@ Daniel. ANY improvements made to and around GA400 should come from the surplus of dollars collected at the GA-400 tolls.

Daniel, if you really think the tax will end in 10 years, perhaps you can advise where the ongoing operating costs are going to come from. No one has answered that yet.

The "citizen review board" is appointed, not elected, so I have little hope that it will have any real power.

The "public input" that I attended was a classic example of the delphi technique. No real discussion, no interactive questions, all predefined conclusions. The RTR "whittling down" sessions were even worse. This was a bunch of politicians grabbing for the honey pot.

I live in Roswell and work several days a week downtown. I don't take MARTA because it doubles my trip time and makes me walk too far, the same reasons that 95% of Atlantans don't use it. Atlanta doesn't have sufficient density for transit to be a real solution.

The gridlock will only be solved when GDOT is directed to focus on congestion relief, and made to design highway improvements that actually reduce it. Currently they are too busy meeting federal directives and responding to political favor projects.

"The gridlock will only be solved when GDOT is directed to focus on congestion relief, and made to design highway improvements that actually reduce it."

...In other words, never.

"I live in Roswell and work several days a week downtown. I don't take MARTA because it doubles my trip time and makes me walk too far, the same reasons that 95% of Atlantans don't use it. Atlanta doesn't have sufficient density for transit to be a real solution."

Even though the overwhelming vast majority of Metro Atlantans don't use MARTA and other mass transit systems for the reasons you describe, which is largely due to extreme and inept mismanagement inside the agency and a glaring lack of leadership from both local (City of Atlanta, Fulton County & DeKalb County) and state (the often wildly-inept GDOT and its managing parent, the Georgia General Assembly) levels of government who themselves often struggle with issues of severe incompetence and ethical shortcomings within their own management and leadership, the actual number of Metro Atlantans who use transit is a little farther north of five percent.

When the daily ridership numbers for MARTA (470,000 riders/daily), Cobb Community Transit (11,000 riders/daily), Gwinnett County Transit (8,000 riders/daily), GRTA Xpress (9,000 riders/daily), Hall Area Transit (Gainesville-1,100 riders/daily) are added up and calculated together the average daily transit ridership for the entire 28-county Atlanta Region of 5.8 million is approximately 500,000 riders per day, which figures out to about 8.6% of the population of the 28-county Atlanta Region using transit on a daily basis.

When the daily number of transit riders (498,000) is applied from the four transit systems (MARTA, CCT, GCT & GRTA Xpress) that operate in the 10-county ARC (Atlanta Regional Commission) area is applied to the population of the 10-county ARC area (4,142,300 people) daily transit ridership in the 10-county region is just over 12%.

Daniel : Really....................... With 53% of the "The Mess The Project List Is" consisting of : A) Non roads & bridges 1.) The Belt Way 2) High Speed rail 3) MARTA maintenance ; Please explain how this will reduce traffic long term in the best interest of ALL the tax payers? At the end of 10 years what type of unfunded mandate have you created by laying down a partial set of unfinished rail tracks?. How are you going to maintain this albatross - Use MARTA and it's 489 million annual short fall as (Atlanta's version to a bridge to no where) ; in this case a Bridge to increased taxes forever to all.. If I lived in Fulton County I would want "others" to pay and bail me out too, otherwise fix MARTA. If I lived in Fulton County the first thing I would do is force MARTA to become at least reasonably self sufficient. Think about it - we're not even asking for them to make a profit! Lastly why does it not include the 75/I575 project? Oh, I guess that's a separate cost we will all have, one no one wants to talk about with this mess. NOT!

Dean Sheridan
12:55 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

"Lastly why does it not include the 75/I575 project? Oh, I guess that's a separate cost we will all have, one no one wants to talk about with this mess. NOT!"

The TIA/T-SPLOST does not include the I-75/I-575 Northwest Corridor project because that particular project was started over a decade ago, roughly just after the turn-of-the-century before the T-SPLOST was even a gleam in the eyes of the powers-that-be.

The entire Cobb Republican legislative delegation along with Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews joined with Cobb County Chairman Tim Lee, who is desperately just barely clinging to his political career at this point after supporting the wildly unpopular Cobb taxpayer-funded Midtown-to-Cumberland light rail line, to publicly lobby to switch the funding from the unpopular light rail line to the I-75/575 HOT Lanes project which had its P3 (Public-Private Partnership) method of funding cancelled by Governor Deal back in December.

