With the economy stabilized, the Atlanta region’s big worry is back: transportation.
In a major survey to be released at an event downtown Friday, residents of the 10-county region said their No. 1 concern was once again the traffic mess.
But interviews with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution show it’s an open question whether state leaders have the will for a comprehensive solution that includes mass transit.
And there are consequences, according to new research and interviews: The stagnation predicted with the epic failure of the transportation referendum two years ago may already be coming to pass.
The Atlanta Regional Commission asked residents of the 10-county region about their feelings on a range of issues, including health, crime, education and race. Last year they were most concerned about the economy as the region’s biggest problem.
This year the message from people surveyed was “transportation, transportation, transportation,” said Doug Hooker, the ARC’s director.
Transportation beat out the economy, public education, crime and other issues not only regionwide, but individually in most of the 10 counties. And the first-choice solution, public transit, cut across all counties. Even in Cherokee County, the weakest county for transit support and a home of the rebellion that helped kill the 2012 transportation referendum, public transit was even as a choice with roads.
Seventy percent of the region overall said an improved public transit system, including buses and trains, was important to metro Atlanta’s future.
LOSING VIGOR
The consequences for inaction may be nothing less than the region’s vitality.
“I personally feel that we’ve kind of plateaued,” said Hooker.
It doesn’t mean Atlanta is Detroit; as some jobs leave, others are coming in. But companies trying to decide where in the U.S. to locate a new office have begun asking ARC for trip times within the area, so they can know what the drives will be like and how many workers they’ll realistically have access to.
One draw for companies with good jobs is a young, well-educated talent pool. A new think tank called City Observatory just issued a report on where educated young professionals choose to live in the United States. It found metro Atlanta had suffered “a remarkable reversal” with that demographic since 2000.
In the 1990s, Atlanta was a big draw, said the report’s author, Joe Cortright. At 46 percent, it had the fifth-fastest rate of growth for large cities among 25-to-34-year-olds with a four-year college degree or higher level of education. Now, though, the city is struggling to attract young professionals. The 3 percent growth rate of that segment has lagged overall population growth of 30 percent since 2000.
Cortright couldn’t say exactly what motivated the young and educated to flock to Atlanta in the 1990s. The excitement of the 1996 Summer Olympics and the MARTA train system still being built out are possibilities, he said. But he does know this: that demographic is now drawn to the vibrant, central, urban parts of metro areas — the types of places where people can get around by walking and transit.
Some property executives praised the effort the state has made with big projects such as the Northwest Corridor on I-75 and the Ga. 400/I-285 interchanges. But both projects rely heavily on borrowing, a burden that will fall on future years' transportation budgets. And they don't fund transit.
Bob Voyles, a property developer in areas around the northern Perimeter, pointed to major developments that are happening around MARTA stations, such as State Farm at Perimeter Center.
“They are focused on connectivity to rail,” Voyles said. “That is one of the big issues for them. Transit has to be — not necessarily heavy rail, not necessarily light rail — has to be a part of the solution,” he said. “It can’t just be roads.”
“Unless something is done to create a real transit solution for the Atlanta region, we’re simply not going to be able to compete as an international city,” echoed Tad Leithead, chairman of the Cumberland Community Improvement District, and a former executive with Cousins Properties.
Leithead and Voyles are optimistic, though, that solutions are coming.
THE ROAD AHEAD
State leaders knew the transportation issue had not gone away. They set up a high-powered committee this year to address it, and suggestions for legislation are due in December.
Nothing is off the table yet, committee members stress. But the ideas they seem drawn to don’t match the scale of the 2012 funding proposal, which would have raised some $720 million a year for the Atlanta region alone. Even if added together, the ideas under discussion for state funding would provide less, and would all have to be spread statewide. Those who supported them said they might have to be phased in.
Ideas include raising the gas tax, a proposal being fought by gas station lobbyists and that one observer said will “never happen.” But task force member and House Transportation Committee Chairman Jay Roberts said he would “support looking at it as part of the overall bill.”
Another suggestion is moving to transportation funding a small portion of the state gas tax, “the fourth penny,” that is currently diverted to the state’s general fund. That brings in about $180 million a year. But another task force member, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jack Hill, pointed out that would mean cutting that money from the state’s regular budget, something he was “jealous” of. He prefers the idea of freeing up about $240 million a year for roads that the Department of Transportation currently has to spend on debt service.
Those proposals are mostly road-centric, though.
Most members interviewed had little to say on how the state could help fund transit. Edward Lindsey, a former legislator who tried and failed to pass transit legislation, pointed out that transit advocates had their chance with the 2012 referendum, but many opposed it. He said he hopes the state can address transit “in the long run.”
Instead, the conversation for funding mass transit seems to be turning toward a sort of mini region — a handful of counties in metro Atlanta, perhaps five, that could band together voluntarily to fund transit and roads.
First, the Legislature would set up a framework for counties to undertake such a collaboration. Personally, Roberts is against it. But it has some others interested, including Hill and Gov. Nathan Deal.
Speaking the day before the election, Deal did not commit to the idea outright.
“I just don’t want us to build roads and bridges to nowhere,” he said. “Just because two or three counties agree to expand a two-lane to a four-lane, it doesn’t mean we should do it.”
About the Author
