Georgia is the eighth-largest state in the country, and it continues to attract new residents and business opportunities partly because of the strength of its transportation network. However, history has shown past performance is no guarantee of future success. Our state stands at a crossroads in 2015, choosing between staying on a path to prosperity, or taking another path that will send us on a downward economic trajectory.
Demographic and economic trends impact our state’s transportation network in dramatic ways.
On the demographic side, many millennials — people ages 18 to 34 — do not subscribe to the preferences of previous generations that valued owning and driving a car. Millennials seek to live and work in places with mobility options. These options may include public transit, vanpooling, car sharing, walking or bicycling to where they can work, live, and relax.
If a community’s only message to millennials is that they have to go everywhere in a car, it is likely to struggle to attract them in the numbers needed to replace Baby Boomers retiring from the workforce.
A dramatic rise in our senior citizen population also impacts transportation choices. Many seniors want to retire in their communities — to “age in place.” They eventually will need transportation assistance to remain in their homes. Communities with limited mobility options are not going to be labeled “senior friendly.”
Georgia currently scores only 33 out of 100 on the AARP livability index for transportation, which helps seniors identify states and cities with high walkability and access to multiple mobility options.
In addition to demographic trends, global economic forces are shaping our transportation future. More often, businesses seek locations with mobility choices for their employees, many of them millennials.
As recent decisions by State Farm, Mercedes-Benz and NCR have demonstrated in the Atlanta area, employers are locating closer to transit-oriented developments, such as near MARTA stations. Even in rural or suburban Georgia, an employer may want to know if its workers have access to local transit.
There is some form of public transit in more than 120 of Georgia’s 159 counties, but the transit network in place in 2015 will need additional resources to meet our growing needs. As of 2012, Georgia invested only 29 cents per person in its statewide transit network, down from 63 cents per person in 2008. The American Society of Civil Engineers in 2014 continued to give Georgia a “D-” for transit, primarily because Georgia has no reliable source of transit funding.
While we lag behind, our competitor states are developing multi-modal transportation networks, with a specific emphasis on transit. Those states’ partnerships — involving local, state and federal stakeholders — contrast starkly with Georgia, where transit is funded up to 95 percent by local governments and the federal government, with little state investment.
The Georgia Transit Association is a strong supporter of state investment in transit. It applauds the state House of Representatives for its leadership on this issue with the recent introduction of legislation to address the transportation funding challenges. There seems to be growing recognition transit is critical to the future success of Georgia.
While we celebrate changing political attitudes, we must stress the importance of creating a sustainable source of revenue to maintain and operate our state’s 128 transit systems. Although a one-time bond appropriation is certainly helpful, our future would be better served by making the state a permanent stakeholder in transit.
For Georgia to remain globally competitive, attract the best talent and provide our senior citizens with mobility options, we must act today to ensure we have a robust transportation network, including public transit, well into the future.
Robert Hiett is president of the Georgia Transit Association.