Dean Sheridan
12:55 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

But by the time that the P3 funding for the I-75/I-575 HOT Lanes project was cancelled in December and Cobb Chairman Lee and the Cobb GOP Legislative Delegation lobbied for the T-SPLOST funding to be switched from the increasingly unpopular light rail line to the HOT lanes, it was too late as the T-SPLOST list had already been finalized and the state would not let Cobb officials, who were feeling increasing political heat from their conservative constituents for putting the Cobb-funded Fulton light rail line on the list, or anyone else, switching the funding, at least not publicly, anyway.

And when I say that the T-SPLOST is the "Northern Arc part 2", I mean that it is a political disaster in the making.

Well, call me the new kid on the block. I call'em as I see'em. That's the problem. "The Disease that lives in DC is everywhere - even in Cherokee County. Never to late for mice & men. This all must come to a STOP NOW. You heard about the "Trolley Car from Hell" in the ATL.? This ARC Mess that "is the project list" makes that look like a Matchbox toy. My understanding is that Cobb rail is in this T-SPLOST mess list now. That being the case; we traded that mess and the heat that went with it (meaning no relief up North with traffic) so we could add even more taxes for problems that real need funding? So in turn ; now to get relief we pay for for it twice in the form of two tax increases? My wife complains about me having one drink and I break out Mason Jar. I've never seen a jar this big. We need to ALL take a step back an re-evaluate both projects before using common sense. Just VOTE NO. Hopefully we can get that done and Toll the North end like their saying; Pay as you go - then kill anything but roads and bridges with ARC. That makes sense to me. Pretty straight forward.

Regarding your prior post on ridership, generally, a person boards once TO and again FROM their destination- so you have to divide the number of boardings by 2 to find out how many people you’re carrying.

Of course, some people board a bus to the train station and board the train to get to work; then reverse the process to return: 1 person, four boardings. MARTA’s 2011 CAFR, p.71, shows 139 million boardings. Divide by a little over two to get people, then divide by days to get the number of people MARTA’s taking off the road daily- about 200k.

W/O MARTA, not all of those people would drive their own car- some would car/van pool, telecommute etc.

Mike Lowry
4:27 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

Even I though I agree with you that a mismanaged transit agency like MARTA is far from being a cure-all magic bullet for the transportation mess that we are in, I would still be hesitant to totally discount or discredit the beneficial effect that MARTA has on rush hour traffic, especially the MARTA North-South and Northeast-South heavy rail lines, which seem to act as a reliever for the GA 400/I-85/I-75 Downtown Connector alignment which is often severely-congested, if not outright gridlocked, and stressed almost with traffic to the point of being impassable at times during morning and evening rush hours and special events (like Braves home games that occur at the end of evening rush hours).

The I-75/I-85 Downtown Connector often struggles mightily to just handle the estimated 300,000 vehicles that it already carries.

If MARTA were to suddenly cease to operate and the Downtown Connector were flooded with lets say 100,000 or more vehicles, there is absolutely no doubt that road, in which this town and region have become entirely too dependent upon, and the sections of GA 400 below the Buckhead exit and I-85 between the Brookwood Interchange and GA 400, would become totally impassable and turn into a complete parking lot during rush hours and peak periods.

MARTA may be extremely inept and entirely mismanaged, but as bad as the traffic is now on GA 400 south of Buckhead, on I-85 between 400 & Brookwood and on the Downtown Connector, traffic would be much, much, MUCH worse Inside the Perimeter if MARTA were to suddenly cease to function as there is absolutely no physical space remaining along the right-of-way to widen the road and there is absolutely no political will to expand that particular gridlocked freeway, or seemingly any other severely-gridlocked Atlanta freeway, the only place that most right-of-way challenged Atlanta-area freeways could ever be expanded, which is vertically.

Mileage-based taxation is coming. Oregon, minnesota and Florida all have serious programs underway to evaluate and implement technologies to support it. Georgia should move in this direction as well.

One of the great by-products will be the acquisition of real origin-destination demand statistics that can be used to guide transportation planning.

