Don McKee
This $1.8 million analysis by Croy Engineering will recommend what the firm believes is the best mode of mass transportation for Cobb, the best route for it and a 20-year financial plan to pay for it, as the Journal’s Geoff Folsom reported last week.
Here’s the kicker: According to Faye DiMassimo, the county DOT director, Croy was not requested to complete the study before the referendum because “It couldn’t be done by July 31.” Moreover, she said the analysis project started before the Transportation Investment Act was passed and “was never on a schedule that worked with” the TIA schedule.
So it’s an exercise in futility so far as informing Cobb voters about what an engineering firm thinks is the best mode and route for mass transit. And it’s virtually irrelevant anyway, according to Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee. He said the planned $695 million premium bus service from Acworth to the MARTA Arts Center Station “makes sense on its own.”
If the TSPLOST passes, Lee hopes the analysis will “help fine-tune what’s best for the northwest corridor” – whatever that means. So what if the much touted analysis recommends light rail instead of the premium bus service? Lee said he and his fellow commissioners will make the decision on how to proceed – which means they could decide on light rail if that is the recommended alternative, right?
Even if the Cobb commission decides against the AA recommendation, the project has to pass muster with the Atlanta Regional Commission. If federal funds are involved, as the MDJ reported, the preferred alternative would have to fit into the ARC’s Regional Transportation Plan.
Meanwhile, there’s opposition to the TSPLOST from across the political spectrum, ranging from the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club to the Tea Party of Georgia. The Sierra Club has recommended a “no” vote in all 12 state regions holding TSPLOST referendums on July 31.
Contrasting the widespread feeling in Cobb that more traffic lanes and improvements are needed, the Sierra Club “concluded that the project list is too heavily focused on sprawl-inducing road expansion and will have a negative overall impact from an environmental perspective.” The club also warns that the TIA “likely kills commuter rail for another decade” and says the “transit component has too many flaws, including vaguely defined project descriptions, under-funded capital expansions and uncertainty about long-term operational support.” No argument with that.
Further, purely local projects will soak up 15 percent of the estimated $6.1 billion raised by the tax. That’s about $1 billion for everything from sidewalks to parks and other projects that have nothing to do with relieving traffic congestion.
Solution: Vote no July 31 and start over on a real transportation improvement plan.
dmckee9613@aol.com
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Vote for anyone but Lee. Choose commissioners who will save us from the train. If Atlanta out votes Cobb on TSPLOST, some kind of transit will be forced down our throats. Better elect Commissioners that will keep the train out and approve a more cost effective express bus.
Building roads is even less "cost effective" operations and maintenance in addition to additional cost don't offer any way to pay for themselves other than taxes, idk why people insist that transit should be forced to function differently.
Major cities have/need solid public transportation. In Atlanta we don't have that b/c the short sighted voters in Cobb and Gwinnett voted down MARTA twice over the past 30 years. Without public transit we will fall behind other upcoming cities like Charlette and Birmingham over the next 30 years. There is no quick fix to transportation problems, planning and funding need to line up to make it happen. Vote Yes on T-SPLOST as it's a start in the right direction.
Cobb and Gwinnett, who by the way have no control or say over MARTA's management and operations, had nothing to do with MARTA running itself almost completely into the ground as a result of self-mismanagement and incompetence.
Cobb and Gwinnett didn't misuse company credit cards, Cobb and Gwinnett didn't refuse to raise their fares with inflation and prevent more of the cost of operating and maintaining the service being self-funded by users.
How can MARTA be expected to even reasonably serve Cobb and Gwinnett when it can't even dependably serve Fulton and DeKalb who fund it operation with a one-percent sales tax?