Category Archives: Transportation

The $100 Emission Inspection Challenge

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Every year around their birthday car owners in metro Atlanta are required to have their automobile emissions inspected before they can renew their car tag. This is required by the federal government purportedly to reduce pollution in Atlanta and the last time I checked the annual cost to taxpayers was between $80 million and $100 million.

Five years ago on my birthday I was so annoyed at having to spend $25 to have an emission inspected that I decided to find out if there was any evidence the millions of dollars we pay for the inspections make any difference.

I started with Google but there was no evidence on the internet. Nothing at all on the world wide web to scientifically prove metro Georgia’s emissions inspection program reduces pollution by even .000000000000000000001%. But the federal government couldn’t possibly make people waste so much money for no reason, could it?

Next I called the office of State Senator Dan Moody who represented me at the time. His staff was very nice and helpful but they knew of no such evidence themselves and referred me to a person in the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

The lady at the Department of Natural Resources was also very friendly and helpful but did not have the evidence I needed either. However she did refer me to a report issued by researchers at Georgia Tech which was supposed to support the tens of millions of dollars spent on inspections.

Unfortunately the report only showed that pollution levels around Atlanta were lower than they used to be. There was no evidence at all that emissions inspections had any impact nor any quantifiable result for what hundreds of millions of dollars had accomplished. You can read an article about the report here: http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/vehicle_emissions.htm

But despite the lack of supporting evidence I didn’t want to believe the federal government was forcing Georgians to spend up to $100 million a year for no reason so I wrote to Michael O. Rodgers, Ph.D. the Principal Research Scientist and Adjunct Professor School of Civil and Environmental Engineering Georgia Institute of Technology who directed the research:

Mr. Rodgers,

I am currently doing research on the effectiveness of Georgia’s emission inspection program and came across an article which sites your research. Here is the link to the article: http://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/vehicle_emissions.htm

The article explains how your research found lower emissions in Georgia but it doesn’t really explain how a cause and effect relationship was established between the emission levels and the inspection program. Is the underlying research publicly available so I can better understand how you determined the specific contribution of the emissions inspection program.

Thank you in advance for any help you can give me in proving the effectiveness of Georgia’s emission inspection process.

Jimmy Gilvin

Dr. Rodgers responded to my request and for several weeks promised to have an assistant send the evidence I requested. We even spoke on the phone, He seemed very nice but for several weeks Dr. Rodgers would assure me the information was forthcoming yet it never showed up.

I continued to follow up on the missing report until Dr. Rodgers stopped returning my calls and I realized what I now believe to be the truth: There is absolutely no scientific evidence to show hundreds of millions of dollars in Georgia emission inspection fees have reduced pollution one bit.

So here is the $100 Emission Inspection Challenge: The first person who can demonstrate there is scientifically valid evidence that the tens of millions of dollars spent on emissions inspections have reduced pollution in the metro Atlanta area by more than .000000000000000000001% will get $100.

When a person starts with the premise that annoying federal mandates are ridiculous and based on political agendas rather than facts you will rarely be wrong. Prove me wrong in this case and I will gladly fork over the cash just to know that the federal government hasn’t really wasted more than a billion dollars of our money on a charade.

Alpharetta, from “Solid Gold” to “Bunch of Old White Guys” in 30 seconds

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Recently I attended the “North Fulton Opportunity Outlook” event held in the city of Alpharetta. The forum was hosted by the Council for Quality Growth, a not-for-profit trade association comprised of developers, contractors, engineers, architects, planners, law firms and bankers–anyone with an interest in growth and development.

The event was promoted as an economic development forum to provide an update on development opportunities in North Fulton county. It was co-hosted by the Progress Partners initiative which is partially funded with Alpharetta taxpayer money so I attended in support of the effort.

It was expected it to be an upbeat, informative discussion about the many exciting opportunities in our region. For the most part that was the case. Nearly all of the participants were professional and positive as they discussed the unique quality of life, business climate and cooperative local governments that attracted their businesses and continue to help them thrive.

The lone exception was Mark Toro, managing partner for North American Properties, who chose to insert racially charged comments about the people of North Fulton into his own personal diatribes. It was disturbing to hear someone who has benefited so much from the support of this community use the occasion to insult the people who live here.

