DeKalb County Commissioner Lee May said Thursday he could support a regional transportation sales tax if county officials would earmark $120 million for a MARTA rail line to serve his constituents. His comments Thursday at an "educational" forum in Decatur on the sales tax referendum suggested he was willing to compromise in his opposition to the proposed 10-county regional 1 percent sales tax, which would be a win for its supporters.

Metro Atlanta commuters may see a whole new system of travel, thanks to the legislative session that just ended. Car commuters, that is — not transit passengers. A much anticipated transit plan failed. But a budget plan proposed by Gov. Nathan Deal and passed by both chambers seems to seal the deal for the largest transportation project in state history, and initiate an even larger program to build additional road capacity through toll lanes.

Some of the 300,000 drivers stuck in congestion on I-75 outside the Perimeter may soon have relief, thanks to Georgia taxpayers. The state is finalizing — again — a plan to pay for the biggest road project in its history. Taxpayers and tollpayers — not private investors — are expected to fund about $900 million in optional reversible toll lanes along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties.

Backers of the Atlanta transportation referendum are betting on the ad firm that devised Las Vegas' "What happens here, stays here" campaign to work some magic as the July 31 vote nears. Starting Friday, a privately funded advertising campaign is kicking off to “educate” metro Atlanta voters about one of the most important decisions in the region’s history.

When Michelle Collier goes to the polls for a $7.2 billion transportation referendum on July 31, she doesn’t yet know how she’ll vote. But like her vote on a sewer referendum Tuesday, she knows what it won’t be based on. Contrary to some expectations, she won’t be swayed by terror of taxes.

Simmering opposition in south DeKalb County to the proposed regional transportation sales tax is heating up, posing another challenge to backers of this summer’s referendum. The DeKalb NAACP has joined some politicians in opposing the proposed one-cent sales tax because the project list does not extend MARTA rail into south DeKalb.

A state lawmaker is proposing legislation to rein in MARTA’s awarding of lucrative consulting contracts, undercut Fulton County’s authority to appoint board members and reassure voters that rail service won’t creep into their county without them approving it.

Trying to ride transit to work at Emory University or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? If a transportation referendum passes this summer, you'll be a big winner, according to new figures released Friday by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

"Hotlanta" has fizzled and it will take a bold plan like the Transportation Investment Act to help the region recover, a nationally known urban planner told a Thursday gathering of metro Atlanta leaders. "You all have a lot of work to do," Brookings Institution visiting fellow Chris Leinberger told the 475 people attending the South Metro Development Outlook conference.

Is metro Atlanta’s privately funded path out of congestion crumbling? A nearly $1 billion toll lane project on I-75 and I-575 is fighting for survival after state leaders decided to reject an infusion of private money that was expected to jump-start it.

The same Cobb officials who pushed for a controversial transit line in Cobb County are proposing a retreat from that project in favor of funding reversible toll lanes along the I-75/575 corridor. Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee and Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews are leading the charge to reopen the project list for the regional transportation referendum and divert transit line funds to the toll project.

The Gwinnett County Department of Transportation will seek public input on its study of I-85 transit alternatives at two public hearings next month. The county is studying light rail, bus rapid transit and other means of getting drivers off I-85. Public information meetings will be held: *From 5 p.

Gov. Nathan Deal and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle on Tuesday called on Georgians to support this year's regional transportation referendums, while Speaker David Ralston said he'd leave that decision up to voters. The three state leaders spoke this morning at the Georgia Chamber of Commerce's annual Eggs & Issues breakfast.

Gov. Nathan Deal this morning will go all-in on the upcoming transportation tax vote and on a tax reform package that includes business-friendly cuts but not a reduction in individual income taxes. The governor, marking the start of his second year in office, will speak this morning to the Georgia Chamber of Commerce's annual Eggs & Issues breakfast where he will detail his vision for spurring Georgia's economy.

Despite the no-new taxes drum beat in modern politics, many metro Atlanta voters showed they have a tolerance for at least some taxes, as nine area school districts voted in favor of continuing a penny tax for education. While that is perhaps a positive for folks pushing for yet another penny-on-the-dollar tax for transportation headed to the voters next year, experts say another yes vote is far from certain.

Metro Atlanta's $6.14 billion transportation plan is set in stone and voters from the 10 counties that will benefit are being asked to raise sales taxes to pay for the plan. . But elected leaders are not falling in line behind the plan. Some well-placed local-level officials say they'll encourage their constituents to shoot the 1-cent tax down.