Elevated lanes and high-capacity entrances and exits will also do much to provide real congestion relief. The GPPF study pointed clearly to the need for additional E-W arteries. Designing them as continuous-flow, either with elevated lanes, roundabouts or cross-unders would be a great start on real congestion relief. We can't afford any of this, however, if we dump more $billions into useless transit projects.

Mike, have you even looked at the T-SPLOST project list? The overwhelming majority of projects are road projects, not transit!

For the record, I don't disagree that we need more E-W arteries, or other high speed corridors. I suspect that the cost for these would be far, far higher than the current T-SPLOST. 7 billion would hardly cover the costs for these (not the mention where's the funding for maintaining these new arteries over the years?) So while I don't object, if we can't pass a $7B list of projects, how will we pay for these arteries? I can see tolls or mileage based fees covering O&M of these new roads, but no contractor would be able to finance the construction of such a huge project by themselves, without bonds or some other public investment. Maybe I'm wrong, but if so I would love to know where this has been done, on this scale.

For Ramblin Wreck Dave,

Yes, I have analyzed the project list closely. If you do the same (you can download an excel spreadsheet at www.traffictruth.net) you will discover that:
(1) Transit projects consume 52% of the funds,
(2) MARTA maintenance projects consume hundreds of millions of dollars,
(3) The beltway and trolley are funded, which do nothing for congestion.

The project list is filled with projects to help keep mayors and commissioners happy, and very little of it is directed to congestion relief.

Clark Howard is for the fatally-flawed T-SPLOST out of sheer desperation and utter fear that our idiotic and moronic state legislators will fail to ever again address our rapidly deteriorating transportation mobility situation, which is not exactly a ringing endorsement.

I think most of us liked the Legislation and maybe that's where he was coming from. It does have merit. It's the Project list that's being exposed as a failure and it's out of control. The "Marque" rail system in the Country is Seattle. Ridership is about what it is here. They're lay-dent in debt now. Like Chicago, their forced to have a separate tax like FICA come out of their checks as resolve. Sure it looks nice and fun for some and used by few - but really folks.

Clark is uncharacteristically uninformed on this issue. The radio session he participated in was simply a regurgitation of the Chamber of Commerce spin on the topic. He has also been uncharacteristically unwilling to participate in open discussion on the topic. I suspect some serious advertising dollars are involved.

I know Bob Ross personally. He is scrupulously accurate in his posts, and sources all of his facts, unlike Untie Atlanta. I can say with confidence he has not posted any false information. I would challenge you to point to anything specific that you think is false.

Conversely, your comment above that "If transit options are made more readily available and gives you access to more places then of course more people will ride it." doesn't square with the reality that Atlanta's density will prevent transit from ever being an effective transportation solution. Even the ARC's growth projections show that most of Atlanta's growth will be in areas where transit isn't considered. Transit will never generate enough revenue to pay for itself, and will require taxpayer subsidy forever.

There will be a Plan B that makes sense, and we must vote down the tax to get to it.

Mike Lowry
11:13 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012

"Transit will never generate enough revenue to pay for itself"

...It will if virtually all new road construction continues to choked dead by the shockingly effective anti-road lobby that strangely seems to dominate Georgia politics.

New road construction is nowhere near as difficult to accomplish in other Sunbelt states with relatively recent strong economic growth like Texas, Florida and North Carolina as it is in Georgia.

KellyW
11:00 pm on Wednesday, June 13, 2012

"The maintenance of projects funded from the Regional Transportation Referendum will come from users of such projects such as the light rail systems being thought up."

No, it won't, because there is nothing in the law that says that funding for continuing maintenance (and operation) costs will come from user fees on light rail projects that are not even setup to pay even part of their own costs under this tax, much less the maintenance and operation costs of other projects.

In fact, if continuing operations and maintenance costs was in fact borne by users in the form of tolls and fares, there would be no reason to even hold a referendum and have to (unsuccessfully) attempt to convince taxpayers to vote for a half-hearted, ill-conceived, badly-intended and fatally-flawed T-SPLOST just to fund partial initial construction of these projects.

Bad idea. Good intentions; maybe

When I lobbied members of the General Assembly last December to avoid what would obviously be a bad result - regardless of which way the vote went - I was told that "the legislature doesn't have the appetite to take on the speaker and the governor this session". Doug Stoner repeated that phrase last week at the panel discussion at Ga Tech. Obviously, we need to help the legislature develop some new dining habits :-).

