The panel grappling with what to include on a $6.1 billion project list for next year's transportation sales tax referendum was told Saturday to stack it with buses and rail lines over roadwork.
The message came from about 200 commuters, taxpayers and activists who cared enough about the issue to trek downtown and spend three hours talking about it. Audience members said a multi-county transit system would not only attract employers, but would be healthier by encouraging Atlantans to walk to bus stops and train stations.
"I had normal blood pressure, but then it shot up when I started commuting," said Dianese Howard of southwest Atlanta.
The Get a Move On initiative, led by the Civic League for Regional Atlanta, held the town hall meeting Saturday for voters in all 10 counties that will decide whether to raise millions for transportation projects by adding another penny to their sales taxes.
Through an electronic audience response system, organizers asked whether the regional roundtable of mayors and commission chairs should go with a list weighted toward transit, toward roads or balanced between the two.
The roundtable has been handed three suggested $6.1 billion projects lists by Atlanta Regional Commission planning experts -- one weighed 60 percent transit and 40 percent roadwork, one the other way around and one balanced 50-50.
Sixty-three percent of Saturday's audience chose transit, 30 percent said balanced and only 7 percent said roads.
"The region is ready for transit," said Benita West, a DeKalb resident, MARTA employee and co-chair of the ABLE Transportation Equity Task Force. "If we build it, they will come. Who is they? Economic growth, jobs, corporations."
Other polls have shown that suburban residents generally want more invested in roads and those closer to the city's core want more spent on transit.
Transit is also a sticking point because Atlanta and Fulton and DeKalb counties, which will likely turn out about a third of the voters, already have been paying a MARTA sales tax for decades, and leaders have balked at paying two cents while the rest of the region pays one.
Though not part of the official public input regimen in the referendum process, the town hall meeting was significant for its effort to bring all 10 counties together. A common sentiment was that roundtable leaders need to forget jurisdictional boundaries.
"Fairness is an issue for me," said retiree Roger Buerki. "Even though I live in Cobb, I don't think it's fair that Fulton and DeKalb are paying but we don't participate."
Speaking at Saturday's meeting, Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd, a member of the roundtable executive committee charged with reducing a $22.9 billion wish list to a $6.1 billion draft by Aug. 15, described the panel as "struggling." The full 21-member roundtable has until Oct. 15 to decide on a final list for the 2012 ballot.
The ARC's suggested lists have generated controversy for removing a commuter rail into into Clayton and Henry counties, estimated at $882.2 million. Also axed was the popular proposal to run a MARTA line to Turner Field, estimated at $321.7 million. Several other high-impact projects are down for partial funding in hopes of leveraging federal dollars to finish them.
Last week, the Fair Share for Transit campaign asked that the final list dedicate $4 billion, or 66 percent of the regional project funds, to transit and restore the Clayton line and a light rail line to Gwinnett Place.
The tax would generate another $1.1 billion to be spent by cities and counties on local projects.
"I think we're getting it from a lot of different people," Floyd said of the preference for transit, adding the panel must consider that people want roads, bike paths and aviation enhancements, too. "People want choices."
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