When regional leaders agreed upon a thick list of transportation projects to put before voters next year, Atlanta’s iconic Beltline project came out as a big winner. But will that project help or hinder the overall campaign? Voters in 10 counties are being asked to approve a 1-cent sales to raise $6.

A multimillion-dollar campaign to woo voters into passing the biggest single infusion of infrastructure dollars in metro Atlanta in at least 40 years is under way. Expect a quiet launch against noisy opposition. Local governments last week approved a list of more than $6 billion worth of transportation projects across 10 counties.

Regional leaders have produced a list of transportation projects dividing $6 billion throughout the 10-county Atlanta region. Is it worth the penny?

Metro Atlanta mayors and county commissioners on Thursday overcame decades of distrust to finalize a massive transportation project list that — if approved by voters — could bring relief to commuters in 10 counties. The $6.14 billion in projects will go before voters in a referendum next year.

From suburban road widenings to urban interchanges to new MARTA lines, $6.1 billion worth of metro Atlanta transportation projects survived final challenges Tuesday, and stand ready to be approved this week as the 10-county region’s proposed project list.

Roswell Mayor Jere Wood says he and 13 other mayors in Fulton and DeKalb counties will oppose the proposed transportation sales tax if the current list of projects is not changed. In a letter to the regional transportation Roundtable Monday, Wood said the coalition of mayors objects to funding operation and maintenance costs for new transit projects for 10 years.

Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker has led a qualified charge for the proposed regional transportation sales tax, arguing that traffic congestion is choking economic development and eroding the area’s quality of life. At the same time, Bodker has insisted that money from the tax be distributed equitably to target commuter corridors most in need of relief.

Johns Creek Mayor Mike Bodker has led a qualified charge for the regional transportation sales tax, arguing that traffic congestion is choking economic development and eroding the area's quality of life. At the same time, Bodker has insisted that money from the tax be distributed equitably to target commuter corridors most in need of relief.

Suburban commuters who hoped a regional transportation vote could finally build rail lines outside Fulton and DeKalb counties received a deep blow in negotiations Thursday. A project that could have built a rail line from MARTA’s Arts Center station to the Cumberland area of Cobb County lost $167.

As news of a draft list of regional transportation projects worked its way through the 10-county metro Atlanta region, everyone had their own ideas about what should have been on the list. And what still could be. The $6.1 billion list that was accepted unanimously by a five-member group of elected officials on Monday isn’t necessarily what voters will see in next year’s referendum on a 1-cent tax to fund a set of projects.

This is the $6.14 billion draft list of transportation projects approved by five mayors and county commissioners on August 15. A final draft will be approved by Oct. 15, and voters in the 10-county Atlanta region will decide next year whether to fund it with a 1 percent sales tax.

Five mayors and county commissioners from across the Atlanta region made history on Monday, agreeing unanimously on a $6.14 billion list of transportation projects to be built across 10 counties, and paid for by the region as a whole if approved in a 2012 referendum.

The Brookings Institute has ranked Atlanta 91st out of 100 metropolitan areas for overall access to mass transit, according to a study released Thursday. It found transit access worst in the South, and best in the West. Metro residents with transit access could only reach 21.

The top political consultant hired to strategize the push for a 2012 transportation sales tax referendum has left the campaign. The loss of a key strategist is “always a thing you have to recover from,” said Kerwin Swint, political science professor at Kennesaw State University.

Commuters who hope that a 10-year transportation sales tax on the ballot next year will bring them train service far into the suburbs in the next decade may be out of luck. Some of the highest-profile projects proposed for a transportation sales tax may not be capable of completion by the time the tax ends, weakening their chances for inclusion in the referendum.

To get transit lines completed in the northern metro area, leaders will need to devise a clear vision and a convincing message. Funding them is another large obstacle, and even with money, the process could take years from conception to opening, and along the way some crisis will likely arise.

As the state hands over a $23 billion project list for the regional roundtable to sort through, it’s evidence of Todd Long’s power as metro Atlanta and 11 other regions in Georgia head toward a 2012 referendum. Long, the state’s director of planning for transportation, is an unelected bureaucrat who reports to the governor, but the law that created his post gave Long the power to pare down (or beef up) the wish list of projects submitted by local governments — within guidelines set by regional officials.

Georgia's transportation planning director has added more than 150 new projects and deleted more than 100 others in a list that will be sent to voters next year.

If metro Atlanta leaders want Gwinnett County’s vote for an $8 billion transportation referendum next year, they’ll have to manage the tricky task of pleasing both Jack Skidmore and Art Sheldon. Skidmore is ready to raise taxes to pay for any and all road projects, but he thinks mass transit is too expensive.

