The phrase famously uttered by Astronaut Gus Grissom is much on my mind as various pundits air their solutions for Atlanta's transportation morass.
In Tuesdays' Atlanta metro newspaper there's a marginally interesting piece with a "solution" to our traffic problem by the
ever-auto-centric Robert Poole of the marginally libertarian Reason Foundation,
and a more thoughtful response by Mark Woodall, chairman of the Georgia
Sierra Club.
Dr. Poole now suggests that if we just build "managed arterials" we will solve all of our traffic woes. Imagine, if you will, the intersection of
Roswell Road and Hammond Drive in the heart of Sandy Springs looking like any
one of the intersections on Peachtree Industrial north of the Parameter. Perish the thought!
But at least Poole admits that the idea promoted by him and
his fellow Highwaymen, Wendell Cox and Randal O'Toole; that we destroy Atlanta and rebuild it with streets that are in
a perfect, logical grid to ease our traffic (of course, the very act of
destroying the city will have that effect), is "not likely."
Nor is it likley that a grid -- even if it could be done to Atlanta and if the city could survive the surgurey -- would solve all of our problems. New York City is on a grid. So is Washington. I would not say that all is well with the the traffic in those cities.
Mr. Woodall's Georgia Sierra Club came out against the TSPOLST because they did not like the share that would go to transit over the 10-years of the penny sales tax. 53% just was not enough. Apparently if they couldn't have the entire loaf, then no one should get any, which is not a terribly constructive approach to my mind.
But in his column, Woodall makes a point very dear to my heart;
one I have been pushing for a quarter century:
“So
what are other successful places doing that we aren’t? The answer is not
building “managed arterials.” Instead, they are building the multimodal
transportation systems the 21st century requires. They are investing in proven
options such as commuter and intercity rail. They are addressing issues of
regional transportation governance and are creating efficient, integrated systems.
They are making the most of their existing transit infrastructure. In other
words, things Atlanta has been failing to do.”
Yes, these are things Atlanta should have been doing and that Atlanta (and Georgia) have thus far failed to do to improve transit and transportation in Georgia.
Some of those things could have been done, or at least seriously begun, had the TSPLOST succeeded. But it did not, and at present we have no other vehicle for funding investments in transit.
As per the Georgia State Constitution, our pittance of a gas tax can only be used for roads and bridges, yet the income from that source is not enough to address all the needs we have just in our roads and bridges. So even if we had the flexibility to use those funds for other modes, there just is not enough to do the job.
But rather read about what we ought to be doing and how
important it is that we do it and how sad it is that we have not done it
already, we need come up with a way to fund these wonderful
solutions that we need.
Oh, and while we're at it, we'd better be sure that it actually is do-able, both fiscally and politically, and not just a fantasy -- a fantasy, which at its core, was the essence of Sonny Perdue's TSPLOST proposal.
As the saying goes, "Money talks. Bullsh-t walks." Without the bucks, we can only just dream of what we could and ought to do.
Oh, and while we're at it, we'd better be sure that it actually is do-able, both fiscally and politically, and not just a fantasy -- a fantasy, which at its core, was the essence of Sonny Perdue's TSPLOST proposal.
As the saying goes, "Money talks. Bullsh-t walks." Without the bucks, we can only just dream of what we could and ought to do.
