Voters unlikely to take House’s transportation route

House and Senate leaders are racing down separate train tracks toward the same destination: a new tax mechanism for funding Georgia’s transportation needs.

And since physics insists that two trains cannot occupy the same space at the same time, something’s got to give. If the House and Senate both refuse to give way to the other chamber, we’re going to see a very nasty train wreck.

And personally, I’m betting on the train wreck.

The House takes a statewide approach to the funding problem, offering voters the chance to approve a 1-percent statewide sales tax that would be reserved for transportation. The Senate approach is more locally oriented, allowing voters in metro Atlanta and other areas to levy that 1-percent sales tax on a regional basis, with revenue to be controlled and spent regionally as well.

It’s hard to imagine a common ground between those two very different approaches. That’s particularly true since the House is led by Speaker Glenn Richardson and the Senate by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, two men with little mutual regard. Earlier this week, for example, Cagle told TV cameras that the House approach would mean “the largest tax increase in Georgia history,” rhetoric that’s not exactly conducive to good feelings.

Politically, though, Cagle has the most to lose if a train wreck occurs. He is counting on business support for his run for governor next year, and many in the business community blame him for the Legislature’s failure to address transportation funding a year ago. That failure has delayed an already overdue solution to metro Atlanta’s problems for at least another two years. Cagle can’t afford to let that happen again.

And then, of course, there’s the silent Buddha on the Capitol’s first floor, where the governor’s office is located. Sonny Perdue has occupied that space for six years and in all that time he has yet to show leadership on transportation.

Last June, he did commission a study by McKinsey and Co. that laid out in stark terms the state’s shortfall in transportation funding, its consequences in terms of growth and quality of life, and the benefits of increased investment in highways and transit. In the wake of that study, Perdue is rumored to be contemplating a major transportation initiative, including perhaps a restructuring of transportation agencies, but it’s a month into the ‘09 session and nothing has happened.

The likely loser in any shuffling of transportation authority would be the dysfunctional state Department of Transportation. DOT Commissioner Gena Evans —- put into the office with Perdue’s help a little more than a year ago —- has made significant progress in identifying if not curing the agency’s deep institutional and cultural problems. But the agency itself is seriously weakened and vulnerable.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Vance Smith, author of the House funding approach, may have provided a clue or two to the future in his proposed bill. It gives responsibility for handling proceeds of the tax —- estimated at $25 billion over 10 years —- not to the DOT but to the State Road and Tollway Authority, which is dominated by Perdue appointees. It also creates a special oversight committee to manage the program.

That powerful committee would comprise three members appointed by the governor, four state senators appointed by the lieutenant governor and four representatives appointed by the speaker of the House.

There’s a lot of merit in Smith’s proposal, but the makeup of that committee is dangerous. Many of the DOT’s problems can be traced to the fact that its 13-member board operates less as a transportation planning agency and more as a patronage operation, with board members focused on delivering projects and jobs.

With an oversight committee dominated by state politicians, the House approach risks creating a brand new patronage operation with its own independent funding mechanism, a body in which handing out political favors once again takes precedence over transportation needs. That’s not a model Georgia voters are likely to endorse.

jbookman@ajc.com