Atlanta has built its reputation and economy on being a "first-mover," on taking risks and making investments before other communities see the opportunity.

But looking around the country, it is startling to see just how far and how quickly we've fallen behind other metro regions regarding transportation.

Atlanta has gone from first-mover to last-mover. We're so far behind, we're in danger of being lapped.

Just last week, the Houston City Council voted 13-2 to build five new light-rail lines. That's Houston, the capital city of Big Oil.

"I'll say it loud and clear: No longer is the city of Houston waffling on rail," Councilman Peter Brown said. "With gas headed to $8 a gallon and oil to $200 a barrel, we have to rethink Houston as the happy motoring paradise."

They're rethinking the future in Phoenix as well. In December, a new 20-mile segment of light rail linking that city with neighboring Tempe and Mesa will begin service. That effort began back in 2000, when Phoenix voters approved a 20-year transit sales tax by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin.

Four years later, voters in Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, overwhelmingly endorsed an additional 30-year transportation sales tax to expand highways and add another 37 miles to the light rail system.

And they're not done yet. A coalition of business groups and others, led by Arizona's governor, is working to put a statewide initiative on the fall ballot that would raise $42 billion for transportation over the next 30 years. If approved, it would finance projects from roads to commuter rail.

That kind of progress requires leadership at both the state and metro levels. Atlanta has neither, in part because of problems with our political structure, and in part because we have elected risk-averse leadership.

The structural problem plays out most clearly at the regional level. Arizona's Maricopa County has a population of 3.8 million, 400,000 more than Fulton, Cobb, Gwinnett, DeKalb and Clayton counties combined. A region with a single county government can move much more quickly than a region with power fragmented among more than a dozen counties and scores of cities.

Without a regional mechanism to exert power, metro Atlanta has no choice but to look to the state for leadership. So far, it has looked in vain. While other states mark the opening of new rail systems long in the making, in Georgia it's major news when the governor concedes that a commuter rail line might be a good idea someday.

The consequences of metro Atlanta's failure to build a transportation system for the future have been apparent for years in declining quality of life and attractiveness to business. But with the era of cheap gasoline coming to an end, the problem becomes even more critical.

Our infrastructure, economy and way of life have been built on an expectation that long commutes would always be possible and that no alternatives were necessary. Now the world is changing, and we aren't close to being ready.

In fact, the head start of places such as Phoenix is now more important than ever. Its new light-rail line has attracted an estimated $6 billion in new condos, office buildings and mixed-use retail projects along its path, the beginnings of new orientation to rail. Those projects were in the pipeline well before the runup in gasoline prices, but they look like an even better investment with oil at $140 a barrel.

Atlanta does have MARTA, a system conceived back in the early '70s. It has become a favorite target of those who dismiss transit as an option, but if you look closely, its handicaps reflect the handicaps of the metro region it tries to serve.

Because of fragmentation, MARTA is financed by only two counties in a metro region of 12 or more counties. And because of a state government lacking in vision and courage, it is the only major rail-transit system in the country that receives no financial support from state government.

Until we address those issues, MARTA won't work and Atlanta won't work.

> Jay Bookman is deputy editorial page editor. His column runs Monday and Thursday.

jbookman@ajc.com