Bumpy home stretch for transportation funding

By Ariel Hart

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Legislators may not be sure how to pass a big transportation funding proposal as the session winds down, but advocates aren't ready to give up.

A slew of action alerts from transportation advocates of different stripes have landed in e-mail accounts, exhorting people to call their legislators in favor of passing a bill. Lobbyists for the Metro Atlanta Chamber have headed to the state Capitol, concerned CEOs of big Georgia companies in tow, warning of the consequences of inaction. The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce bused in 300 business people last week to hobnob with legislators and talk about the jobs to be created by expanding transportation -- or to be forgone if legislation sputters out like last year and the year before. They wore buttons that said “New Transportation Funding: Finish the Job.”  Now they've created a "Finish the Job" logo and launched a Facebook page.

Will it work?

“I wish I could answer that for you, but I can’t,” said Clara Axam, a MARTA board member who sent out an e-mail to more than 100 people.

The transportation funding bill (HB 1218) proposed by Gov. Sonny Perdue earlier this year would have divided the state into 12 regions. Each region would hold a referendum in 2012 to vote on a 1 percent sales tax for a list of transportation projects within the region. State leaders agreed generally, but the devil was in the details.  By the time the bill passed the House Transportation Committee, so many amendments had so altered it that Perdue no longer supported it, and on March 26, the deadline for legislation to move from one chamber to the other, it was technically dead. However, its ideas will still be considered under different bill numbers.

The same questions that doomed HB 1218 still remain. For one, can lawmakers and Perdue agree on the all-important details, like who defines what areas must stick together in what regions? And then there are the varied desires of the interest groups: Ray Christman of the Livable Communities Coalition, for example, says he is sitting out the battle over defining the regions. But he'd go to the mat to make sure the tax could fund MARTA operations if voters wanted, and that's drawn resistance in the House this year.

And now the elected officials must answer all those questions -- or fail -- in the seven remaining working days of the session.

Few of the lobbyists had any idea how many calls or letters their calls to action had spurred.

Many bigwigs are in Augusta for the Masters golf tournament this week, or on spring break.  That's actually a great time to send an action alert, said Lee Biola, president of Citizens for Progressive Transit, which sent one Tuesday, because when the Legislature reconvenes next week, members will be drowning in mail and calls.

Rep. Jay Roberts, who chairs the House Transportation Committee and sits on the final negotiating committee, said Monday his office "hasn't been inundated" with responses. He said the negotiators would go back and work from Perdue's original proposal.

"I believe we’re going to have an agreement that will pass this year," Roberts said. Whether they could pass something Perdue would want to sign, he couldn't say for sure.