State politics can’t continue to choke transit, jobs

Metro Atlanta generates far more tax revenue for Georgia than it receives in return, with most of that money going to assist communities and families in less prosperous parts of the state.

That’s fine. But in return, it does not seem too much to ask that state government address metro Atlanta’s critical transportation needs. The refusal to invest sufficiently in the metro region’s transportation infrastructure is already costing Atlanta a lot of jobs, which costs the rest of Georgia as well.

JAY BOOKMAN
MY OPINION

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According to Sam Williams, president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, this region has become a “truncated labor market.” Traffic congestion has gotten so bad that workers aren’t able to reach a lot of jobs they might otherwise take, and as a result businesses are forced to draw from a truncated pool of potential workers.

For example, a region the size of Atlanta could tell a prospective business that we have a pool of 2.5 million potential workers to draw from. But according to Williams, recruiting experts tell him that “congestion has truncated your 2.5 million workers down to probably 600,000. So you’re about the size of Charlotte, because your transportation system will not let your workers have access to your jobs.”

Of course, for most commuters in metro Atlanta, the problem is a little more immediate and down to earth: long, tiring commutes, draining time, energy and gasoline that are already in short supply these days. The quality of life that attracted many to this region has begun to decline, particularly in suburban areas, because people simply can’t get around to do the things they need to do.

And the big hurdle to doing something is taxes. Addressing our transportation needs will require billions of dollars, which scares state leaders to death.

In the last legislative session, metro Atlanta officials worked hard on a proposal that would have given metro voters the chance to impose a regional transportation sales tax, but in the end it failed by three votes in the Senate.

“I think there was an outcry, and almost an outrage, when the bill didn’t pass,” says Kessel Stelling, president of the Bank of North Georgia and Chamber chairman. “I can tell you when that vote failed by three votes, we didn’t attempt to embarrass any of our leaders, our legislative delegation, but we sure said we’ve got to hold them accountable.”

Officials at the Chamber and in local government — Republicans and Democrats alike — have made it clear to state leaders that the funding problem has to be addressed in the next legislative session. And slowly, the gravity of the situation does seem to be sinking in.

Unfortunately, with vacancies opening in the offices of governor and lieutenant governor in 2010, leaders and would-be leaders under the Gold Dome will be tempted to kill any funding plan advanced by rivals and insist that they get the credit for any plan that’s adopted.

And because much of the action is going to take place in the Republican primaries, getting any tax plan at all approved will be difficult.

Cobb County Chairman Sam Olens, a Republican who is eyeing a race for governor, says that state leaders have to bite the bullet anyway.

“If we decide we want nothing to do with the ‘T word,’ we have to accept that property values will go down, that we won’t be getting the kind of high-paying jobs we want, and that people will move elsewhere, because our quality of life will decline,” Olens said.

As he points out, final approval for a regional transportation sales tax would have to come from voters anyway, not from politicians.

And in the next few months, he warned, the true extent of the funding crisis facing the state Department of Transportation will become clear.

“That will come as a shock to the legislators and transportation stakeholders, because the extent of the crisis is significant,” he said.

The time to act is now, Olens said, because “the maturity of regional leaders and their ability to work together is better now than it has been in decades.”

Unfortunately, the opposite is true of leaders at the state level.

• Jay Bookman is the deputy editorial page editor. His column appears Mondays and Thursdays.