The political will to fix this will be generated if we can vote it down, then demand the legislature move to "Plan B" (much more on this later). Political will is a function of voter demands. If we can sustain our current level of anger past the July 31 vote, the legislature will move to adopt a new plan.

You've had months to prepare a "Plan B"...where is it? I don't buy the argument that "T-SPLOST is bad, but don't worry we have a great Plan B...just shoot T-SPLOST down first and then we'll show you." That tells me you have no Plan B, otherwise you would share it now. Is this Plan B from people who are experts in traffic studies and congestion?

Part of our problem as a state is that our current DOT is not charged with reducing congestion, but rather is focused on implementing Washington directives and delivering on political favors. It should be completely restructured.

The GPPF study clearly identified the need for a grid of arterials as part of a better solution for Atlanta.

The operative words in your comment are "Sandy Springs" and "short walk". You are among the 5% that can use it.

I have tried MARTA. Unless you live very close, and work close to a station, it's not a solution. Also, I doubt you would use MARTA if you had to pay the full cost of your convenient ride. The rest of us are subsidizing your convenience and savings.

You said you commute from Roswell, which means if you're driving down 400 you are passing right by the N springs station. So no excuse there. And since you said you travel downtown, everything is a short walk downtown. Atlanta does not have a huge downtown. Now I realize that not everyone works downtown, but my point is that in your case you would almost certainly save time on MARTA unless you're commuting outside of rush hour.

You make some very good points about mass transit. But the fact remains that, at this particular time and despite Atlanta's world renowned and infamous reputation for traffic congestion, the idea of expanding MARTA outside of I-285 or implementing commuter rail just is not all that politically viable or socially-appealing outside of Fulton and DeKalb.

Most Metro Atlantans remain extremely adverse and even somewhat hostile to the concept of transit expansion, especially rail transit, which many suburbanites and exurbanites view as being wasteful and ineffective at lessening traffic congestion and especially MARTA, which as an agency has been mismanaged to the point of being widely perceived by the public as being severely incompetent.

Ironically, many Metro Atlantans also remain extremely adverse to the concept of substantial road expansion as well, which puts this region in a real bind transportation-wise if there is no political will or political want to upgrade either the regions clearly inadequate network of roads and/or transit.

"A commuter rail system could work here, it's the right model for a spread out area. I lived in the DC area, and it's just as spread out as Atlanta outside of the beltway."

Do you mean a commuter rail system like this?
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/travelingingeorgia/rail/Documents/CommuterRailMap.pdf
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/railroad/nga_passenger.pdf

GDOT (the Georgia Department of Transportation) has had plans on the books for a commuter rail network for at least much of the last two decades, it's just that the plans are completely unfunded and the concept of rail transit isn't exactly a political winner in most of this region outside of I-285, in fact, rail transit is an extreme political LIABILITY throughout most of Metro Atlanta, save for Fulton and DeKalb counties.

But on the other hand, substantial road expansion isn't all that much of an appealing item, either, politically in this automobile-dominated town, so go figure.

I guess I just don't get it; it would seem the overwhelming majority of people here have a reduced quality of life due to traffic, yet no one wants to pay for a solution (and guess what, a solution will not magically appear without $). Whether it's through taxes, tolls, "fees", whatever you want to call it, it will need to be paid for. Until the day when we can all somehow work from home and contribute to the local and national GDP, we will be commuting and making traffic worse here.
Not to be cliche, but be the change you imagine. If everyone stood up for what they personally felt was right rather than succumbing to a mass "feeling" that MARTA is inept, rail is bad, roads are bad,and nothing will ever change, then it becomes self-fulfilling prophecy.
MARTA may have inept management as so many say; if so, it hasn't personally affected my commute on MARTA, so I don't see what this has to do with being against expanding mass transit. I do however see inept management from road construction contractors and GDOT when seemingly simple road projects go way over on time and budget....and this does negatively affect my commute when construction or lane closures drag on.

Interesting find, ACC-SEC booster. Although with these T-SPLOSTs being regional, and this map covering nearly half the state, I wonder if this plan is too big to be covered by a T-SPLOST. If it were to be split among the regions, let the regions vote. If voters outside of Fulton/Dekalb don't want rail (say to Bremen), than so be it. This map does seem a bit pie-in-the sky. I don't really consider Macon or Bremen part of the metro Atlanta area...I'm sure some people do commute from there to here, but not enough to support a rail line.

