Imagine for a moment that it’s 1925. One of metro Atlanta’s emerging young leaders has launched a passionate effort — one he and a small group of others believe will transform the region over the next century. He believes he has a brilliant idea, but very few others see it that way.
So here’s his plan: The city should invest in land and its development south of town. It’s the site of a defunct car racecourse that pioneering — some think crazy — aviators have been using as an airfield.
Other cities are pursuing plans for airports. And Atlanta has already lost a chance to be part of the federal government’s new airborne postal route.
So Atlanta should cut a deal with an upstart airline and give them a lucrative offer to expand in Atlanta.
Atlanta should build a big, expensive airport and become a world leader in the futuristic world of passenger aviation.
By the way, very few average citizens have ever flown on a plane. Almost no one uses it for leisure travel. Local companies? Why would any of their employees need to fly anywhere? Salesmen hit the roads in cars or trains.
By now you recognize this as the oversimplified story of how Atlanta got its airport.
Do you think there’s any chance that legendary Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield’s idea could have survived a regionwide vote? Would voters have let him do it — or spend money on it?
Of course not. No truly game-changing idea in this country’s, or our region’s, history would survive such a vote.
And there’s the dilemma displayed by the pounding voters gave the region’s transportation referendum last week.
Of course, the T-SPLOST project list wasn’t a great idea, like creating an airport was.
It was flawed in many ways because it was the result of too many political compromises.
If leaders are doing their job, it’s likely that good ones will be ahead of the general public in their knowledge and understanding of necessary change. And they will certainly be ahead of the average voter’s appetite for change. So the work of making a case is nearly insurmountable — especially at first.
What we’ll need now is leadership and the courage of Hartsfield to find a solution.
This T-SPLOST was doomed from the start, maybe because none of the ideas seemed ahead of their time. It was born in an uncourageous process that mostly seemed to give those who invented it a way to hide from taking responsibility.
Those who advocated for it inevitably stepped into a firestorm of criticism — calling for the possibility of a greater good even while being forced to acknowledge the mess of the project list.
Critics and anti-government, anti-tax voices had a field day. And they were brilliant at it.
On the pages of this newspaper, in community forums and almost anywhere else they could, the voices that railed against the 1-cent tax had a flawless method of argument.
Here’s the formula: Pick one obviously flawed project. Ideally, an expensive one that apparently served very few people — or wasn’t of interest to your audience of the moment. Highlight it and criticize it — don’t bring up any good projects — so that you could portray the entire project list as a boondoggle. Let advocates try to defend that project, which, of course, they couldn’t. It worked over and over again.
And it deserved to work.
Case closed. Argument won, 62 percent to 38 percent.
The advocates had the most important item on their side, but couldn’t do anything with it. Most of us believe Atlanta has a congestion problem and must do something about it. That information would seem to say voters are ready for a good idea.
But advocates had to sell a bad idea — a flawed, all-or-nothing list. Then they used the “no Plan B” stuff. Of course, voters wouldn’t be bullied. The voting booth is one place where an average person can’t be pushed around.
Our polling shows that voters overwhelmingly believe it important to address the region’s transportation problems, for the sake of our quality of life and our economic future. We are all agreed on the problem.
This time, Atlanta doesn’t need a brilliant idea, just a few good ones to start with. And someone — or several someones — with the courage and will to pursue them.
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