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Saturday, April 7, 2007
ATL-Lovejoy: Missed that train years ago
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Metro Atlanta — the 28 counties stretching from Pickens in the north to Pike in the south, and Harralson west to Walton east — was declared this week to be the nation’s fastest growing metropolitan area.
The announcement prompts the nostalgia brigades to rush to the Gutenbergs to denounce the invention of the automobile (except the tiny variety, of course) and to take quill to hand to bedevil Department of Transportation Commissioner Harold Linnenkohl for his reluctance to sign a document no prudent public official should rush to sign on a double-dog dare.
That document would be, of course, the “Intergovernmental Agreement for Commuter Rail Procurement and Operations” or, for conversational purposes, the White Elephant Contract to commence slow-train commuter rail service from downtown Atlanta to Lovejoy.
No question the arrival of 890,000 new residents in the 28 counties between 2000 and 2006, pushing the region’s population to an estimated 5,138,000, hastens the need for a serious statewide plan for addressing critical transportation bottlenecks, particularly those that represent barriers to growth. Those would include, for example, the state’s failure to provide the carpet, auto and related industries a North Georgia alternative to I-285 congestion — something that would save them money and all of us aggravation. It includes, too, a more convenient way to leapfrog Atlanta that gives relief to gridlock on the downtown connector.
The solution requires boldness and a reliance on the private sector to fill the gaps beyond potentially available tax resources. There’s no time or money to fritter away on adventures into the past or on designing spoke-like systems to funnel traffic to a central point — unless of course, as with the needed relief to the downtown connector, it’s a speedy pass-through to points beyond. That era is gone when all the jobs and the traffic were to downtown Atlanta.
When we note commuting time in connection with development, it usually is to suggest that people are moving farther out from Atlanta’s core, where their jobs are assumed to be. It may be that, but more likely it is that people are stuck in traffic — wherever they’re going — because the state has failed to devote the proper attention and resources to the right transportation solutions and local governments have zoned to permit density far in excess of the carrying capacity of roads. It should be the law that no city or county can rezone to a higher density than existing roads can support.
Time and money spent on the wrong “solutions” aggravate traffic conditions for those 5 million Georgians, wherever they choose to live in metro Atlanta. An example is commuter rail line from downtown Atlanta to Lovejoy.
In the 10-year period ending in 2006, state auditors’ estimate $21.1 million was spent just on studies of alternative rail projects. Those studies covered seven proposed commuter rail lines and seven intercity lines, service that “would primarily share track usage with freight lines.” None of them has been built.
While state auditors noted that they were not asked to comment on the decision to build the Atlanta-Lovejoy line, they nonetheless acknowledged some of the risks that Linnenkohl is being pressured to ignore in signing a contract with Norfolk-Southern Railway.
“We found the project may cost more than the estimated $108 million; the state may be liable for a portion of the federal investment in the project (about $87 million) if the line is terminated prior to being in operation for 20 years; and the state may be liable for covering any operating shortfall,” the auditors said in a report published earlier this year.
Of the $108 million — $86.7 million from the feds and $19.9 million from state borrowings made in 2003 — “almost half … are expected to be spent on upgrades to the rail track between Atlanta and Lovejoy, with much of the rest being spent on rail stations.” Projected ridership is 1,540 passengers daily, with fares covering 35 percent to 40 percent of operating costs by the third year. The state, presumably, will be expected to cover the difference.
The decision to proceed with the Atlanta-Lovejoy line was not based on any analysis of need or traffic congestion relief that moved it to the fore, but “appeared to primarily be based on the amount of funding identified as available at the time the decision was made in 2003.”
While we’re mired in nostalgia, inventing solutions for yesterday, 900,000 new residents are moving into and around 28 counties, mired in worsening traffic congestion.
• Jim Wooten is associate editor of the editorial page. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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