Whatever the reasons were for Cobb and Gwinnett to not adopt MARTA back in the day, times have changed.

Transit is a viable solution if, and only if, it can generate enough business to pay for itself. Even the vaunted DC system requires large taxpayer subsidy in order to provide convenience and economic transportation to a small percentage of people.

Conversely, there are many options for roadway improvement if we can redirect GDOT to use them. GDOT is currently preoccupied with Washington directives and with granting political favors.

"Transit is a viable solution if, and only if, it can generate enough business to pay for itself."

I am not aware of any transit system that is entirely self sustaining. Nor am I aware of any roads that are, so you have to apply your logic evenly across all forms of transit to be fair. You feel that you're subsidizing MARTA for a small group of people, a service that you will never use; likewise I feel that I'm subsidizing road construction for those who choose to live in the exurbs, roads which I will never use. This is a basic tenet of society, if every individual only cared about themselves we would not have shared interstates, police service, water, or any other public service.

janet h russell
5:48 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

"But the state legislature controls how the revenue they do generate is spent."

The state legislature controls how MARTA spends it money by making the agency put aside 50% of the sales tax revenue that it collects from Fulton and DeKalb counties aside for capital expenditures because, if left to its own devices, MARTA wouldn't have anything set aside for capital expenditure as the money that MARTA currently has to set aside for capital expenditures still isn't anywhere near enough to cover those costs.

The thing is that the 50% requirement only applies to the revenue from the 1% sales tax that MARTA collects from Fulton and DeKalb counties.

If MARTA really felt as if it needed more money for operations and maintenance, it could easily raise it fares to bring in more revenues that would not be subject to the 50-50 restrictions from the state, which MARTA has refused to do except when they were faced with the prospect of severe cuts to service.

The 50-50 restrictions on the sales tax revenues that MARTA takes is not the problem and has never been the problem as the argument that MARTA gets no revenue from the state is a red herring to distract from the fact that MARTA just simply does not and never has collected enough revenues from the farebox. MARTA could have rectified this situation long ago by implementing a distance-based fare collection system, but always has and continues to refuse to do so.

Another argument I never understood. If MARTA is to receive no public funding, then why should it be controlled by the state legislature (which has a reputation too, of not caring much about Metro Atlanta's needs)? If MARTA is always told to be run like a business, then why not let it make the decisions it is best qualified to make (rather than a bunch of politicians with their own agendas)? If MARTA is managed as poorly as everyone says, they will fall flat on their face and can be reconfigured once and for all. But no business could thrive, or survive if they are not allowed to make their own decisions as they see fit, and try to grow or at least be stable.

I wonder how successful any of these other metro area transit systems would be if they were hobbled by the ridiculous restrictions the state placed on them? Not really fair to blame MARTA when it's controlled more than any other system

Janet : maybe you need to move Roswell then. Heck, for that kind of money Id rather have the State pay you something every year to avoid this bridge to our wallets and maintenance forever. I guess you like the 489 million in red ink with MARTA, so you figure we double down? Show us that MARTA can at least loose 25 million a year - without making a profit - if you can do that I'm sure we can pass a rail project. Until then, support fixing the traffic problem with a solutions that actually work. The tab, Oh , depending on how you cut it up comes to 4,505,000,000.0 over 10 years (without maintenance) If you use combined ridership that hits a "peak" of 8% (at about 5% now) of the 9.5 million population( excessively large sample) , we would be paying about how much per each regular Ryder to build the thing? How much of that 8% will come off the roads? So - what traffic are we reducing? I'm all ears, I'm one of those, you know - from Missouri

Why would someone continue to live in Stone Mountain and work in Roswell? Roswell has a variety of housing, even for low-income residents. There are also a variety of transportation options for those unable to drive, but they need to be reasonable.

In a free country, we choose where to live and where to work. The public has no obligation to subsidize our choices.

Well, I get that tolls are unpopular, as are taxes, "fees", etc. My point is that people have become spoiled, expecting their problems to be solved but refusing to make any sacrifices or additional effort to make it happen. Believe me, I am not a fan of government, especially in GA where I believe corruption is rampant thanks to the good ol boy network (IMO it's an embarrassment that the people here would elect a congressman who resigned rather than face ethics charges).

