TSPLOST, as it has been presented so far, is a terribly conceived initiative and should be voted down. The whole point of bringing all the metro countries together was to provide a vision for a regional transportation plan that would serve the needs of the whole area for decades to come. Instead, it is simply an effort to collect lots of money from taxpayers in order to pay for the pet projects of different power brokers in the metro area. There is no regional vision. There is no transcendent visionary that can see beyond the local needs of the different political entities.
Before we vote on this new tax, we need to see a comprehensive plan that will outline the anticipated needs of the area in 20 years and address those needs in a synergistic fashion. This is clearly not happening! Instead, we have committee members simply bartering for their share of the money for local, tactical projects. Therefore, there is no justification for a regional tax!
Because there is no regional vision, no controls over how this money will ultimately be spent and a 10-year-deal, it is not something we, as taxpayers, should sign up for. Give us a vision of the metro area in 20 years and an integrated, regional approach for addressing our transportation needs that truly justifies a multi-county tax, then TSPLOST might be worth considering.
If we vote on TSPLOST today, we have no idea what we are voting for other than to give politicians millions of dollars to spend as they see fit. With no regional vision, there should be no TSPLOST.
Dan Valentine
Marietta
Follow us on Twitter!
This project list is the antithesis of a regional transportation solution.
A disjointed agglomeration of unconnected transportation projects that provide little if any regional connectivity.
As a recent MDJ columnist so accurately described it: A "snatch and grab" approach by ambitious politicians and greedy developers.
Dont' know if it is a MDJ typo or your error, but it should be metro "counties" not "countries.