Mr. Toro introduced himself by saying,” I am the self appointed president of the Keith Parker (MARTA CEO) fan club, frequent MARTA rider… advocate… messiah” and spent most of his time pleading for billions of dollars in higher taxes that could bring MARTA trains to Avalon’s doorstep. While Mr. Toro’s introductory spiel was conspicuously self serving in a forum designed to be about investing in North Fulton it was the way he framed the remainder of his comments that was most disturbing.

In response to a question about why companies should invest in Alpharetta Mr. Toro spoke of our excellent demographics and said, “this is a solid gold community, strong… financially strong, stable and forward thinking”. He even added that collaboration with the city of Alpharetta had been “phenomenal”.

Yet just seconds after saying Alpharetta was “solid gold” Mr. Toro turned around and used racially charged comments to explain resistance to his eight billion dollar tax increase. Speaking about MARTA expansion once again he said, “I’ve heard it said. You’ve all heard it said. Some of us have even said it ourselves. The train goes both ways and we don’t want those people out here.”

This was a public forum where developers, investors, elected officials and economic development professionals had been invited to hear about opportunities for investing in this community. For Mr. Toro to falsely insinuate that opposition to his tax increase and his “urban-burb” vision of their city’s future is caused by racism was disgusting and inappropriate. But he didn’t even stop there.

Mr. Toro went on to attack the community leaders he had just praised in his comments moments earlier. “And the fact that the leadership of this community is all a bunch of old white guys like me is a problem!“, he continued.

Bunch of old white guys. So in a matter of seconds this community went from “solid gold”, “forward thinking” and “collaborative” to a place where “we don’t want those people out here” led by “a bunch of old white guys” who are the “problem”.

How could that be? What could have possibly changed Alpharetta from “solid gold” in one breath to “a bunch of old white guys” in the next? Actually the only thing that changed was that in one breath Mr. Toro spoke about everything this community has done to make his investment successful and in the next he lashed out at those very same people because they don’t embrace Mr. Toro’s self serving goal of turning Alpharetta into an urban mass transit hub.

Over the last four years the people and leadership of North Fulton county have bent over backwards to support Mr. Toro and the investment North American Properties has made here. Alpharetta revised municipal codes and gave them competitive advantages over every other commercial property owner in town. The city hired new staff and paid thousands of dollars in overtime to facilitate their extremely aggressive construction schedule.

When North American went to the Fulton County Development authority for a tax abatement that cost Alpharetta taxpayers millions of dollars without even letting us know we absorbed that loss. When North American failed to live up to their promise to build hotels in the second phase of Avalon it was the City of Alpharetta who committed $42 million of taxpayer money to support a convention center and hotel within their development .

Yet despite everything the people of North Fulton have done for Mr. Toro it hasn’t been enough. Mr. Toro still seized the opportunity to insult his hosts in front of a large group of investors, economic development professionals and elected officials who were invited to hear about opportunities here. How disappointing.

But the good news is that Mr. Toro’s comments at the North Fulton Opportunity Outlook were informative. They told the people of North Fulton everything we needed to know about the kind of man he is.

Editor’s note:

Despite Mr. Toro’s comments North Fulton remains a diverse community. People from all over the world call Alpharetta home because of our unique blend of incredible business environment combined with an exceptional quality of life and great schools.

Statistically Alpharetta is every bit as racially diverse as the Atlantic Station development Mr. Toro recently sold in downtown Atlanta and even more diverse than that of Decatur, GA. The supporting census data is available online at citydata.com

MARTA gets money to promote high density development

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050519 - ATLANTA, GA -- MARTA maintenance crews work on clearance testing trains at the new MARTA Armour Rd. maintenance yard. (BILLY SMITH II/AJC staff)

050519 – ATLANTA, GA — MARTA maintenance crews work on clearance testing trains at the new MARTA Armour Rd. maintenance yard. (BILLY SMITH II/AJC staff)

Todays AJC contains an article explaining that the Federal Transit Administration is giving MARTA money to foster high density developments which will make traffic worse and justify the expansion of routes not dense enough for heavy rail yet. Click on the picture above to read the whole thing. Below are two excerpts:

MARTA and the Atlanta Beltline have been chosen to receive federal grants to help spur denser development around future transit lines, the Federal Transit Administration announced Tuesday.

