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Sunday, October 7, 2007
State needs to make concrete transport plans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A higher tax on gasoline is not inherently objectionable or summarily dismissable.
It is both objectionable and dismissable, however, until Georgia has a statewide transportation plan that clearly spells out what we’re buying — what we’re buying in terms of projects and congestion relief. In my state transportation plan, we don’t have any slow trains to nowhere that people are going or any recreational projects masquerading as alternatives to gridlock solutions. We don’t have hidden agendas to promote “economic justice” or advance some group’s notion of what advocacy groups believe are more desirable lifestyle choices — high-density, for example.
We have measurable congestion-relieving solutions. We have government returning to what the Georgia Department of Transportation once did. Our government measures the flow of traffic, identifies developing and foreseeable bottlenecks, devises solutions and fixes them. That’s all any of us should want: A government that works, a government that takes our money and serves us as we choose to live.
Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and House Speaker Glenn Richardson issued a joint statement just over a week ago pointing out that Georgia has “far too many government agencies debating transportation plans instead of building roads” with the consequence that “the economic future of our entire state hangs in the balance.” Both expressed a frustration that boils down to this: Do something, dangit!
The “do something” involves some process nuts-and-bolts that are likely to be reflected in legislation that will be the outgrowth of a joint House-Senate transportation study committee. But something bolder and broader is needed.
Gov. Sonny Perdue essentially laid out the principles to which a statewide plan should adhere in remarks before the House-Senate transportation study committee. Those should be mobility, safety, reliability, efficiency and responsible stewardship of limited resources. Solutions should cost as little as possible in time and money while quickly and safely moving people from point A to B.
A comprehensive statewide transportation plan should first identify those cost-efficient solutions that move people and goods more speedily through what are now congestion bottlenecks. And, secondarily, they eliminate barriers to economic prosperity where they exist throughout Georgia.
The first task is to define roles for the many government agencies, some of which are tempted into empire-building. Nobody can do that but the governor, though the legislature could — less desirably — write roles into law.
The second task, for which some work has been done already, is to develop the state plan, determine which components can be funded with anticipated public money and which should be farmed out to the private sector as toll roads or special-pricing lanes or other public-private hybrids.
The final task is to determine how to finance the public’s share. Taxpayers need to know precisely what they’re buying and why. The why should be that the proposed solution is the most efficient way to deliver the greatest congestion relief. Or in the event that a statewide plan included something like the now-jettisoned Northern Arc linking I-75 and I-85 across North Georgia, as it should, a full explanation of how it furthers the goal of a prosperous Georgia.
The point is simply that asking taxpayers to make a major financial commitment to solving their mobility problems should be based on honesty and on measurable evidence. It’s what Perdue refers to as “stewardship of resources,” the assurance that time, money and effort are appropriately allocated. A politically popular white elephant project will, for example, consume as much time and money as something that actually solves a real mobility problem. No pork. No local earmarks.
The coming legislative session is not the time to propose a gasoline tax increase. It’s impossible to know now whether one penny or 25 is supportable. Or any. Junk up a state plan with pork and special-interest projects that won’t hold up to marketplace cost-benefit scrutiny and taxpayers will react badly.
One: Develop clear lines of responsibility and authority with a hierarchy. Two: Create the statewide plan that fixes gridlock, with public and private players. Three: Raise the money.
- Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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