Metro Atlantans want wider, safer roads. They want better sidewalks and more bike paths. But most of all, they want mass transit.
At least, their local leaders think so, if dollars are any guide. Local governments have asked for a massive, expensive mass transit expansion from a regional sales tax that voters will consider next year.
For the first time, there’s a wish list that reflects metro Atlanta thinking as a region when it comes to transportation. Local governments had until March 30 to submit their wish lists. The Atlanta Regional Commission put them together in one batch of 436 projects, and handed the list over to the state transportation planning director for his review. In summer, a regional group will choose the final projects.
The pool of projects submitted Friday is far from final. It likely includes ineligible projects and overlapping requests. It still must endure state scrutiny and debate on the regional level before it is cut to an affordable size and goes to voters, who will decide whether the projects are worth a 1-cent sales tax for a decade. That tax could raise $8 billion.
Metro Atlanta commuters won’t know until this fall which projects make the final list for the 2012 referendum. And the state is sure to add more projects, especially road projects. But a preliminary look shows the wish lists compiled from 10 counties and the cities and government agencies in them leaned heavily toward trains and buses, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.
The region’s very future may be at stake, depending on whom you ask. The referendum’s backers say a good list that voters will buy is Atlanta’s only chance to beat back congestion that is making lives less livable, choking the region’s growth and sending jobs out of state. Opponents say the region simply can’t afford another tax and doesn’t need more transit.
Suburban counties requested some of the biggest projects: new rail lines that could carry commuters from downtown Atlanta to distant towns in Gwinnett, Cobb and Clayton counties. MARTA was the biggest transit requester, asking for 43 projects, with some support from Fulton and DeKalb counties and Atlanta.
That doesn’t mean other projects got short shrift. Interstate interchange improvements such as I-285 west at I-20, new interchanges such as I-85 at McGinnis Ferry Road in Gwinnett County, and arterial widenings such as Ga. 92 in Fayette County packed the list, along with bridge replacements, paving projects and computerized traffic management proposals. Bicycle and pedestrian projects made a relatively strong showing, at nearly $1 billion, and even airports saw a few requests, $28 million worth. Gwinnett County alone requested a total of 71 projects.
The AJC got an early look at the list. Readers can search it at ajc.com or www.atlantaregional roundtable.com.
More than half of the $22.8 billion in formal applications, $13.5 billion, were mass transit projects, compared with $8.5 billion in road projects, according to ARC. An additional list of projects with fuzzier cost estimates adds billions more of both roads and transit. All dollar values in the list still need cleaning up, and in the following weeks ARC officials say they are likely to weed out more overlap between projects, which could bring the figures down significantly.
As things stand, the region could not build the entire list of mass transit requests under this referendum. Currently the transit requests are nearly double the amount of money expected to come from the tax. Furthermore, the region has already set a general guideline to spend a lot of the tax on roads and other projects. And the simple fact is that the vast majority of metro Atlantans — the voters who will make the final decision — choose to travel primarily by car.
However, green-lighting even one of the train lines into a suburban county could change the regional landscape as we know it, showing that suburban demographics and culture have changed, too. Efforts to expand MARTA rail into Cobb, Gwinnett and Clayton met stony resistance in past decades. Now, floods of newcomers in those counties, including many from cities with rail systems, have shifted attitudes.
But how many commutes would it change? Only time, and detailed study, will tell. Their primary benefit may not necessarily be in drawing traffic off the roads, but in offering a more reliable commuting alternative to people who don’t have other options now.
Building a brand-new mass transit line is hugely expensive, compared to tinkering with existing roads or bridges. But there are big-ticket unfunded road projects in metro Atlanta, too, and many were left off the table.
Chief among them, perhaps, the state’s primary initiative for relieving interstate congestion in metro Atlanta — optional toll lanes — raised almost no support at all. Although those projects bring in toll revenue, they typically require hefty tax subsidies, too.
For example, Cobb County requested a $1.5 billion transit line from MARTA’s Arts Center Station to Town Center, with possible bus service extending to Acworth. But it didn’t ask a dime for the state’s proposed optional toll lane project along I-75 and I-575 in Cobb and Cherokee counties, which may need up to $400 million in tax subsidies. Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee said he does support the I-75 project, “significantly,” but the region shouldn’t pay the gap, the state should. “It’s a state public-private project brought forward by the state, and it needs to stay in that bucket,” he said.
The main chance for straggler projects of all types to join the wish list comes over the next six weeks. On Friday, the ARC gave the regional wish list to state Transportation Planning Director Todd Long, and he will now spend through May weeding out ineligible projects and adding new projects he thinks the region should consider. He will also work with ARC to clean up the cost estimates and get a better picture of each project.
The state DOT has adopted a plan for optional toll lanes all across metro Atlanta, so it will be no surprise if Long adds such projects. He also will likely add commuter bus service, he said.
But this is all the easy part, said Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson, who leads the “roundtable” of local elected officials who will choose the final list. Starting in June, they will have to choose — eliminating dearly desired projects from what may be the only chance at funding over the next decade. He said the inclusion of transit was critical.
“It’s not going to be easy, but I think at the end of the day, everybody understands we have to make some tough choices,” Johnson said. “You’re not going to have every single person support every project in the list, you wouldn’t expect them to — but if, in a general way, everybody can feel good about the list, that’s what we’re working for.”
Computer-assisted reporting specialist John Perry contributed to this article.
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