Traffic congestion and borrowed money pushed the state Department of Transportation's project spending to a record $2.7 billion last year, and Atlanta still has one of the worst commutes in the nation.

For fiscal 2008, ending in three weeks, DOT officials say they will spend only about $1 billion on road projects statewide.

• See list of projects

Part of that drop was long planned, as the department scaled down borrowing.

But $500 million to $600 million of the decline has come as a shock to the people who build roads as projects they expected to begin construction are in limbo.

The figures delineate problems DOT leaders have been warning about. Funding shortfalls, rising construction costs and the urgent need to reform DOT's accounting are coming home to roost, and a lot less dirt is getting turned.

And the current list of stalled projects may pale in comparison with what's to come as DOT slashes promised projects that it doesn't have money to build.

While the budget cuts may shock road builders, it's the results that disturb drivers.

Antonina Williams Spence doesn't know about DOT budgets. Standing on the stoop of her house in east DeKalb County, looking toward Snapfinger Road, she only sees danger that needs to be fixed.

Two-lane Snapfinger, built for quiet residential neighborhoods, now serves the traffic of an urban connector.

When traffic is moving, Spence said she can spend five to 10 minutes waiting to turn right from her residential street into Snapfinger Road's steady, speeding traffic.

At the peak of rush hour, Spence said, fire trucks struggle to get through.

"It's terrible, absolutely terrible," she said. "It needs to at least have two lanes" each way.

The widening was scheduled to start sometime last year, but didn't. Reasons for postponing a road improvement vary by project, but on Snapfinger Road, strangely enough, department reform is one.

DOT officials learned that the cost estimate had increased, something they might have ignored in the past to keep the project on track to bidding. Now, said DOT director of preconstruction Todd Long, DOT will admit up front when cost estimates are far too low and correct the books before bidding, even though that can force a project through weeks or months of re-approval at state agencies.

"We cannot be irresponsible with the money we have," Long said. "We've got to know where we're at before we [bid] a project."

Long said he fully expects the Snapfinger project to go to contract by late summer. Others won't be so fortunate.

Commissioner Gena Abraham is leading a re-prioritization of DOT's project lists. From now on, she said, DOT will commit to fund only what it can really fund.

Abraham says DOT has 8,476 current and future projects on the books, 1,345 of them active, and last year had money to start construction on about 270 new ones.

The math is fairly simple: When the ax falls, it could be a bloodbath.

The decline in spending this year doesn't mean there's $500 million or $600 million sitting around waiting to be used, Long said, since the money will be applied to previous DOT commitments. Abraham has said auditors now at work may find $1 billion in projects that DOT committed to build and doesn't have money for.

The squeeze on projects is a shock to Georgia's entire transportation system, as contractors and engineering firms lay off workers and local jurisdictions sit on edge.

Jack Burnside, a consultant who helps cities and counties apply for DOT help with pedestrian projects, said project delays extend to a grant program often used for smaller streetscape projects he deals with, with some projects sitting idle for half a year.

"I can't get an answer from anybody," Burnside said of DOT. "My feeling is they've gone out of business."

DOT spokesman David Spear said the grant program is in transition as the department gets new consultants to manage it.

Redrawing project lists for the state could be a more lasting blow, and one that will be hard to navigate.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better," Abraham said in a recent speech to the Georgia Public Policy Foundation. But "when we try to be all things to all people, we risk being nothing to everyone."

DOT has long overbooked project lists so money won't sit idle when local governments' project preparations are delayed. The overbooking went way overboard, Abraham has said.

Abraham has also said she intends to depoliticize project selection, that there will be no more "kissing the ring" — coming to Atlanta to court the commissioner.

Instead, this summer a computer is analyzing the benefits of projects and, with those results and officials' input, staff will draw a statewide priority list that she says will be transparent and not a home for political pork. In metro Atlanta, the Atlanta Regional Commission, which already has computer programs to analyze projects, will take a major role, drawing the list using its own resources and DOT data.

Whether it's possible to eliminate the politics from so rich a prize as transportation funding remains to be seen.

The ARC board, for example, is composed mostly of local elected officials.

And, when the DOT board held its monthly meeting in Stephens County in May, the local jurisdictions that paid handsomely to host the board made their traditional pitches for projects. Abraham approved a new $125,000 interchange on the Toccoa Bypass, now under construction, a project Stephens County wanted to accommodate a future high school access road.

DOT spokesman David Spear said that wasn't "kissing the ring," and that it made sense to award that work without waiting to compare its value to projects in other counties because crews were already at work on the bypass road.

"If it were business as usual," he added, "they would have gotten a commitment for their access road and they didn't get that."

As they watch DOT ramp up this summer for the list cutting, local officials seem torn between anxiety for their projects and chary acceptance that this may be what it takes to get a funding list they can count on.

"Our planning staff, our transportation staff are all in regular communication with DOT," said Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. "Sometimes the only way to institute fundamental reform is to stop, to take an assessment and then to act. ...

"The result of that may not be one that is a great outcome for any particular jurisdiction, including the city of Atlanta. ..." she added.

Williams was not so forgiving about fixing Snap-finger Road.

"That has nothing to do with the people that have to ride up and down the road," she said. "Pave the road and fix your books."

DOT spokesman David Spear said the department understands her frustration.

"There will be some instances, and this may be an example, where projects and the people who are most immediately impacted are going to be caught in the switches, if you will, of this transition," Spear said.

However, he said, she's a taxpayer too. "In a broader context it'll make the department more responsive and responsible."

DOT BY THE NUMBERS

• $2.7 billion — Price of Georgia DOT construction projects put out to contract for fiscal year 2007.

• $1.5 billion or $1.6 billion — Previously expected fiscal 2008 project budget.

• $1 billion — Revised fiscal year 2008 project budget, estimated.

• $2.1 billion — Projected DOT income from state and federal gas and income taxes in fiscal 2008, which ends June 30, 2008.

Sources: Georgia DOT, Governor's budget report

ROAD PROJECTS DELAYED BUT DESTINED FOR CONCRETE: a sampling

These projects are among $500 million to $600 million worth that DOT planned to bid out by the end of June, but didn't. Some are awaiting agency approval of new cost estimates and DOT expects these to go to contract within months.

• Fayette County: Widening Joel Cowan Parkway/Ga. 85 to Cooper Circl; and bridge at Flat Creek.

• Coweta County: Widening and shifting Ga. 34 Bypass from Temple Avenue to Jefferson Parkway, from Jefferson Parkway to Bullsboro Drive

• Cobb County: Adding medians and upgrading Roswell Road at Marietta Parkway

• Dekalb County: Widening Snapfinger Road from Wesley Chapel Road to Flat Shoals Parkway

• Henry County: Add turn lanes and signals to intersection at Ga. 138 and Ga. 155

Source: Georgia DOT

ROAD PROJECTS WAITING FOR THE LIST: a sampling

These projects, or preliminary phases, may be delayed for various reasons, but now must survive DOT's re-prioritization. Some contributed to the $500 million to $600 million that didn't get bid out over the last year.

• Cobb County: Widening Cobb Parkway from Chattahoochee bridge to Akers Mill Road

• Cherokee County: Cumming Highway widening

• Cherokee County: Sixes Road at I-575 bridge widening

• North Fulton County: Kimball Bridge Road bridge upgrade at Big Creek

• Gwinnett County: Widening and grade separation of 316 from Cedars Road to Drowning Creek Road

Source: Transportation Improvement Program changes, DOT, local officials