From the March presentation “Furthering Transit Governance Principles in the Atlanta Region,” for the Regional Transit Committee of the Atlanta Regional Commission: “The Question: What would it take for ARC/RTC to fulfill the regional transit governance needs identified in RTC’s transit governance guiding principles and concept legislation?”
“What can ARC/RTC do? ARC has the ability to follow the guiding principles and do many of the duties outlined in RTC’s concept transit governance legislation.
● Organizational structure
● Planning, policy and coordination
● Implementation and operations
● Administrative and legal
● Resources.”
“What ARC/RTC can’t do:
● Issue bonds
● Levy a tax”
“Additional legal review needed to determine specifics of what ARC can and cannot do.”
From the state Transportation Investment Act of 2010: “There exists a need for a thorough examination of our current transportation system and the methodical development of legislative proposals for a regional transit governing authority in Georgia.”
From the final report of the Georgia General Assembly’s Joint Transit Governance Study Commission: “Currently, metro Atlanta has a multitude of transit entities that operate essentially independently from one another. Taken as a whole, these uncoordinated systems are confusing to transit users, fall short of achieving economies of scale and cost efficiencies, do not provide a definitive picture of return on investment to taxpayers, and produce a disjointed message about the region’s transit priorities.”
“Because the transit services in most need of streamlining efforts and management coordination activities are those that cross county and city boundaries, state government representatives should be given this responsibility. It is not necessary for the state to create a new government agency to accomplish this task.”
From a January 2011 Regional Transit Committee statement announcing approval of conceptual transit governance legislation: “The governance structure outlined in the conceptual legislation would embrace all transit systems in the Atlanta region, such as Cobb Community Transit and Gwinnett County Transit.”
