Posted on 08/16/2011 6:22:31 AM PDT by from occupied ga
It was sometimes rowdy, sometimes fractious, but in the end leaders of communities throughout Metro Atlanta did something they've never done before. They agreed on a regional transportation plan.
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed called it a trying process – attempting to whittle away $300-million from a region-wide transportation wish list that included projects ranging from the Beltline to the Northwest Corridor Rail project along US 41.
“Although a couple of times, we walked up to the edge in terms of offending one another,” Reed said after the meeting of the Transportation Roundtable Executive Board, “at the end of the day, we thought better of that.”
The executive board eventually proposed cutting $80 million from Georgia Regional Transportation Authority funding, cutting more than $58 million from the Beltline project and cutting smaller projects like two segments of the Fayetteville bypass, totaling $1.8 million.
Now comes the hard part. Members of the entire Regional Transportation Roundtable have to sell their list of road and rail projects to the public in a series of meetings before a November vote on a ten-year penny sales tax to pay for it all. Dekalb County Executive Burrell Ellis says that's where he expects the most -- and the most vocal -- opposition.
leaders of communities
If a local leader is one who robs you and then spends the loot on buying votes and paying off campaign contributions, then these are indeed local "leaders."
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Does anyone REALLY believe that the sales tax rate will drop one cent after 10 years? Ha, I have a bridge to sell you!
The GA Tea Party has already come out against this black hole tax. It will fight tooth and nail to see it goes nowhere.
A few months back, the Hwy 400 toll (only toll road in the state) finally paid paid off that freeway. Instead of removing the toll booths as promised, they rebuilt them and resumed collection.
No, that sales tax increase won’t drop. Others haven’t, no reason to expect this one to.
Dadgumit! You beat me to it.
No one with any experience on this.
They’re going to try and push this through in November? Good luck with that. Outside of Fulton, DeKalb, and Clayton, I don’t see a chance of this passing.
The Atlanta Urinal Constipation loves any tax increase that is proposed. So do the liberal/progressive radio stations down here. But get outside the cities filled with these wackos and you will find quite a different opinion.
Don't be too complacent. They pushed through the last one with a substantial margin. The organizations that want the tax are extremely well funded. After all tehy're expecting a six billion dollar payoff and don't mind fronting several million to bombard the voters with lies and distortions. And, of course, there are the idiots who actually believe that this will "benefit the region."
MARTA is what is the matter with Metro Atlanta. What’s colored like a rainbow and smells like a pig-sty? A Marta train or bus. Damn shame too!
ONE of the MANY things wrong with Atl. Probably the single most wasteful, but then there's Grady, and the whole section 8 housing situation.
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