The city’s Department of Transportation often comes under fire by City Council members and citizens alike for Atlanta’s potholes, congested streets and seemingly slow project rollouts.
Yet, the mayor’s proposed Fiscal Year 2025 spending gives the ATLDOT the smallest budget increase of any city department at just 2% — a number that doesn’t even keep up with inflation.
The budget for the department in charge of planning, designing and constructing the city’s sidewalks and roadways is proposed to increase by $1.04 million next fiscal year, to reach a total operating budget of about $51.8 million. The city’s new fiscal year begins July 1.
Credit: WSBTV Videos
“I am disappointed with this budget,” Council member Byron Amos told transportation officials during their budget briefing Thursday. Amos is also chairman of the transportation committee.
“The people know we have the money, but we’ve not seen the projects being done,” he said.
The proposed budget also increases the department’s staff by just two positions, while other departments are adding dozens of jobs to boost manpower. The 2025 budget increased transportation staff from 374 to 376 while the funding for salaries also is set to dip.
That’s compared to departments like enterprise asset management which is slated to add 55 more staffers, city planning set to increase by 43 positions and parks and recreation set to add 42. The executive branch — made up of the mayor and his top officials — is also proposed to add 49 new positions.
Department leaders told council members during their budget briefing that capital dollars from the $750 million Moving Atlanta Forward infrastructure and TSPLOST bond package give the department the funds it needs to execute its long list of projects. Both were passed in May 2022.
“We believe that this budget supports our mission,” Transportation Commissioner Solomon Caviness told council.
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Officials also said the bond packages will help hire additional project managers and fill 46 vacant positions in the department.
But the numbers didn’t add up for some council members, whose concerns about the department’s capacity to complete its project docket are only heightened by the swelling city population and upcoming major events like the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
Especially since the department faced a nearly 12% budget cut in the current fiscal year, which followed significant reductions made in years prior.
Council member Alex Wan questioned whether the department could complete capital projects worth millions of dollars slated for the upcoming year with continued lack of investment.
“I’m not convinced that your budget ask is going to really help move the needle,” he said. “It doesn’t make sense to me, because we’ve been dropping money from your account (and) it’s flat from last year.”
Rebecca Serna, executive director of nonprofit PropelATL, said that the millions approved by voters two years ago to enhance transportation infrastructure around the city is a unique opportunity to speed up projects — but that can’t happen without the manpower to do it.
“We do have all this capital money. And there’s so much demand from communities for traffic calming, even really basic things, across the city in every neighborhood,” she said. “There is significant money to build safer streets, but we really need the people in place.”
People like experienced project managers, in-house traffic engineers to speed up the design process and maintenance crews.
Advocates have also drawn stark contrasts between Atlanta’s transportation budget and those in other similar cities. Serna said that numbers from the National Association of Transportation Officials show that the median transportation budget for its member cities is around $160 million — about three times the size of Atlanta’s budget.
“The administration’s focus on affordable housing is so essential,” she said. “And what we want them to see is affordable transportation really goes hand-in-hand with that, because those are two of the biggest factors in families’ budgets.”
About the Author
