Next year, we’ll have the choice to tack another 1¢ onto our sales tax for 10 years to fund transportation projects throughout the 10 counties of the Atlanta region. If a majority of the region’s voters approve the measure, everyone must pay the tax whether their individual county favored the measure or not.
A [Regional Transportation] Roundtable of county commission chairmen, a mayor from each county, and the mayor of Atlanta, have until Oct. 15, 2011 to approve a $6.2 billion project list that’s funded from the estimated future taxes. As of last Thursday, about half the revenue was being considered for transit projects (passenger rail and bus service).
I see a very significant potential problem. The law provides for imposition of additional 10-year tax periods upon legislative and voter approval, and the region would have so much sunk into transit lines, stations, rolling stock, etc., after the first 10 years that it becomes virtually impossible to walk away from them.
Even if the Roundtable approved sufficient projects beneficial to Fayette County now, we would forever become entangled in the same financial morass that Fulton and DeKalb taxpayers have been stuck in for the past four decades.
Proponents of expanded transit sing its praises, but I just cannot find in our region a business case for transit. Apparently no other business people can either, because government (MARTA) has been operating the rail and bus systems since their inception.
I don’t even understand why government is operating buses and trains at all; shouldn’t that be the realm of enterprising, private sector entrepreneurs? There’s certainly no basis for doing so in the federal government’s constitutionally limited and enumerated duties. And the familiar rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” haven’t been augmented with “… and subsidized bus or rail transportation.” Didn’t find it in the Georgia Constitution, either.
Enter the “General Welfare” argument, which claims the government has a responsibility for promoting such measures that serve everyone. That opinion is a slippery slope that often cloaks motives less public than private (and profitable), so it’s useful to review criteria that economists, such as MIT’s Nobel laureate Paul Samuelson, use to recognize services that are truly for the general welfare:
• No one can be reasonably excluded.
• No one’s use reduces its availability to others.
Providing national defense easily meets both criteria and is an appropriate government general welfare function. The proposed $3 billion of transit projects meets neither criteria.
Let’s say they stay on the list, how big a problem could it be? Look no farther than MARTA’s current status:
– While the regional population rose 20 percent over the last ten years, boardings on MARTA’s buses dropped 17 percent and 6 percent on rail. Not a good start.
• MARTA carries only about 5 percent of metro region commuters, contradicting claims that transit significantly reduces rush hour congestion.
• MARTA’s riders pay only 20 percent of the operating and maintenance costs of their ride, so their accounting department must buy caseloads of red ink cartridges to add up a 2009 operating loss of $503 million, only to be outdone last year with an operating loss of $508 million. Oh, and MARTA has $1.2 billion of deferred maintenance.
And you’ve probably already guessed where the shortfall comes from: government makes up each year’s operating losses by re-distributing earnings to MARTA from the family budgets of everyone who shopped in Fulton and DeKalb County and who paid federal taxes.
Proponents next remind us that governments also fund a large portion of highway costs. Yes they do, primarily from user fees like gasoline taxes and tolls. Also recognize that just about every citizen uses or is keenly dependent upon highways for distribution of their groceries and other vital products. Highways, but not transit, are also essential for police and fire services, ambulance support, and disaster relief. Remember the military trucks driving to the Louisiana Superdome after Katrina, and to assist this year’s tornado victims? Relief arrived over highways, not on commuter rail lines.
How about air pollution and gasoline consumption? Transit’s contribution to both of these worthy goals is only proportional to the number of cars that drivers leave home in favor of riding the train or bus; regional data and studies show very little correlation between the two (of course, it’s different in Manhattan, N.Y.).
Fortunately, with little contribution from transit, there’s still progress on both fronts: as Georgia auto and truck registrations rose 19 percent through 2009, state gasoline consumption peaked back in 2005. More good news: concurrent with that increase in vehicles, all six pollutants reported on the Ga. Environmental Protection Division’s web site have trended downward since 1999.
“But honey, they have such neat little streetcars …”
One last rationale I frequently hear is how essential transit is to attract new businesses to Atlanta and the metro region. I believe most such company officers would look at public safety and the performance of government-run schools ahead of, or at least on a par with, transportation.
U.S. News and World Report lists Atlanta as the second most dangerous U.S. city according to FBI crime statistics, and our governor’s investigation into Atlanta Public Schools found cheating in 44 of 56 schools and identified 38 principals involved. The negative impact on the affected children over a 10-year period has yet to be measured.
Despite these many facts, some Roundtable members, commercial Realtors, the Siemens Corporation (builds rail cars) and numerous other businesses, multiple chambers of commerce, riders, construction and transit unions and elected officials they support with votes and campaign contributions are all urging taxpayers to “double down” on transit projects.
Those proponents certainly benefit, but the “general welfare” isn’t well served. Their solution reminds me of Congress and the White House responding to their inability to manage debt by piling on more debt.
In emails and public comment at a Roundtable Executive Board meeting, I’ve stated to all the Roundtable members that I support demonstrated requirements for highway, bike, path, aviation, and fare-supported transit. I oppose transit projects that rely on government re-distribution of earnings, and shall work to defeat the tax referendum if they remain on the final project list.
Contact our two representatives, County Commission Chairman Herb Frady and Mayor Ken Steele, to let them know how you feel about the projects and tax. You can also attend their planning meetings, posted on www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com.
Robert J. Ross
Peachtree City, Ga.