For DeKalb County voters, the proposed 1-cent regional transportation tax represents more than just a penny. The referendum is hope for a shared funding mechanism for MARTA — people in Fulton, DeKalb and the city of Atlanta already pay a penny tax for the system — and a way to get a few road improvements in the process.

Support from Fulton County could push a transportation sales tax over the victory line in next year’s referendum, but first it has to overcome the reservations — even hostility — of some voters and elected officials. Winning this crucial county means appealing to voters whose needs vary from solving traffic bottlenecks to getting better service from MARTA — and to some who don’t want anything if they don’t get suburban help paying for that mass transit system.

On some weekday mornings, it takes Melissa Cole an hour and 15 minutes to travel from her home in Kennesaw to her job near Smyrna. Over 10 years, her commute has grown by 50 minutes — and she doesn’t even leave Cobb County. To help make that commute easier, county officials are pinning a large part of their hopes on a transit line — perhaps light rail — that could run the length of I-75 and U.

Steve Hall has good reason to support a regional sales tax for transportation. Hall, who drives to his Atlanta business from his Douglas County farm, faces some of the metro region’s worst interstate infrastructure. Eastbound traffic on I-20 backs up for miles behind semi-trucks creeping at 10 mph on the slow-turn interchange to northbound I-285.

After going for more than a year without a mass transit system, many Clayton County residents see the transportation referendum as an opportunity to bring back what many counties take for granted — local bus service. But county officials say they aren’t just thinking locally.

In Henry County, it’s common for residents to treat I-75 as Main Street to get from one town to another. But they must jockey for space with tractor-trailers, daily commuters — and carloads of folks trying to get to Florida or Tennessee. “I avoid the interstate except for work,” said Stephanie Meeks, a server who travels daily from McDonough to the Atlanta Fish Market in Buckhead.

Sometimes when Rockdale County residents shop in another county, it’s just to avoid the local traffic. I-20 bisects the county, but getting to it can be a battle. The county’s wish list for the 2012 transportation referendum includes alleviating traffic congestion near Ga.

Nearly eight out of 10 Cherokee County workers drive out of the county to jobs, but a penny tax for transportation reform is unpopular there, with the bad economy, the county’s conservative politics and voter fatigue.

Fayette County is so opposed to an extra penny tax for transportation improvements that a county commission chairman was recently unseated over the issue.

After four long years, business and political leaders last year finally persuaded wary legislators to let them ask voters to pay for a massive construction program intended to relieve at least some of metro Atlanta’s chronic traffic congestion. That may have been the easy part.

Editor's Note: A vote next year could affect your commute for decades. As a region, we’ll decide whether to tax ourselves for $8 billion in transportation improvements. The AJC has committed a team of reporters to cover every angle of the transportation referendum leading up to the vote in summer 2012.

Want voters to approve a $1 billion light rail line in next year’s regional transportation referendum? Todd Long had better say it’s OK. Think a road proposal is a boondoggle and ought to be struck from metro Atlanta’s list of projects? Todd Long can single-handedly quash it.

The political strategist who helped get Georgia a lottery two decades ago says his team can convince metro Atlantans to pass a transportation referendum in 2012. Business and civic groups mounting a political campaign for a transportation referendum in 2012 have hired that consultant, Virginia-based Glenn Totten, and two other campaign leaders to help shape the project list and convince voters to back it next summer.

The group that will pick metro Atlanta’s transportation project list for a 2012 referendum voted Wednesday to ask the Legislature for a regional mass transit law. The Legislature adjourned this year without creating a regional mass transit agency. That makes it harder to put multicounty mass transit projects on the project list that voters will consider in the 2012 referendum.

Metro Atlanta is car country, but as cities and counties put together their transportation wish lists, there are signs that some in the suburbs, which rejected mass transit decades ago, are ready to embrace it. Next year, voters will be asked to approve a 1-cent special sales tax to pay for a list of projects that could smooth their commute.

Metro Atlantans want wider, safer roads. They want better sidewalks and more bike paths. But most of all, they want mass transit. At least, their local leaders think so, if dollars are any guide. Local governments have asked for a massive, expensive mass transit expansion from a regional sales tax that voters will consider next year.

If a transportation tax passes in a 2012 referendum, Cobb and Douglas counties want it to fund the interchange at I-285 and Bolton Road, even though that's in the city of Atlanta. A regional call center to coordinate rides for disabled and elderly passengers wouldn't be located just in one town.