Don McKee
I-75 plan is better: The reversible HOT lane plan for I-75/575 is all new lanes and all new interchanges. The I-85 mess took away existing lanes. The I-75/575 design adds real capacity, and unburdens existing interchanges. The reversible feature increases the added capacity effect. The design takes practically no added land beyond the existing right of way. The addition to I-75/575 capacity is a good thing, well designed. Lindsey Tippins’ idea on TV 23 to put triple lanes from 285 to the split and double both ways beyond that deserves consideration.
NotSoPC: With leaders like Lee and Mathews who needs enemies, I suspect our neighboring and competitive counties are ecstatic. They have, with the inexplicable assistance of our Chamber of Commerce and the Cumberland CID, put Cobb County in the precarious position of funding a $1BILLION light rail project for the City of Atlanta and MARTA. Way to go guys!!
Last GA Democrat: With the moves that the state has been making lately to attempt to make the very unpopular I-85 HOT (high occupancy toll) Lanes more palatable to Northeast Metro, like lowering off-peak tolls to one-cent per mile, it looks the state is trying to do either one of two things: Make HOT Lanes more acceptable to the public at large or slowly and steadily back away from the HOT lane strategy altogether, a strategy that was set-in-motion in the second term of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s Administration. (Gov. Deal admittedly is not all that crazy about using HOT Lanes as a way to relieve congestion and is even less crazy about the 50, 60, 70-year contracts can arise out of public-private partnerships which is why he cancelled the I-75/575 NW HOT lane project.) There is also talk of the state using the TSPLOST funds currently marked for the Midtown-to-Cumberland light rail to instead build the I-75/575 HOT lanes as a publicly funded project in which increased commuter bus service would be operated in the HOT lanes. It’s a situation that is fairly fluid right now as to just how exactly Cobb’s revenues from the T-SPLOST would be used to relieve traffic.
Anonymous: I hold out hope that if the Republicans in the Cobb delegation can come to broad agreement, and sell it to others in the region, that some sort of legislation amending the TIA is still possible.
(This comes down to the political reality under the Gold Dome: a majority of legislators voted for the TIA that now provides oodles of local projects for their districts. Cobb has little or no clout since it can be outvoted by the other nine counties in the TSPLOST region.)
dmckee9613@aol.com
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I looked at the bill that was passed and saw this language in it under the section entitled "MARTA Expansion":
"...any such rapid transit contract shall not become valid and binding unless the same is approved by a majority of those voting in said referendum, which approval shall also be deemed approval of further participation in the authority. ..."
Rest assured, if the projects were a lemonade stand, each cup would be $15 and it would actually be filled decades later under the leadership of MARTA!
When it comes to TIA or T-SPLOST, JUST SAY 'NO'!
We really need the TSPLOST delayed while we work on a better list of projects. Especially, we do not need to pay for most of the cost of a rail line that will run mostly in Fulton County/City of Atlanta.
Just vote no.
The shortest route to hell is the obvious answer.
It seems you are the one with your head in the sand or maybe you've managed to get it stuck in some other equally dark and stinky void.
How does a light rail line from Arts Center to Cumberland help traffic congestion on I-75 north of I-285?
The rail line to Cumberland is 15 years away and one to Kennesaw/Town Center is, if it is EVER built, yet another 10 to 15 years away!!
The Arts Center to Cumberland rail line is located 95% in the City of Atlanta, but funded 100% by Cobb County taxpayer dollars.
As they say "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck then it must be a duck."