There comes a time when you have to face facts that a system – not just parts of it – doesn’t work and further money, time, effort put into it is wasted.
Georgia has reached that point, actually we reached it more than a decade ago, with our transportation.
From a financial standpoint our state DOT, with a budget of $2,308,971,783 for Fiscal Year 2009, is wasteful and inefficient. They can’t keep track of projects that are in the works and lack controls of where the money has gone. An audit last year found major accounting errors reaching back several years lead to a deficit of $456 million by the end of 2008. Another audit found numerous parcels purchased for right-of-ways on projects that aren’t even on the drawing board any longer – further squandering an untold sum of money and staff time.
But, it’s not just the money. If our Georgia Department of Transportation ran an overpriced system that got us where we needed to go with little congestion, smooth commutes and nice roads, then we could focus solely on cost.
But the second edge on this double-edged sword is the road system is lousy. If you want evidence look at the congestion, feel the congestion, be the congestion – drive somewhere around Atlanta.
It’s not only the squandered tax dollars; it’s the fact that congestion, transportation-related political turmoil and poorly maintained roads are status quo in Georgia.
The above observations aren’t any secret. In February, the spokesperson for Lt. Governor Casey Cagle observed, “ [it]has always been clear that we need a strategic, statewide plan for transportation in Georgia. … Clearly, the process and structure currently in place is not working.”
In the last legislative session, there was a political battle to create another agency to run alongside the GDOT (Georgia Department of transportation). It will be called the State Transportation Authority and may either make road choices in Georgia more political or more effective depending on who is speaking. Maybe it will work. But based on past history, it will only add more bureaucracy to already bloated, dysfunctional system.
The best mascot for this state’s combination of transportation plans, planners, agencies, engineers and legislators is not the Georgia Bulldog, but a herd of feral cats -- try corralling them into any form of meaningful discussion.
What’s needed is a fundamental change – a change that begins with square one. Starting over with new faces, same plans only prolongs the agony drivers feel. We need new a whole new game plan.
Whether we move to increased rail use (Governor Perdue is lobbying for stimulus funds for this) or toll roads or drastically expanding public transportation, we can’t fall back on the idea that we will ever pave our way out of gridlock.
We need to admit that simply spreading more asphalt around the state is a dead end. It’s not easy to identify the best way out of the mess but it must start by admitting the whole system is flawed.
And with the upcoming gubernatorial election where Nathan Deal, Roy Barnes, Karen Handel, John Oxendine and others are already in the race, transportation needs to be the top issue.
Georgia can’t keep speeding along, stop and start and never getting anywhere on the roundabout that passes for a transportation plan now. We need someone to steer us onto a completely new way of doing transportation business.
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