MARTA was awarded $1.6 million, while the Beltline received $500,000 as part of a pilot program of the FTA. The money cannot be used to build future transit lines or buy the rail cars or streetcars that would run on them.

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It must be used to plan and promote future development of businesses and homes along proposed transit lines – the kind of development that will attract built-in customers for those transit lines one day. (Think high-rise office buildings, condos and apartment towers.)

Such “transit-oriented development” or “transit supportive development” is helpful in obtaining future FTA grants, because it demonstrates that the new trains or streetcars would be able to draw riders, said Janide Sidifall, a senior project manager for MARTA.

While the money is designated for MARTA’s I-20 corridor the article specifically mentions Alpharetta as a possible alternative for expansion.

MARTA recommends 4 heavy rail stations in Alpharetta

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A few weeks ago I saw a post on Twitter from a local news reporter who wrote that MARTA was planning to recommend four heavy rail stations in Alpharetta. That was the first I had heard of such a plan so I immediately contacted Mayor Belle Isle and the rest of Alpharetta’s City Council to see if any of them were aware of the recommendation. Not a single one of us had even heard of MARTA’s intentions much less been consulted on the matter.

So on August 12, 2013 I attended a meeting of MARTA’s Planning and External Relations Committee in Atlanta. At that meeting MARTA’s staff did indeed recommend extending a heavy rail line more than 11 miles along GA 400 through Sandy Springs, Roswell and Alpharetta. This plan called for putting four train stations in Alpharetta including one each at Mansell Road, Northpoint Mall, Old Milton Parkway and one on Windward Parkway which would serve as the end of line regional station.

This is not the first time a MARTA train station has been proposed for Alpharetta nor will it be the last. Traffic is consistently the number one complaint of Alpharetta residents and since we all pay a 1% sales tax to support MARTA it would be nice if we could find some way to get a better return on that money. So I welcome an open and honest discussion of how MARTA can better serve Alpharetta.

Unfortunately MARTA’s Connect 400 initiative has been woefully inadequate in seeking input from actual residents of Alpharetta. The recommendation was based solely on 30 interviews with unidentified “stakeholders” and an online survey consisting of 136 responses to an email that went out to unidentified business interests, local officials and interest groups last December.

Clearly MARTA’s staff made no effort to include Alpharetta’s mayor or city council and in fact I have yet to determine if even one Alpharetta resident was sampled in the research. And as you might expect from such a small, statistically insignificant sample the recommendation is the least practical and most unlikely to be implemented even under the best of circumstances. In an effort to raise awareness of this process I am submitting for your review the presentation which was given at  MARTA’s August 12th meeting. Please click this link to review the full 12 page Powerpoint presentation: GA 400 Briefing Presentation

Transportation is a crucial issue for us all and this process could affect the future of Alpharetta forever so I ask you to please take a moment to review the information and let me know your thoughts on this matter. MARTA is also planning to host an informational meeting about this recommendation on September 26th from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Alpharetta City Hall. It is imperative that the people most affected by this process speak up before a final determination is made. Please make the time to join us at that meeting.

“T-SPLOST list doesn’t spend the money where the traffic is”

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Kyle Wingfield recently had a new column about Georgia’s proposed transportation sales tax increase, the T-SPLOST. Here is an excerpt that is particularly relevant to the residents of Alpharetta:

What’s more, 46 percent of the people in the 10-county region live OTP in Cobb, North Fulton, Dunwoody and Gwinnett. Likewise, 46 percent of the T-SPLOST’s projected revenues — $2.83 billion out of $6.14 billion — come from that northern swath.

Yet, the current project list would leave this region well short of its proportional take. Even if we include some federal funding tabbed for projects in the northern suburbs, they’d get shortchanged by $150 million. And you may as well ignore another $132 million for studying future transit along 400 and 85, since those two projects would be hundreds of millions of dollars and a decade or more away from existence.

Worse, about one in four dollars devoted to the area would go to a single rail project that would barely cross into Cobb.

