Hey, Georgia DUers -- what do you think of this July 31st "Untie Atlanta" vote? [View all]

[klook]

This is one of the rare cases where the Sierra Club and the Teabaggers agree -- although of course for vastly different reasons. The Sierra Club is unhappy with it because such a large percentage of the 1 percent sales tax would support "sprawl-inducing road expansion." And the right-wingers apparently don't like it either because a) hit's a tay-ax, y'all, and them ain't good; b) it's not 100 percent devoted to road construction; or c) the percentage that's not devoted to road construction could help MARTA, which of course is nothing more than a socialist plot to bring poor people of color to white neighborhoods where they can steal Republicans' TVs and leer at their womenfolk.

Here are the Sierra Club's points, from the position paper linked above:

• The Project List Does Not Present a Cohesive Transportation Vision, offering a hodgepodge of conflicting priorities when what is needed is a bold and consistent vision for a sustainable transportation future.


• The Necessary Institutional Context is Not in Place, with the 2012 legislative session having failed to address serious questions about equitable regional transit governance and the ongoing second-class treatment of MARTA.


• It Likely Kills Commuter Rail For Another Decade, taking off the table one of the most promising strategies for providing commute alternatives and promoting sustainable development.


• It Does Too Little to Address the Current Road-Heavy Funding Imbalance, instead reinforcing a funding framework that already heavily favors highway expansion over commute alternatives.


• The Road Funding Neglects Maintenance Needs to Focus on New Capacity, with five times as much funding going to expanded capacity than to maintenance and operations, further compounding an already serious backlog of asset management needs.


• It Locks the Region into a Dysfunctional, Undemocratic Decision-Making Process, both through the highly politicized “roundtable” process and the blatantly anti-urban method for distributing local set-aside funds. (Fulton County alone would forfeit $88 million due to this inequity.)


• The Transit Component Has Too Many Flaws, including vaguely defined project descriptions, underfunded capital expansions, and uncertainty about long-term operational support.


The Untie Atlanta people claim this will be a great thing for the metro area, including many options for public transit, bike paths, etc., and that the Sierra Club is wrong. They also claim this will create many much-needed jobs in the region.

I dunno, I'm skeptical. I've seen too many "bike paths" around here that were nothing more than a few bicycle rider symbols spray-painted onto the street -- for example, on Clifton Rd. near Emory U. And today, when an orange haze hung over the metro area, on a Sunday, I was not looking forward to more road lanes, since more lanes don't equal less traffic (http://bit.ly/mQu5YT). And any jobs created by these projects will be temporary.

Then there's the issue that this is supposed to be funded by a 1 percent sales tax, which always affects poor people the most. Why can't road projects be funded by gasoline taxes?

So, taking all this into consideration, I'm leaning against the "Untie Atlanta" T-SPLOST on July 31st. But I'm keeping a semi-open mind and am interested to hear what others think about this.