
The Fall Line Freeway (Complete the sections that are unfinished)
Albany to Valdosta
IV. Roads of Regional Significance
The top contenders here could be:
I-575
I-985
Hwy. 92 on the West side of Atlanta
He emphasized that these are likely the types of projects that would be included. He says the question of “governance” is still to be addressed. That is, who will decide which projects are eventually selected, how much is spent on each project, and how they are prioritized. Smith said, “This issue is above my pay grade.”
He added, however, that he thinks they would have to plug in a percentage of the total for each category rather than hard dollar amounts.
Smith told the group that DoT is still working on the numbers. He hopes that increased state dollars could draw down increased federal dollars, increasing the total available. In round numbers, he expects that a one-cent state-wide sales tax would start off bringing in $1.4 billion annually, then $1.5 billion and continue to grow, totaling about $25 billion over 10 years. (These, of course, are only estimates.)
Smith said they were also looking at another feature for the bill. There are 30 cities in Georgia with a population of 15,000 or more (or so close that they will be 15,000 by the time this tax goes into effect). The plan is to give each city a transportation grant of $1,000 per person. Thus, a city of 15,000 would receive $15,000,000 to use for resurfacing or mass transit buses or whatever it chose. In addition, three counties not in the ARC, but on its border would receive the $1,000 per person. Those counties are Paulding, Forsyth and Coweta.
The plan calls for tracking LARP funding so that legislators, local officials and citizens can see:
“Here’s how much we received in LARP over the last 10 years. Here’s how much we are projected to receive over the next 10 years.”
He said state aid could be used for the following projects, adding, “These are just some concepts.”
Bridge rehabilitation and replacement.
General aviation (He wants to significantly improve small airports during the 10-year tax
period).
Ports (Extension of roads from the ports to thoroughfares).
Concessions and PPI. “We’re trying to dedicate/allocate enough money that it will interest
someone to come into Georgia for the concessions.”
Suburban light rail (Possibly across the towns and suburbs just north of Atlanta’s I-285.)
Commuter rail (Possibility of money for the Athens to Atlanta “Brain Train.)
Multi-modal stations
Street car and Beltline projects
Transforming 316 into a strictly limited access highway.
Smith got questions about, “Can it pass the Senate?” “Can it pass on the ballot?” His response was, “Let’s don’t say we can’t do it. We need a plan.” He suggested that we take every bill that is introduced on the subject and lay it out by a large map of Georgia. Then, take a highlighter and mark every project, bridge rehab, and improvement on the map. Then “pass the map.”
He concluded by asking for feedback and input.
The legislature is in recess next week for holidays and budget hearings. Thus, the first House Transportation Committee meeting is scheduled for Thursday, January 29.
Where do candidates for governor in 2010 stand on transportation?
January 19, 2009
Below is an article courtesy of Jim Galloway at the AJC Political Insider. He brings up some interesting points on where some of our gubernatorial candidates stand on the important issue.
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Updated: The transportation teeter-totter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
An odd dynamic is at work in the state Capitol, courtesy of a 2010 race for governor that’s already well underway.
Picture Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, only one of the leading GOP candidates, at one end of a teeter-totter.
This session, Cagle is under pressure to prove both his own effectiveness and his independence from Gov. Sonny Perdue. He also must match wits with his institutional opponent, House Speaker Glenn Richardson.
So put Richardson and Perdue at the other end of that seesaw.
But two other Republican candidates for governor are in the state Capitol complex. Secretary of State Karen Handel sits in a second floor office, catty-corner from Cagle. And state Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine occupies an office across the street.
Over the next 39 days, both Handel and Oxendine will dip into the debate at times and places of their own choosing. But it’s becoming clear which end of the teeter-totter they prefer.
Take the all-important issue of transportation. There is general agreement that Georgia hasn’t been putting enough money into roads, bridges, and rail. The state’s business community — recognizing the opportunity that a gubernatorial election brings — has demanded a reality check.
Cagle backs an approach that would allow groups of counties — metro Atlanta, in particular — to band together for the sake of levying a one-cent sales tax that would go toward easing congestion or addressing whatever transportation needs a community has.
It would also put money, and thus power, in the hands of people not part of state government. Decision-making would be somewhat decentralized.
But in a Sunday op-ed piece in the AJC, the House speaker strongly hinted that he wanted to revive debate on another approach — a statewide sales tax that would generate much more money. And would be distributed in a more centralized fashion.