Still, we are only now reaching the coup de grace. That would be Ellis’ wish to suck yet another $33 million out of the 400 corridor.

Doing so would leave an area that provides almost half the population and revenues for the T-SPLOST — and way more than half of the region’s traffic congestion — with barely one-third of the proceeds.    (emphasis mine)

Transportation is one of the biggest issues facing the city of Alpharetta and we do need a regional solution. But it becomes more apparent every day that the T-SPLOST is not that solution. Before we waste any more time I hope our state legislators will realize that we need a real solution and stop wasting precious time on a proposal that is destined for failure.

I encourage you to read the whole column here.

United Nations applauds the Georgia Transportation Tax increase!

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The United Nations is excited about Georgia’s proposed transportation tax increase. In fact they are so excited that they devote several pages in their publication Urban World: Ten Years into the millenium to the idea.

First the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea:

The traffic impasse became a cause celebre for the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and its president, Sam Williams. He recounted

how “we beat the drum for four years” to get permission for a regional transport sales tax add-on, enlisting the aid of the Georgia

State Chamber, top Atlanta corporations, county officials and mayors, plus Chamber allies in such regions as Savannah and Macon.

Then all of the state’s Chambers of Commerce threatened to cut off the money spigot to any politician that didn’t support their tax increase:

A pointed message was also telegraphed to would-be candidates for state office: their position on transport funding would be a

‘litmus test’ of whether they could expect campaign support from the business community.

And once the governor and state legislature were sufficiently motivated they could work together in a bipartisan way to overcome the objections of those rascally ole Tea Partiers:

…bipartisanship can be developed, ‘Tea Party’-like nihilism averted, if a governor and legislative leaders work hard to

make it happen.

Finally the article concludes by thanking Georgia for setting an example for third world countries:

That’s a fascinating model for these times, ideal for transport, maybe fresh water supply systems and other major issues.

Thanks Georgia.

Isn’t that special. You can find the publication on the United Nations website here.

No wonder Jim Galloway of the AJC reports that the entire tax is now in jeopardy:

So in January, we’ll have a full-fledged donnybrook between the two most powerful entities now existing in the Republican party: The state chambers of commerce, and the tea party.

Brilliant.

“Legislators critical of proposed rail line”

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Interesting article in the Marietta Daily Journal about the fault lines that are appearing in the political support for the transportation tax increase. You can read the whole thing here but below are some of the juiciest tidbits:

Cobb lawmakers on Monday criticized the proposed light rail line from Midtown  Atlanta to Cumberland Mall which constitutes the majority of Cobb’s take in next  year’s vote on a regional TSPLOST.

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The $856.5 million number is the conservative estimate. The maximum cost is  targeted at $1.234 billion, according to the county.

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“We’ve got huge infrastructure needs in far west Cobb  County, and to ask those people that I represent to support a mile’s worth of  rail that’s finished in 2026 when they have to drive to work every morning would  be something that doesn’t fix the here and now, and I doubt they’d be very happy  with me for supporting something like that.”

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Cooper said the rail line would clearly benefit one area of the county, the  Cumberland Community Improvement District.

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Setzler reiterated what he told the Journal on Friday, which is the rail line  would only benefit five percent of the county while at the same time costing  each household in Cobb $4,000.

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“We know that rail offers some things that you can’t get from just building  roads,” Rogers said. “But we also know that rail doesn’t do a great job in  lessening traffic, and at a time when we need traffic to be lessened  significantly..”

Although this article is about legislators in Cobb County it is especially relevant to the people of North Fulton county for three key reasons:

1. The political climate in North Fulton is almost identical to that of Cobb County.

2. Elected officials in Cobb County acknowledge transit is really just a subsidy for commercial property owners in the local CID.

3. Traffic is the primary concern for voters in both areas yet transit projects will have no positive impact on traffic during the supposed 10 year duration of the tax.

As North Fulton opponents of the tax increase become more vocal I expect we will see our elected officials do the same.

North Fulton mayors vote to trade MARTA funds for roads

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This morning I noticed an article on NorthFulton.com which reports the mayors of North Fulton county have voted to sacrifice extending MARTA into their communities in exchange for more road money:

The North Fulton Municipal Association decided to try to trade $37 million in MARTA engineering funds for the restoration of road projects to be funded by the 2012 transportation-improvement sales tax.

