As bickering turned to action last week over who controls transportation in Georgia, activity under the gold dome at Atlanta looked more like a banana republic than anything approaching a modern state.
For background: Georgia’s Department of Transportation wasted millions in the past decade while dozens of projects stalled on permanent back-burner status, and the term “gridlock” was added to every commuter’s vocabulary.
There was a brief sign of hope, when following a terrific political slug-fest, the Georgia DOT board hired Gena Abraham, a proven fixer, to steamroller transportation incompetence, starting in October 2007.
The new commissioner found things even worse than anyone had suspected. But before a thing could be fixed, love got in the way, and Abraham ended up marrying this district’s GDOT representative on the board. Nothing wrong, since both the commissioner and Mike Evans were eligible singles, but when Chairman Evans had to resign, matters of the heart surely created additional drama.
Now, the governor, Lt. governor and house speaker have a plot afoot to take control of transportation through a proposed new authority. To people their authority board, the governor would make five appointments. The Lt. governor and speaker would each make three. No one else would get any. The old GDOT board would lose much of its funding and power to this new State Transportation Authority if the authority wins approval by lawmakers. With the current GDOT board, the state is divided by U.S. Congressional districts with members of the General Assembly from each district voting to elect their representative to the board.
The new authority idea stinks. With Georgia’s top government honchos controlling all the appointments, there would be little leverage for rural areas like Pickens County to see our road needs met, and we could expect a much less equal distribution of highway funds.
Lawmakers should recall that Governor Carl Sanders created the current GDOT in 1962 to avoid exactly what this legislation would provide: undue political influence in state road paving decisions.
Current GDOT board members aren’t appreciating this proposed new authority. They fired Ms. (Abraham) Evans to show their displeasure, though she has at least given what appears to be the first honest assessment of the state transportation mess.
Aside from the battle of the board, a second piece of proposed law this session would create a statewide tax to add more funding for transportation. Rep. Vance Smith introduced this house bill and says it will provide equal funding across the state. Along with the fray over who makes road decisions, there is also a philosophical battle over how much the rest of the state should pony up from their share of tax dollars to fix Atlanta’s traffic whoas, uh, woes, that is.
One sponsor of Senate Bill 20 to “transform” transportation argued we need to start over with a new authority, the present GDOT being in the ditch.
But regardless of who peoples the board or how the money is collected, point one must be how do we determine where the money goes?
All road needs are seen by some as necessary, by others as pork. For example: Pickens County’s airport and wooden bridge. Both receive some DOT funds, and the airport is requesting more.
But other than Pickens County folk, how many Georgians would give priority to these projects?
Even the stretch of State 53 from 515 into downtown Jasper (to locals, a road most deserving of state help) might be viewed as adequate enough by someone below the gnat line who doesn’t care to fund our improvements. Every county has examples. The roads we drive on are needed. Yours are pork.
Somehow, some way, state lawmakers must sort out the conflicting needs and wants. That’s the on-ramp to improving transportation on both an efficient and statewide level, addressing both Atlanta’s and Savannah’s needs, while also playing fair with all Georgia tax payers, giving something back to pave dirt roads.
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