Coalition calls for action on transportation

Georgia lawmakers took the tiniest of steps toward creating a long-term plan for transportation funding on Monday, but have miles to go to find a consensus.

And while the House and Senate largely relegated transportation — funding as well as governance — to minor status, a group of Georgia business and local government leaders were urging action.

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Kimberly Smith/ksmith@ajc.com

‘We’re on the 1-yard line. We’ve got to cross the finish line,’ Doug Hertz, co-chair of the Get Georgia Moving Coalition, said at a news conference the coalition held Monday to urge Georgia lawmakers to get moving on transportation legislation.

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“We’re on the 1-yard line. We’ve got to cross the finish line,” Doug Hertz, co-chair of the Get Georgia Moving Coalition, said at a noon news conference in the Capitol. The coalition is made up of 100 organizations, including business leaders, state and local government, transit advocates and road builders.

As Hertz and friends were speaking, the House was meeting upstairs, where representatives voted to insist on their version of a transportation funding plan.

That plan, included in House Bill 277, calls for a 1-cent statewide sales tax. The Senate wants a regional approach. Speaker Glenn Richardson (R-Hiram) ordered Transportation Committee Chairman Vance Smith (R-Pine Mountain), Rep. Donna Sheldon (R-Dacula) and Rep. Calvin Smyre (D-Columbus) to negotiate a compromise with the Senate.

The Senate had not named its negotiators by the time both sides adjourned for the day.

Meanwhile, there was no movement whatsoever on the issue of overhauling the state Department of Transportation.

The House on Friday revamped its plan for transportation governance in committee, but there was no movement in either chamber on that plan, or the Senate’s competing version.

Monday was Day 38 of the 40-day legislative session and lawmakers are set to also meet Wednesday and Friday this week.