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He said Fulton is a net donor to the tax while Cobb County and DeKalb County get a 120 percent return on their investment.

Bodker then criticized the Beltline streetcar project in Atlanta. He said it is an Atlanta project, not a regional one, but it is slated to receive $600 million in funds intended for regional transportation development. He said Atlanta is getting more than its fair share of the revenues and this money is being taken from North Fulton’s hide.

“If Atlanta wants to fund it, they have 15 percent off the top of this thing,” he said.

He said Atlanta would be paying for the project using other people’s money.

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Sandy Springs Mayor Eva Galambos suggested heavy rail would never come to North Fulton, so the $37 million was money wasted.

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The representatives of Alpharetta, Milton and Johns Creek voted in favor; Wood, representing Roswell, voted against it. No representative from Mountain Park was present.

While the shift of $37 million of a $8 Billion dollar tax is a small gesture it does show that the mayors of North Fulton are finally yielding to the political realities in their communities. The strange thing is that just one week earlier the same newspaper published a story from the same reporter which lead readers to believe the mayors unanimously suppported the MARTA funds: 

Bodker said all the mayors support transit, but are concerned there is no regional transit system that all participating governments support. As far as the projects are concerned, the mayors support extending MARTA to Holcomb Bridge Road and eventually Windward Parkway. At the very least, the tax should pay for the necessary engineering, which would cost $37 million. The mayors also unanimously supported completing the proposed Clifton Corridor that would connect MARTA to Emory University, Atlanta’s largest employer, and extending MARTA up I-75 to at least Cumberland Mall.

A complete reversal of the North Fulton Municipal Association’s position in one week? How curious.

Partisan bickering over Georgia’s transportation tax illustrates why it won’t solve anything

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Jim Galloway points out in his Political Insider column for the AJC that the campaign to squeeze more money from Georgia’s taxpayers has hit another speedbump:

At the state Capitol, next year’s statewide round of regional sales tax votes is again in trouble.

At issue is legislation backed by Gov. Nathan Deal to shift the day of the vote from the July primary, when the electorate is likely to be overwhelmingly Republican, to the November general election.

Tea-party Republicans against the sales tax are opposed to changing the date, accusing supporters of trolling for voters churned out by President Barack Obama’s re-election bid. In a private session with Republican lawmakers from metro Atlanta, Deal this week quietly argued that presenting a tax initiative before the largest audience possible is in keeping with GOP principles, according to people who were in the room.

In addition to Deal’s backing, another good sign for supporters is that the legislation to change the date of the vote is sponsored by House Speaker pro tem Jan Jones of Alpharetta — the most powerful metro Atlanta lawmaker in the Legislature. So the Republican side of the transit sales tax vote may be close, but it’s likely to hold together.

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Democrats in Fulton and DeKalb counties have supported next year’s transit sales tax vote — but only reluctantly, given that their voters have long been paying an extra penny sales tax to fund MARTA.

With tea party Republicans opposing the issue from the right, black lawmakers will be needed to make up the difference, if the date to shift the transit vote is to succeed.

State Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, said his members are angry enough over the Senate map to lock down on the transit issue. “I think our caucus would be inclined not to cooperate,” Jones said.

It is sad to see such an important issue bogged down in partisan politics but it is completely predictable. Georgia’s transportation problem isn’t caused by a lack of money it is caused by an incompetent political class. As I wrote in this post last year:

The political class say they could fix the problem if they only had more money. What the political class doesn’t understand is that the voters don’t blame infrastructure needs on a lack of money, the voters place the blame on the political class. Taxes in Georgia are the 16th highest in all of the United States while transportation spending is 49th out 50. See the problem?

But Georgia’s political class won’t accept the fact that they have been the problem. Instead, the politicians and lobbyists  sat down together and once again hammered out an agreement acceptable to the politicans and lobbyists.  And once again their solution is to raise taxes… billions and billions of dollars in taxes. That solution must have sounded awfully good in their echo chamber because a few months ago the political class unveiled this genius idea to great fanfair and they patted themselves on the back so hard that Atlanta’s chiropractors must have made a fortune.

