The Death of the TIA OR Stupid Politicians are More Concerned with Being Re-elected to Do What’s Right

Sorry that it’s been a while, life was being all life and sh*t. I’ve had hundreds of blog posts bouncing around in my head, but frankly, I like sleep. But today I am just too ticked off to not write this post while sitting at a reception at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting.

Cobb County Commission Chairman Tim Lee and Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews joined forces today with Reps Chip and Lindsey to hold a press conference at the Gold Dome to ask that the money for the fixed guideway line to Cobb be moved to the HOT Lane project up I75/575. You read that right. They want to scratch the potential light rail project to use tax money to build a toll road. This will effectively force the transit advocates and the fiscally conversvatives and the people who don’t like paying twice for roads to join up with the anti-tax folks to vote against the TIA, just so they can save their careers.

The article has been buried in the AJC, either because no one cares or because no one thinks it will happen, given that members of the state legislature have stated their reluctance to open the reopen the bill, which would be required to make the change happen. You can read the here.

So keep an eye out for developments or responses, if there are any. And feel free to contact your reps and tell them that this is some dumb, half-brained idea.

You can read more about this on the AJC, and you can look for more