How to raise money to solve Atlanta’s traffic problems
Posted: November 15th, 2006
Category: Atlanta Real Estate
I have blogged many times about the traffic problems in Atlanta (read here, here and here) and I generally come to the same conclusion…money is needed to make a difference. Atlanta transportation funding lags behind many similar sized cities, yet no one wants to be pay more taxes to raise the money needed.
Yesterday I read an interesting proposal to adjust how money is generated for transportation. The current state gas tax being charged as cents per gallon, not per dollar. So when general prices rise (inflation), that 7.5 cents per gallon of gas doesn’t. How would you feel about eliminating the 7.5 cents per gallon gas tax state wide and implenting a 1% sales tax to be allocated for transportation? The sales tax being a percentage would automatically adjust with inflation and we can only anticpate that road and transit construction is going to increase with time.
The AJC wrote…
1% gas sales tax proposed to replace per gallon levy
An influential transportation lobbying group wants the Legislature to consider a referendum for a constitutional amendment eliminating the state gas tax —- the major source of transportation money in the state —- and replacing it with a 1 percent statewide sales tax.
Mike Kenn, president of Georgians for Better Transportation, made the suggestion Monday at a forum on transportation held in downtown Atlanta. He said the proposal would have the benefit of rising with inflation.
Much of the current state gas tax is charged as cents per gallon, not per dollar. So when general prices rise, that 7.5 cents per gallon of gas doesn’t. There is also a 4 cents per dollar gas tax, 3 cents of which go to transportation. Transportation funding in Georgia has fallen from $159 per capita in 1975 to $61 per capita last year, according to the group.
The proposal would leave gas untaxed by the state except for the 1 percent, and where counties have special taxes levied on it.
Kenn said the idea he presented Monday morning would replace both the cents-per-gallon and the per-dollar gas taxes, but the Legislature could decide to do something different.
Kenn said his organization was open to other ideas, offering this as a starting point. He pointed out that while the gas tax is constitutionally dedicated to roads and bridges, a sales tax could have a percentage dedicated to other transit, such as commuter rail.
Vance Smith, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, said, "I think everything’s going to be on the table," but "something’s got to be done."
Sitting at the table with Kenn were some key transportation planning officials as well as the president of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, Sam Williams.
Williams said he and his board would take no position on the group’s proposal or any other until its meeting Thursday. However, chamber officials have spoken of the benefits of a regional funding system such as a special local sales tax with which counties would be able to band together to address regional problems with regional money.
A 2004 study by the Washington-based Environmental Working Group showed that the Atlanta region’s federal gas tax was subsidizing the rest of the state, with some revenues produced here being redirected to projects elsewhere.
The tax proposal would probably be put forth as a referendum, which would require a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly in the 2007 or 2008 session to make it on the 2008 ballot, and then a simple majority of voters, Kenn said.
Georgians for Better Transportation was a key backer of the Congestion Mitigation Task Force, which Gov. Sonny Perdue convened, and whose recommendations four metro planning agencies adopted.
The recommendations set a formula for valuing congestion relief at 70 percent of the value of a transportation project when deciding which projects get money.
- Atlanta real estate
- marietta real estate
- woodstock real estate
- holly springs real estate
- canton real estate
- ball ground real estate
- jasper real estate
- ellijay real estate
- alpharetta real estate
- roswell real estate
- waleska real estate
