Recent transportation stories

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Transportation funding advocates have dreamed of this moment for months, maybe even years. Like others who back hot-button issues, they see the 2007 legislative session as their best chance, a non-election year when a secure party majority in both houses and a lame duck governor will have less to lose in backing taxes to pay for transportation.

Metro Atlanta chambers of commerce and the lobby Georgians for Better Transportation have come out with a couple of different scenarios. The business groups have backed a regional special purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST, where the legislature would allow counties to group together and propose that voters approve limited tax hikes for designated projects. GBT would prefer a statewide tax that doesn't expire and has proposed eliminating the gas tax and raising the statewide sales tax by 1 percent, which would be permanent and raise much more money. In either case, backers say the measures could be set up to include public transit, if that's what the voters or the legislators want.

Other issues that may come before the lawmakers include bills to discourage speeding and make pickup drivers wear seat belts.

-- Ariel Hart