T-SPLOST: With whom are we boarding the gravy train?
1. The City of Atlanta.
Atlanta is the big dog in this game. A look at their most recently completed public works project, the Maynard H. Jackson Jr. International Terminal, provides insight as to what to expect.
Originally planned to cost $719 million and open in 2006, the complex opened in May 2012 at a cost of $1.4 billion.
For this, 12 new gates were added to complement the other 182 at a cost of $116.7 million each.
Bloated and corrupt, just like the namesake.
2. The Georgia Department of Transportation
GDOT gets 52 percent of the T-SPLOST funds. These are the folks that mandated the unused signals and crosswalks to nowhere that now must be maintained and operationally funded locally.
Systematically, portions of the interstate system are being converted to toll roads. The elimination of the Georgia 400 toll upon collection of the cost of the road did not happen.
Like all government operations, they got used to the money. Predictably, they will get real used to the T-SPLOST billions and it will never expire.
3. Public transit
This imaginary shopping cart of projects gets 48 percent of the money. MARTA will receive a nice piece of this to continue their history of gross political mismanagement, failed promises like the 50 cent forever fare, and less and less service with increasing costs.
Maybe extend that busy and profitable Bankhead Line? Clayton County Transit will get some because that has already failed but it is time to try again.
Then there are the streetcars — maybe extend that to the Carter Center. Nobody goes there. Won’t that be fun for the visitors?
There is also the Atlanta BeltLine. This is the darling of those already living in town so they don’t need the roads but they like to walk their cats on leashes, jog with their strollers, and ride unicycles while being assaulted and robbed. POOF, this money is GONE with very little to show for it.
T-SPLOST is not “just a penny,” it is a 1 percent surcharge on everything you buy nearby for the next 10 years and once the politicians get used to the money it will never expire.
Fayette Countians have been fooled twice, now is time to defeat The Big Lie.
Thomas Brem
Fayetteville, Ga.
