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Monday, August 25, 2008
GDOT’s Abraham impresses Atlanta Rotarians
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Despite not feeling well today, Gena Abraham was well-received during her talk to the Rotary Club of Atlanta.
Abraham, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, spoke about the reforms she’s undertaking within the agency and her excitement in the state’s new transportation plan that’s underway.
“What I have is about 15 different transportation plans with 9,000 projects on the books,” she said. Her department is going through the different projects to determine their priorities and how they would fit with an interconnected state transportation plan.
She also said she hopes to be able to keep some money that GDOT collects that currently is going to the state’s general fund. One example is the fourth penny that the state collects as part of the motor fuel tax. That would bring in $176 million a year.
Abraham also made a special note of her hope to implement commuter rail from Atlanta to Griffin as part of a pilot program. There are some hurdles, such as meeting the regulations of the American Disabilities Act and figuring out how to pay for longterm operating and maintenance costs of the service.
“I will know more in the next 60 to 90 days,” she said.
That was music to the ears of Dick Hodges, a Rotarian who has been a longtime advocate for more rail transportation in the region. He said he is encouraged that the DOT commissioner has commuter rail on her agenda.
Abraham also was asked about whether there should be one regional transit agency rather than many separate groups.
“The governor and his staff are currently working on who is going to do what. There’s no clear picture on who is going to be the transit authority,” she said, adding that the Atlanta region doesn’t have one regional transit authority like Illinois. “There’s a void in our governance structure. If I do nothing else before I leave the department, if we could get it organized as to who does what, we will have made tremendous progress.”
At the beginning of the meeting, Stephen Rogers, formerly head of the Arthur Anderson office in Atlanta, introduced a former Anderson colleague as a new Rotary member — Mark Oshnock.
Oshnock is the relatively new president and CEO of the Visiting Nurse Health System.
Oshnock told Rotarians that Visiting Nurses serves 6,000 clients every day, which is at least as many as all the hospitals in Atlanta combined.
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