You’d think in these times of calls for smaller government, zero-basing public agency budgets and the like that the businesslike concept of spending public transit money more effectively would be an easy sell.
Not so, as proved by the continuing travail over deciding just how to improve coordination of Atlanta’s multiple transit systems.
That situation may soon change for the better, at least somewhat. In an encouraging show of unity by local officials, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s board recently voted unanimously to seek legal advice on just what more can be done locally to push forward on working more closely on transit matters. The board’s action is a refreshing sign of unity by metro Atlanta’s leaders in acting to help reduce the congestion that affects us all, no matter where we live or work.
It shouldn’t be this hard. And wouldn’t have been had the state acted. This region should have had a done deal on transit governance by now. It wasn’t for lack of local effort. For two years running, the Georgia General Assembly couldn’t close a deal. In 2011, they did not act on model legislation submitted by local officials. This year, flawed legislation was offered. It stalled out in the Gold Dome.
All this while the calendar rolls toward a July vote on the transportation special purpose local option sales tax, or T-SPLOST. That alone should have provided incentive enough to drive through a workable agreement.
The situation is frustrating, given that state and local politicians of both parties and policy planners generally agree that better coordination is needed to help move the Atlanta region’s transit services toward becoming a true system. One where the whole is indeed greater than the sum of individual parts, as far as riders and taxpayers are concerned. Conceptual agreement should readily yield a written agreement, we’d think.
The lack of progress to date proves that it’s maddeningly difficult these days to find common ground, even on a problem most everyone agrees is in need of a solution.
Yet, necessity remains the parent of invention. The imperative to achieve a solution, or at least the first phases toward one, is now powering the local effort to move ahead.
The ARC’s Regional Transit Committee is now mulling just what changes could be accomplished under existing rules and statutes. It’s a logical question and approach. The RTC is smart to seek answers, rather than wait until 2013, when the Legislature resumes and may — or may not yet again — produce something politically workable and operationally worthwhile.
In fairness to the Gold Dome, intramural squabbles among some local leaders over MARTA, the T-SPLOST project list or the geographic makeup of the governing board didn’t help matters any. Those disagreements make the RTC’s latest action all the more encouraging and shows that an important group of local leaders is dedicated to improving an inefficient status quo.
The RTC should pursue this work with all prudent speed. Its members are local officials attempting to work through a costly predicament that manifests itself at the most local of levels, down to just about any traffic intersection, we’d argue.
A report outlining the questions around improved transit governance lists as priorities such things as improving transit agency planning, policy and coordination. That means looking in a unified way at things such as fares, service collaboration, technology and marketing. In private industry, such rethinking and re-engineering of operations and processes often yields significant savings if done well. That can happen in this instance, too, and taxpayers would benefit.
Even within the current legal framework, there have to be significant opportunities to save money and improve service. Doing so will better reduce congestion, improve our quality of life and ensure public dollars are spent more effectively.
All of the above will help Atlanta grow and prosper as the economy slowly recovers.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board.
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