As crunch time starts for cutting transportation project list, battle lines emerge

Next year, metro Atlanta voters will decide whether to OK a penny sales tax to fund a $6.1 billion list of projects. The region’s executive committee of mayors and county commissioners, charged with producing a draft list whittled from $22.9 billion by Aug. 15, is grappling with the thorny question of how much of the money should be spent on roadwork and how much should go to expanding mass transit.

The breakdown could be critical to whether voters accept or kill the proposed 10-year penny tax, but what ratio will woo the most voters is anybody’s guess.

"This has gotten to the crunch point," Decatur mayor and executive committee member Bill Floyd said.

Atlanta Regional Commission experts, who released a "first pass" list reduced to $12.2 billion earlier this month, halved it this week to the target $6.1 billion -- three times, accommodating three different leanings on roadwork vs. transit. One list breaks down as roughly 60 percent for roadwork and 40 percent for transit, the second is the other way around, and the third is split 50-50. Besides the $6.1 billion for regional projects, the penny tax will raise $1.1 billion to be spent by cities and counties on smaller local projects.

As with the first pass, the lists released Thursday are only suggestions, intended as starting points for the roundtable executive committee. ARC is the region's official planning agency and is providing technical assistance to the roundtable, which will decide on the project list.

As the realities of a $6.1 billion list become clearer, some details of the plan are creating controversy -- such as building in 30 percent for cost overruns, and how to factor in operating costs.

Roundtable chairman and Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson said nothing from the unconstrained wish list is completely off the table. But he also said that the $12.2 billion list has been well received by most roundtable members and "that's the direction we're going."

That direction appears to involve handling multiple high-dollar requests by funding none of them in total. As the list shrinks, projects are either disappearing, or having their recommended funds slashed to amounts that could get them off the ground or leverage federal funds to finish them:

For transit projects, the playing field has changed drastically now that the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority has unveiled new cost estimates, updating figures that had been submitted by the cities, counties and agencies that asked for them.

The estimate for all four sections of the Beltline streetcars has gone from $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion.

A light rail line extending to Gwinnett Arena has gone from $1.1 billion to $1.4 billion. That project was cut from the suggested list earlier this month, but a starter project, linking MARTA to the outskirts of Norcross, appears on all three road-to-transit scenarios at $181.3 million, which is in line with GRTA's new estimates.

MARTA's Clifton Corridor line, from Lindbergh to Emory University, has risen from $1.1 billion to almost $1.5 billion. GRTA Deputy Executive Director Kirk Fjelstul said when MARTA submitted it, it didn't include building a tunnel. The first pass list had it fully funded at the original price; now it's slated for $50 million on all three lists.

GRTA's transit project estimates factor in 20 years of operating costs and 30 percent contingencies to cover cost overruns -- a recommendation from Denver, which took heavy criticism when several of its sales tax-funded transit projects went over budget. Several roundtable members questioned whether that should be the case, as the additional millions swell cost totals and crowd out other projects.

At a Fulton elected officials summit Wednesday, Roswell Mayor Jere Wood said he might not support the tax next year unless the operating costs are removed. Fulton and DeKalb have been paying penny taxes for decades to fund MARTA, and other counties will have no motivation to chip in if operating costs come from the transportation sales tax, he said.

Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed was among the executive committee members questioning the 30 percent add-on. With other fiscal questions swirling, Reed suggested a "war room" meeting of staffers next week.

As for what direction to take on the roadwork-to-transit ratio, polling data has shown that suburban residents generally want more invested in roads and those closer to the city core want more put in buses and rail lines. In an unscientific poll taken during ARC’s telephone town hall meetings, 71 percent of about 134,000 participants said transit is critical to the long-term success of the region. The question, however, didn’t differentiate between “transit” and transportation.

Controversy has erupted already over the ARC's decision to chop a commuter rail line running from Atlanta into Clayton and Henry counties from the working lists. While transit advocates and Clayton Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell lobby to have the project put back in the mix, GRTA's new figures upped the cost from $463.6 million to $882.2 million, including operating costs.

Fjelstul said Clayton used data that was 4 years old in developing its estimate.

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