The Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) touted last week’s event at the county’s Stonewall Avenue HQ as a public meeting, but instead presented a two-hour, Madison Avenue sales pitch.
ARC provides technical and staff assistance to the Regional Transportation Roundtable, which is directed by state law to approve a $6.1 billion list of transportation projects that taxpayers in the 10-county Atlanta metro region will be asked next year to pay for. So far, so good.
With that much money on the table, though, special interests promoting pet projects are making Brooklyn Bridge salesmen proud. One whole category of projects, bus and rail transit, is shaping up to consume half of the entire 10-year taxes, even though the Ga. Dept. of Transportation states that transit only carries 5 percent of the area’s commuters. Wait a minute, five years of taxes to benefit 5 percent of commuters?
It’ll take real showmanship to sell this brand of voodoo economics to regional voters, but ARC pitchmen (and women) are up to the task, with slick videos and scheduled promotions in each county.
In Fayette, you couldn’t simply attend and raise your hand to ask a question. No, ARC required that questions be written on cards so they could “sort them and eliminate duplicates” before their moderator referred them to a three-member panel.
Said moderator assured us after the Q&A that she’d presented all the questions, but mine certainly hadn’t been (and it didn’t duplicate any others).
I’d also signed up for an allowed two minutes of public comment, so I asked them then: “If transit displaces cars to reduce highway congestion and air pollution, how many cars will be displaced for the $3 billion allocated to transit? How many need to be displaced to have any meaningful impact?”
No response, Q&A was over. “How does the cost per passenger mile of transit compare to that of highway investments?” Sorry, we’re done with that portion of the program.
Citizens were also encouraged to complete an on-line survey, which I’d done before coming to the meeting. It was also rigged to only allow favorable responses — not a single opportunity to express concerns, doubts, or disagreement. It was the same story during the Civic League’s July 23 Town Hall in Atlanta — no speakers selected unless they toed the party line.
I don’t know about you, but I get very suspicious when government presents only one side of an expensive issue that we’re being asked to pay for over ten years. Yes, there are some worthy projects on the list, but as of now, we’re being marched down the aisle of a shotgun wedding to a very high-maintenance, under-performing partner (check page 5 of MARTA’s 2010 Annual Comprehensive Report: it lost over a half billion dollars each of the past two years).
Anyone ready to say “I do” for ten years worth of new taxes?
Robert Ross
Peachtree City, Ga.
