Poll: Rail or Improved Bus Service?

As the Atlanta roundtable shifts from plans to spend most of its T-SPLOST money—if the measure is approved by voters—on buses and roads instead of light rail, we want to know what you think would improve the commute from Cartersville to the metro area.

Plans for light rail in Cobb have taken the back burner in favor of an Acworth-to-Midtown Atlanta bus line that Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee said could benefit Bartow commuters, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. Following a Thursday meeting of the regional roundtable tasked with compiling a list of transportation projects in the metro area for the proposed 1-cent sales tax, officials shifted to upgrading bus service and revamping roads, Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports, but nothing is final yet. Lee and other officials in the region had been focused on providing a Cumberland-to-Midtown rail line. Meanwhile, the northwest Georgia roundtable, which includes Bartow Commissioner Clarence Brown and Cartersville Mayor Matt …

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Bartow Republitarian

Searching for an Answer

How should we Georgians pay for tens of billions of dollars in needed transportation projects?

This past week there was a big clash between Georgia's Tea Party-leaning Republicans and the Chamber of Commerce-leaning Republicans. I know we don't all fit into neat little boxes, as I really fall into both groups, but these two sides carry a lot of weight down at the state capitol. In fact, the tug of war between them really has much more impact and affects you more than the battles between Georgia's Democrats and Republicans. We saw some skirmishes during the regular session of the state legislature at the first of this year, but the battle this past week between the two groups over the date for the upcoming transportation sales tax (T-SPLOST) referendums is very indicative of the major difference between the political philosophies …

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Chuck Shiflett

1:28 pm on Thursday, September 1, 2011

Regs, you are absolutely correct on rail... cannot exist without massive continuing government subsidies. Fortunately the T-SPLOST list for the NW Georgia region has no mass transit, just a small amount for the bus service that primarily serves seniors. Unlike the Metro Atlanta regional T-SPLST project list, almost all of the money for NW GA is for increasing highway capacity.   more ›