“Adding a lane along a busy interstate, extending a rail line by a couple of miles or simply allowing metro Atlanta to tax itself won’t solve our problems,” Richardson wrote.
On Monday afternoon, after the first day’s session, Oxendine was in the Capitol, having provided part of the background for a press conference on illegal immigration.
Afterwards, I asked the insurance commissioner what he thought about the transportation issue. Oxendine said he’s for whatever works.
However, Oxendine said he’s suspicious of a regional approach. It would be too easy for counties at two ends of a transportation corridor to approve the tax, while those between opt out. “There’s a potential for gaming the system,” he said.
Rural areas must be convinced that finding a solution to metro Atlanta’s traffic problems is a statewide problem. After all, it’s hard to persuade a widget business to build a plant in south Georgia if those widgets — once loaded in north-bound trucks — are paralyzed in big-city traffic.
We hear that Handel is prepared to say the same thing, or something close.
That’s a lot of weight at one end of the teeter-totter.
Update: The above dynamic became even more pronounced this morning at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce’s Eggs and Issues Breakfast. My AJC colleague James Salzer was there.
“It’s time we address transportation on a statewide basis. If we’re going to solve transportation for Atlanta, we have to solve transportation for Georgia. Simply drawing a circle around Atlanta and letting Atlanta tax itself to fix transportation in Atlanta, I don’t believe will help transportation in Atlanta,” House Speaker Glenn Richardson said.
The speaker said the problem requires a statewide tax that goes for everything from road projects and rail in Atlanta, to figuring out routes to steer traffic away from the city. Of the regional transportation idea, he said, “I believe that plan will not fix transportation.”
Afterwards, Gov. Sonny Perdue told reporters, “The speaker made some good points. Transportation is a statewide issue. I want a statewide solution to transportation as well.”
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle said he couldn’t comment on Richardson’s proposal because the speaker’s comments were “general.” He added, “A statewide, one penny increase in the sales tax just for transportation would probably be difficult to pass in the Senate.”
Guest Column – House Speaker Glenn Richardson Talks Transportation
January 19, 2009
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A transportation solution
By GLENN RICHARDSON
Sunday, January 11, 2009
If we are to continue Georgia’s growth and prosperity, we must solve our transportation issues for the entire state. Adding a lane along a busy interstate, extending a rail line by a couple of miles or simply allowing metro Atlanta to tax itself won’t solve our problems.
For the past two years, a group of dedicated stakeholders has been working together to solve these problems. Many of these stakeholders recognize, as do I, that it is time to think bigger and develop a comprehensive statewide transportation improvement plan.
That’s why I’m confident in the leadership of House Transportation Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain) and his committee to work toward a plan that includes projects of statewide significance while providing funds for local transportation needs.
This type of approach will improve our transportation infrastructure in every corner of the state. Whether it is Fulton County, the heart of the region’s economic engine, or Chatham County, home to the fastest-growing container port in the country, these economic engines will benefit. But other counties, whether they are rural, such as Early or Walker, or metro-suburbs, such as Paulding, Henry or Walton, will gain from this plan as well.
Improving the state’s transportation network will allow us to remain at the forefront as we compete for jobs on a regional, national and global scale. Moreover, anyone who has to commute a half-hour, hour or, in some cases, two hours to work knows that better transportation means a better quality of life.
All modes of transportation must be part of this plan. It should also include infrastructure enhancements such as interchange improvements, major arterials, multimodal stations, pedestrian facilities, bridge rehabilitation, expanding lane capacity and further developing existing corridors for freight and economic development purposes. We must also continue to explore the use of public-private initiatives.
As one example, we could remove approximately 60 percent of all tractor-trailer traffic from Atlanta’s congested roads just by routing the trucks bound for other cities around Atlanta. This can be accomplished by expanding and improving existing road and rail corridors outside metro Atlanta. By improving infrastructure throughout the rest of the state, we will provide congestion relief in the city of Atlanta and all Georgians will benefit.
A transportation plan that meets these goals will require additional funding and a constitutional amendment that must be approved by Georgia voters in 2010. Our current transportation policies are outdated and were designed for the Georgia of the past. A true statewide transportation improvement plan must empower new transportation policies to achieve our stated goals.
As the General Assembly convenes Monday, we will continue to build on our past progress, put good policy above politics and develop a transportation plan for now and the future that meets the needs of all of Georgia.