But the people that will pay for this enormous tax increase are not impressed, they are hurting. They face 10% unemployment while the other 90% are still unsure of the future. More than 12,000 Georgia homes were foreclosed in July. IRA accounts and home prices are going down while grocery and gasoline prices are going up. To make matters worse their federal income taxes are going up in a few weeks and they will have even less money to spend. Georgia voters are hurting and they find it offensive that political insiders have decided taxpayers need to pay billions of dollars more to fund transportation improvements. While transportation improvements might bring jobs to Georgia in a decade or so, the state’s taxpayers would have to cough up billions of dollars that could have gone to pay their mortgage or put food on the table in the meantime.

The tax increase being pushed to solve Georgia’s very real transportation problem won’t solve anything because lack of money isn’t the problem. Lack of effective leadership is.

Georgia’s statewide transportation charade

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Yesterday the AJC posted an editorial by Neal Boortz titled Our transportation record shows lack of leadership. He makes some excellent points so I hope you read the whole thing. Below are a few choice selections:

I’ve been reading the AJC’s coverage of the machinations surrounding the  multibillion dollar transportation infrastructure tax referendum scheduled  to descend upon us next summer. And so, a question: Considering the  transportation track record of the brilliant traffic planners and engineers  in the Atlanta region, do you really have the confidence to put a few  billion dollars in their hands for more projects and “improvements”?

Let’s just look at the record. First we’ll deal with that traffic monstrosity  known as the Downtown Connector. If you weren’t born here you probably don’t  know that what is now the Downtown Connector was supposed to be the route of  I-85. I-75 was supposed to come roaring in from the North along what is now  Northside Drive to cross I-85 around the airport. Someone decided we could  save some money by simply combining the two through the city. That certainly  worked out well, didn’t it?

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Pity also, if you will, the poor saps traveling down Ga. 400 toward downtown.  Your typical suburban families eager for an evening of fun at Underground  Atlanta. There our transportation wizards funnel four lanes of traffic down  to one for the transition to I-85 … and Lord help you if you cross the  gore, that white line separating the highways from the on- and off-ramps.  See you in court.

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The new tax is also supposed to fund some rail projects as well, right? Will  these projects be designed by the same geniuses who didn’t put a MARTA  station at what was then Atlanta-Fulton County Station — a station that  would now serve Turner Field — because Atlanta was afraid it would lose  parking revenue at the stadium? Can the people who made this decision be  banned from getting anywhere near even 1 cent of this new tax revenue?

Boortz is right. How can any rational person believe that the dysfunctional politicians, consultants and bureaucrats that got us into this mess will ever solve anything?

If you doubt me just consider that after months of political haggling the geniuses in charge have managed to compile a list which would spend more than 6 Billion Dollars without making any noticeable impact on Atlanta’s traffic problem. Look at the list yourself.

Notice anything strange? The state is trying to sell people on higher taxes for a plan that doesn’t even begin to cover the cost of the projects they are including!

The state list says that they will spend $172,000,000 to improve the exchange at GA 400 and I-285. But the cost of the project is projected to cost $450,000,000. The list also calls for $37,000,000 to bring MARTA to Roswell… but it projects the total cost to be more than $900,000,000. Transit advocates have been all excited about the inclusion of One Billion Dollars to expand MARTA into the I-20 and Clifton Road areas. But apparently it doesn’t bother them that the state expects it to actually cost nearly Two Billion Dollars. So even if those projects could relieve traffic the state would still need another Two Billion Dollars to get them all done.

But we are falling into a trap if we worry too much about the list anyway. It is an illusion. The project list will carry no more weight than a flyer handed out by a used car salesman.

The list to be voted on next year will not be a binding contract… on the state. When the state takes money from one promised project to cover the gap they have in another, taxpayers will have no recourse. Remember what they did with the GA 400 tolls?

So realize that the entire transportation tax charade is just one big, happy waste of time intended to get the “buy-in” of Georgia taxpayers and facilitate a new pipeline of money for the people responsible for our transportation mess in the first place. The same people that created the downtown connector and routed MARTA away from Atlanta Fulton County stadium will decide where Billions of dollars in extra tax money go and there won’t be a darn thing we will be able to do about it. Yay!