Here we are again.

Eighteen years after Gwinnett County voters last trooped to the polls to give a big fat thumbs down to MARTA —- and, according to lore, just about everything it stands for —- the issue is on the ballot again.

Unlike that 1990 thumping —- when seven out of 10 voters rejected a 1-cent sales tax to fund MARTA's expansion into the county —- this election is little more than an opinion poll.

Leaders of the county's Republican and Democrat parties will ask their respective voters if they support the idea of bringing MARTA and its 1-cent sales tax into the county. If voters say yes, it doesn't mean taxes will go up or rail will go down. And if they say no, it doesn't mean the issue is dead.

It's really just water-cooler fodder, along with the parties' questions about illegal immigration, development policies and other issues. And it hasn't generated much public attention.

"I haven't really heard anyone talking about it," said MARTA rider Linda Autrey of Peachtree Corners.

But MARTA leaders put enough stock in the questions to organize two public meetings and an open house last month for Gwinnett residents who wanted to know what rail might look like in Gwinnett.

They showed off a concept borrowed from the metro Transit Planning Board, bringing the familiar MARTA heavy rail line up from Doraville to Norcross, where riders could pick up a light rail line that would take them as far north as Gwinnett Place mall or possibly the county's arena and civic center complex at Sugarloaf Parkway.

"We're viewing it as a good opportunity to find out how the voters of Gwinnett County stand, not only on MARTA, but rail in general, and what they are willing to do to have it," said Scott Haggard, manager of government relations for MARTA.

"From that standpoint, I think this election will be a useful exercise," he said.

Will things be different this time around?

No one seems willing to offer a sure bet. But it's clear that much about Gwinnett has changed since 1990, and even more since the MARTA tax was first considered in 1971.

Back in 1970, when transit was the talk of the town and lore has it that race was top of mind in the debate, the census shows Gwinnett had 72,349 souls and so few minorities that census takers found only a few thousand African-Americans and just one solitary "Chinese." In 1990, the county was still just about half the size of Fulton and DeKalb counties, nine out of 10 of its residents white.

Positions against mass transit were deeply rooted in Gwinnett, said Duluth developer and former MARTA board member Charles Brown, who helped lead the fight in favor of the 1990 tax referendum.

It wasn't so much about race, although there was some of that, Brown said.

"People in the South and the West have always had an aversion to group travel," he said. "It's almost a cultural thing —- you get on your horse and ride off into the sunset," he said.

Today, race and cultural opposition would seem to be yesterday's news. Gwinnett is one of the biggest, most culturally diverse counties in the state, with expansive retail and employment centers, some of the worst traffic in the region and the same frustrations with $4 a gallon gasoline as everyone else.

More than 100 languages are spoken in its schools and around its dinner tables. New York accents mingle freely with old Atlanta voices, bringing different attitudes about what it means to commute by train.

"I grew up in Chicago. You could get everywhere by train," said Brian Vaceluke of Lilburn, who would jump at the chance to vote for a 1-cent rail tax. "I got spoiled growing up there."

Because everyone, from the old Gwinnett homesteader to the newest immigrant, is struggling with the cost of gas, more people seem willing to —- in Brown's words —- "try the carriage and split up the cost of the hay."

Transit ridership has surged since fuel prices climbed toward $4 this spring, and backers are banking on high fuel prices to finally turn well-to-do suburbanites onto the benefits of mass transit. Maybe, the thinking goes, it's transit's time at the ballot box.

Autrey, the Peachtree Corners commuter thinks so.

"I think we have to do something about the traffic. I think we have to do something about the air quality, and I think it only makes sense to do what we can to lessen the strain on the oil supply," she said.

Not everyone favors the idea.

Drop in on the discussion at local Web forums such as those at ScanGwinnett.com, and you'll find a message board crackling with talk about the proposal —- much of it critical.

There's the constant wariness over another tax. But many of the posters say fear of crime, concerns about mismanagement of the agency and what they see as the threat of more development override their frustration with traffic in the county.

One ScanGwinnett poster, Cindy Dunlap of Snellville, worries on two fronts. She has a suspicion MARTA is more interested in the fat pile of cash it could gain access to with a 1-cent sales tax ringing up on every sale at the county's five major retail centers.

But she worries even more that bringing rail to Gwinnett will do exactly what proponents say they hope it will do —- spur dense development around rail stops.

"The detriment to Gwinnett County comes not only from the monetary standpoint that once implemented, cannot be reversed, and only increase over time, but also the influx of people who will have the desire and then the ability to relocate to Gwinnett," she said, "This will increase the demand of services from public safety, schools and other county departments."

This, she says, comes at time when the county is already having to dip into its reserve funds to keep the budget balanced.

Such issues will have to work themselves out, MARTA officials say. But they argue residents shouldn't fear the agency.

Bruce LeVell is the latest Gwinnett resident to represent the county on the MARTA board, thanks to 128 voters who tipped an otherwise evenly divided electorate into giving Gwinnett's blessing to the agency's creation.

He said he doesn't care whether Gwinnett joins MARTA or creates its own system —- as County Commissioner Lorraine Green, a candidate for commission chair, has proposed.

But he said residents shouldn't fear MARTA running off with a stack of cash, leaving Gwinnett holding an empty bag. The county could simply contract with MARTA that all the funds would be used for Gwinnett projects, he said.

As for development, that's exactly what Chuck Warbington is hoping for.

Warbington is executive director of the Gwinnett Village Community Improvement District, a business-funded quasi-public agency dedicated to turning the Jimmy Carter Boulevard area around.

For years, he's been trying to help along proposals to redevelop a mostly empty 170-acre fiber optics plant at the corner of Jimmy Carter and I-85. It's a natural spot for a rail stop, and a natural spot to catalyze the kind of high-end development Warbington believes that part of the county needs.

Last year, the CID commissioned a public opinion survey in which 64 percent of respondents said they'd be at least be somewhat likely to ride a rail system that connects Gwinnett with the rest of metro Atlanta.

And then there was a bit of news that shocked even Warbington —- nearly 66 percent of the respondents said they looked positively on MARTA, shedding light on what Warbington said was one of the more surreal conversations he's had in some time.

It happened during a chance encounter in Norcross a few weeks ago, when Warbington was talking politics with a Duluth man who said he was concerned LeVell was getting too much publicity in his run for an open County Commission seat because of his connection to MARTA.

"Did you just say that somebody in Gwinnett is getting a bump, a positive bump, because of MARTA?" Warbington said he asked incredulously.

"That's quite an indication of how things have changed," he said.