But, I don't know that there's an alternative. As I mentioned in another post, these things are inherently govt functions as they benefit society but could never be turned into a profitable business (not if you wanted to keep it affordable for many members of society). Unless you have a non-profit like Habitat for Humanity building roads and transit with an army of skilled volunteers (not realistic), then what other option is there?

@ACC-SEC booster

You're 100% right...and this is a sad thing. There are certain services for society that are inherently government functions. There is no business case for an affordable and efficient mass transit system (if there were, market forces would already be running a private sector MARTA). Of even more importance for basic human survival, there is no business case for affordable, safe and sanitary water (if there were, company x would be running its own sewer, reservoir, and water delivery system). Safe, accessible water and efficient transportation are important elements for a metro area, and society to function and thrive, yet people here seem to be willing to let this decay and crumble all because "government is evil". Fine. Let things stagnate and crumble. You think the local economy is bad now? No one will want to start or maintain a business here if water rates skyrocket because we have to look elsewhere for water, due to lack of investment now.

RamblinWreckDave
8:31 pm on Thursday, June 14, 2012

"You think the local economy is bad now? No one will want to start or maintain a business here if water rates skyrocket because we have to look elsewhere for water, due to lack of investment now."

The problem is not just lack of investment in water (and transportation) infrastructure right now, the problem is a lack of investment in water (and transportation) infrastructure over the 50 years or so due to the largely unintentional lack of planning and the lack of expectation of Atlanta being a large city in the past.

You take a competing city like Dallas, Texas. Because of an oil and natural gas boom, Dallas foresaw and expected to be a big city in the future and therefore starting planning like it would someday grow to be a very large major-league city immediately at the end of World War II building out a network of over a dozen major locally-owned and controlled man-made lakes and reservoirs for water supply and flood-control, a robust transportation network that includes a brand new international airport (with the largest in land area in the Americas as DFW Airport is move than four times as large as Hartsfield land-wise), six toll roads, several tolled carpool lanes, a light rail system, a couple of commuter rail lines, with more roads and rail transit lines in active development.

While Dallas always expected and even knew that it would someday become a very large major-league city and committed the planning and executed the planning for doing so, Atlanta hoped to become a big city, but never necessarily really truly expected to become a big city as infrastructure experts warned area political leaders in a report over 40 years ago in the late 1960's that Atlanta would face increasingly severe water supply problems if the North Georgia population ever grew to between 3-5 million residents if no new reservoirs were never built to supplement and compliment federally-controlled Lakes Allatoona and Lanier.

Fast forward roughly 40 years to present-day Atlanta and that report that was issued by those infrastructure experts was found collecting dust on a shelf in the middle of the most severe drought that the area had ever experienced while Metro Atlanta faced the very real possibly of running out of water while federally-controlled Lakes Allatoona and, especially, Lanier, on whom both Atlanta and much of North Georgia, whose population had grown to over six million residents, remained severely-overdependent upon.

Many of those same infrastructure experts also warned political leaders around the same time in the mid-late 1960's that Metro Atlanta would experience increasingly severe traffic congestion and gridlock problems if the population of North Georgia grew to between 3-5 million residents, if investing in a robust multimodal transportation network did not become a force of habit.

Well, except for a very few brief and very limited exceptions, neither investing in a robust multimodal transportation network or an adequate water infrastructure became a force of habit in the next four-plus decades after those very-prescient warnings about transportation and water were issued and here we are, over 40 years later, often stuck in ridiculously-long traffic jams and running out-of-water and still investing to anywhere near-adequately invest in our increasingly undersized, overused, overstressed and outdated transportation and water infrastructure.

For those who say that voting for the T-SPLOST is a way to recify the glaring lack of investment in our transportation infrastructure over the last 4-5 decades of explosive growth, it's not.

The T-SPLOST is nothing more than a lazy political bone in the form of giveaways of public money to well-connected roadbuilders, land spectulators, real estate developers and ridiculously high-priced consultants, hastily thrown to increasingly anxious voters to get them to shut up and quit pestering state leaders to do something to help get rid of the endless traffic jams that greedly self-centered state politicians could really care less about as long as they keep getting their high-priced lobbyist-funded money and gifts.

