This year, the Georgia General Assembly took a long overdue step toward improving transportation infrastructure. With aging bridges and roads in great need of repair and transit systems in need of funding, the Legislature has approved additional funding sources to allow some needs to be addressed.
In 2010, the state legislature and administration failed to show true leadership by kicking the transportation funding can to voters by way of the Transportation Special-Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST). This action was an escape of responsibility and accountability for raising taxes. That one-cent T-SPLOST statewide would have raised $18 billion over 10 years for infrastructure and transportation improvements. Not surprisingly, the measures became a tangled web of projects and politics and subsequently all but three of the 12 regions voted it down.
In 2014, a Joint Transportation Study Committee recommended that $1.5 billion each year was needed to address the now-spiraling repair needs and House Bill 170 was introduced. As passed this year, HB 170 is expected to raise $900 million of revenue primarily through an increase in the excise tax, raising our price at the pump about 6 cents a gallon. The majority of the funds raised through these gas taxes can only be used for repair or maintain roads and bridges. It does not allow for expansion of our multimodal systems.
While HB 170 will help our state address some of its most pressing infrastructure issues, giving us more confidence that our bridges are safe, it falls short of addressing many of our ongoing traffic and environmental concerns.
Georgia’s reliance on cars, and the resulting gridlock, (particularly in metro Atlanta), won’t be solved by HB 170. The measure puts a finger in the dike of road repairs but won’t solve long-term transportation and transit needs.
Prioritizing highway construction over mass transit was justifiable before we understood population growth. We’ve remained in a sort of transportation time warp since.
When Eisenhower launched his grand highway experiment, not only was the U.S. population smaller and younger, but about half of all households were organized as traditional nuclear families – making cars a natural choice upon which to base a transit system. But we no longer live in the 1950s. In order to move goods and people, we need to have a transportation system that offers a wide range of options for our changed population.
Georgia has failed to seriously address funding for transit, light rail and other transportation options. DeKalb and Fulton counties decided decades ago to develop and fund MARTA. This important transit system receives no significant state funding and receives limited support from the other regional transit systems that would increase the benefits for the system as a whole. We lack mass transit infrastructure with coherent policy vision and financial investment.
It is clear the demand for mass transit will only intensify in the future. Only then will Georgians spend less time on the roads and more time with family.
Transit improvements not will only help manage population density, but would also improve our air quality, relieve stress and make Georgia more attractive to visitors and residents alike. Gridlock reduction would increase productivity and help attract and retain the best type of jobs, keeping our economy strong and vibrant.
HB 170 stops the bleeding but does little to address traffic gridlock or the needs of a new generation of workers who are demanding transit and alternatives to cars.
We envision transportation policy that includes transit, light rail and other options that improve economic viability throughout our state and lays the groundwork for a bright economic future for our children and grandchildren.
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