Transportation Editorial – Jay Bookman, AJC Editorial Board
January 19, 2009
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Georgia laws, politics create bottleneck
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, January 11, 2009
After years of denial, much of Georgia’s leadership now acknowledges that the state’s transportation system is in crisis and that the situation in metro Atlanta is particularly dire.
It’s not just that we’ve failed to modernize infrastructure; we have also failed to modernize our transportation thinking, our bureaucracies and our sources of transportation revenue, and are now reaping the consequences of those failures.
However, the broad acknowledgement that real change is needed has come at an awkward time. Fixing Georgia’s transportation system and bureaucracies will require vision, courage, money and time, but most of all money, and we don’t have any. With revenue projections plummeting in a harsh economic climate, state legislators gathering for the 2009 session face the prospect of cutting $2 billion from the budget, which inevitably means painful cutbacks in areas such as education and health care. Nor is there likely to be much enthusiasm for raising taxes.
Nonetheless, the state Department of Transportation is asking legislators for more than $400 million in new money from a general fund that’s already overspent. MARTA, the only major rail-transit system in the country that survives without state support, is asking for more than $100 million.
In both cases, the requests are stop-gap measures designed to ease the funding crisis in the short term. Legislators are also being heavily lobbied by business groups and transportation agencies to create a more long-term mechanism that will significantly increase transportation funding.
Last year, legislators came close to approving a mechanism that would have allowed metro Atlanta to tax itself to help meet its transportation needs. The proposal failed at the last minute in the state Senate, which is led by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, and that failure became a serious political problem for Cagle. With his bid for governor on the line, Cagle is now an enthusiastic supporter of transportation reform and funding.
The situation is so critical that it has even aroused the current governor, Sonny Perdue, who may finally be ready to take a leadership role in transportation policy. A study by McKinsey & Co., undertaken at Perdue’s request, has documented in stark numbers just how little Georgia has been spending on transportation and how much economic growth it could generate with a more aggressive approach. Perdue himself has not responded to those findings, but he will probably do so in the next few days.
It’s hard to know what to expect. Even in more prosperous times, the governor wasn’t exactly a visionary. His biggest initiative to date has been his “Go Fish Georgia” program. The current economic climate gives him the perfect excuse to once again “go small,” even at a time when much bigger steps are required.
However, the roots of our transportation problems go deeper than mere money. For example, Georgia’s 13-member transportation board — one member for each of the state’s congressional districts — is archaic. It was designed as a means to distribute patronage around the state, and that’s exactly what it does. Traditionally, board members have seen their first responsibility as diverting as many transportation dollars as possible back to the home district; setting policy to create an efficient statewide transportation system was a distant second. That approach has even been written into law with a “congressional balancing” requirement that money be spent equally among the districts, without regard to where it’s most needed or would have the most impact.
Even in the face of a fiscal crisis, some DOT board members are still reluctant to abandon that mind-set. The governor and Legislature should prod them along by repealing the balancing requirement, a step that would cost no money but do a lot to help spend wisely.
To its credit, the DOT may already be rethinking its past opposition to mass transit spending. At a rare summit meeting of state transportation officials Wednesday, DOT board Chairman Bill Kuhlke Jr., a builder from Augusta, acknowledged that metro Atlanta’s transportation needs probably can’t be met by more highways.
“Transit is going to be the biggest part of the answer for this particular region,” Kuhlke said.
While that statement suggests a major change of attitude, it’s not reflected in state law. The main source of state funding for transportation is the gasoline tax, and the state constitution bars use of gas-tax revenue for anything but roads and bridges. If metro Atlanta’s transportation future lies with transit, that provision must be changed.
(MARTA is also asking the Legislature to repeal a law restricting how the agency spends its own sales-tax revenue, yet another archaic provision in need of change.)
At the summit, state transportation leaders talked frankly about tapping into the billions in federal money expected to flow as part of an economic stimulus plan. But Georgia will have to change how it does things if it is to compete for that.
The incoming Obama administration has made it clear that it will fund transportation projects that cut consumption of gasoline and other greenhouse gases and that reduce dependence on foreign oil. Transit, in other words, will play a major role, and Georgia isn’t ready to move quickly in that direction.
The administration says it will also insist that states choose projects based on their transportation and economic impact, not on patronage concerns. Again, that’s not the way Georgia law and political culture work, and so far they have proved stubbornly resistant to reform.
Of course, with billions of dollars becoming available at a time of great need, maybe that could change.
— Jay Bookman, for the editorial board
