I’m at the fork in the road when it comes to the transportation sales tax referendum.
Personally, I don’t feel as if I have much at stake if voters reject $6.14 billion in transit and highway improvements next year. I live in Atlanta, a three-minute walk to my MARTA bus stop, which gets me to the MARTA train in 20 minutes, which gets me to work in Dunwoody in another 20 minutes.
My daily public transportation needs are met. I already pay a penny sales tax for MARTA’s convenience, and I’m taking advantage of it. My wife and I became a one-car couple last year for two reasons: My car died, and MARTA works for me. What started as a commuting experiment — “Do you think I could take the bus?” — has become a painless, money-saving routine.
I figure that if the referendum fails and all those future transportation options expire, more frustrated businesses and individuals will move to the city and help fill MARTA’s fare box. As gridlock worsens, won’t people want to locate near public transportation that already exists?
And if the referendum fails, MARTA isn’t going anywhere. It may not get better, but so what? It already works for me.
But that thinking is misguided, MARTA CEO Beverly Scott told me this week. Most people aren’t as fortunate when it comes to access. And MARTA is an aging system. It desperately needs the $600 million included in the referendum for repairs and upkeep. “You have to be able to fix what you have,” she said. Without it, service could face further cuts.
Still, I waffle. I realize the additional penny tax could help our collective mobility and quality of life. The shopping list of projects produced by regional leaders seems fair enough. As a city dweller, I don’t begrudge other counties their expanded roads and unsnarled highway interchanges, even if I wind up paying extra for MARTA so more Georgians can access it.
As someone who spends Saturday mornings in Cobb County running on the Silver Comet Trail or through the woods at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, I prefer to see the positives of public money that support those places, restorative sanctuaries of man-made initiative and natural brilliance.
Sure, I can handle the extra penny. I would rather not have to. But something — someone? — has to give, right? The idea that metro Atlanta communities with dramatically different politics and lifestyles can come together and tackle something major like this would be unprecedented.
It’s not the Olympics, but it’s an Olympics moment, and the undertaking is worth serious consideration.
Given the current projects, I could vote in favor of the tax. But when the final to-do list is announced in October, if the roundtable decides to tack on a bridge or highway to nowhere, all bets are off.
Until that day, I remain at a fork in the road when it comes to the added transportation sales tax.
I bet I’m not alone in feeling that way.
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