The T-SPLOST is one lazy and tasteless bone that the state can have back as it is and should be considered nothing short of a total insult to the Georgians who have to contend with driving on the lousy and gridlocked roads everyday that our political leaders have long-neglected and even, at times, undermined with their repeatedly self-serving actions.

On July 31st vote yes to T-SPLOST and vote YES to even more DECEPTION, WASTE, FRAUD, CORRUPTION, ABUSE and INCOMPETENCE.

Well really I meant comparing MARTA to other large metro area mass transit systems, like NYC transit, or DC Metro. The other regional services you mentioned are just bus services really. Actually, I don't get how they're much different than a vanpool service, unless they're cheaper to serve all classes of our society. But that's kind of my point....in order to remain economically accessible, these services need to be affordable which means they would never make it as a business.

@RamblinWreckDave (and all the bed wetting Liberals like you)
If you really think spending spending 4.5 BILLION; removing about 1% of the traffic is value for the Tax Payer - that speaks volumes about your math skills and ideology. I am stating that fact. Auto O&M although costly is superior to a historically mismanaged MARTA (see the Project manager firings going back 30 years that has showed improvement over the last four years to be fair) and the 489 million dollar current short fall is no way a model a new project. We can and must do better, Are you implying that the numbers I site are wrong. Like I said - I'm from Missouri.

@Dean Sheridan
"Show us that MARTA can at least loose 25 million a year - without making a profit - if you can do that I'm sure we can pass a rail project. Until then, support fixing the traffic problem with a solutions that actually work. The tab, Oh , depending on how you cut it up comes to 4,505,000,000.0 over 10 years (without maintenance) If you use combined ridership that hits a "peak" of 8% (at about 5% now) of the 9.5 million population( excessively large sample) , we would be paying about how much per each regular Ryder to build the thing?"

Wow...I don't even know where to start. They must not teach math, English, or reasoning in Missouri or the homeschooling you received (and yes, I get your show-me reference, very clever). I can't understand anything in your post. You want some one to show you how MARTA can lose money without making a profit (isn't that the definition of not making a profit?) Your estimates that Atlanta's population will nearly double in 10 years comes from where? What do you think will happen to the congestion on our roads if in fact the metro population does double? Are you offering any ideas for your "solutions that actually work"?

You want to see numbers, look here:
http://www.velag.org/3_atlanta-invlist.pdf
Most of the T-SPLOST funds are road projects; about $1.4B is MARTA related, not $4.5B as you state

Good point....but I wonder if traffic has subsequently gotten worse in Clayton county, or if unemployment has rose for those lower income folks who now have no way to get to work, possibly leading to quality of life issues such as increased loitering, or worse, crime. These are issues which would affect people of all economic backgrounds.

BTW, I am guessing you are anti-TSPLOST (and I am for it). But thanks for keeping the discussion factual, civil, logical, and not sensational :)

"Why is Fulton & Dekalb even pushing this on others?"

The simple answer is to buy votes with our dollars.

You must be kidding! Beverly Scott couldn't last 3 months in a real business. MARTA is one of the worst governmental organizations in the US, and has been for the entire 30 years of its existence.

We are not "doing nothing" now, and won't be in the future, whether the TSPLOST is voted down or not. The "no Plan B" is the silliest statement ever made about a tax increase.

Mike,
Where is this glorious "Plan B" that you and your tea party buddies keep talking about? You've seen the project list in this T-SPLOST, where is your similarly detailed alternate? I suspect the answer is you don't have one, because all you've said on these blogs is that "it's coming". That's not a good enough answer; the transportation in this region has been underplanned and underinvested in for years. While not perfect, T-SPLOST has many good elements which will benefit us AS A REGION. Too often people are narrow minded and only thinking about their specific situation, not thinking that everything is interconnected, and congestion in 1 area can lead to congestion throughout the area.
As for your constant criticism of MARTA, and now personal criticism of Dr. Scott, what specifically are you talking about? Back your statements up with some numbers, otherwise this is just hateful rhetoric. Here's a statistic for you; MARTA is has an over 91% on-schedule record. Doesnt sound too shabby for me, especially considering MARTA is the only major transit system in the country that receives zero state funding for operations, yet is told how much of their revenues they can put towards operations. For that to be the case and still maintain reliable, 91% on time service seems like pretty good mgt to me.