Needed: Some Leadership

originally published March 7, 2007

Influential business leaders lined up one after another to testify at a House committee hearing recently on the huge mess that traffic congestion has become in Georgia. Their testimony was so similar it could all have come out of the same word processor.

“I agree with everything the previous speaker said,” remarked one of the businessmen, a statement that could have been uttered by each of the persons who appeared before the House Ways & Means Committee for its initial hearing on HB 434.

HB 434, which was introduced by Rep. Chuck Martin (R-Alpharetta) and Rep. Richard Royal (R-Camilla), would authorize a regional method of funding highway or transit projects. The bill would allow any combination of two or more counties to levy special sales taxes to pay for specific transportation projects within those counties - either a one percent local sales tax or a 10 percent motor fuel tax.

Martin, a former University of Georgia football player who’s well acquainted with the state’s traffic problems from the years he served as mayor of Alpharetta, says the whole issue can be summed up with a simple question. “Am I tired of sitting in traffic?” he asked rhetorically. “The answer is yes, and for a majority of Georgians, I think that answer is also yes. This bill is all about traffic.” The business executives who testified to Martin’s bill said immediate action is needed, arguing that traffic congestion has become such a nightmare in Georgia it’s about to squeeze off the state’s future growth and development. “To say that this is the number one priority would be an understatement,” said David Connell, a Georgia Power executive speaking on behalf of 14 chambers of commerce in Northwest Georgia. “It is choking our ability to recruit companies,” said Sam Williams, director of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. “The business community has never been so unified about addressing an issue.”

“This is not just a metro Atlanta issue,” said Scott MacGregor, vice president of the Augusta Metro Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a quality of life issue everywhere in the state.” Normally, one would be advised to be cautious about any bill that had such fervent and united support from lobbyists for the business and corporate interests. But on this one, they’re right in tune with the best interests of most Georgians. Any motorist who has sat waiting in the gigantic circular parking lot that is I-285, or who has tried to drive from Macon to Atlanta along I-75, or tried to get out of Athens on a football weekend, would agree with MacGregor’s assessment. Traffic congestion is detrimental to everyone’s quality of life, whether they live in Midtown Atlanta or Mount Airy.

Unfortunately for Georgians, the current governor passed up the opportunity to address the growing problem of congestion during his first term in office. When Sonny Perdue was asked what should be done to reduce traffic congestion, the best proposal he could come up with was to “synchronize all the traffic lights.” It’s doubtful how much of an impact that idea would have had if it had been actually carried out - which it wasn’t.

Perdue professes to believe in the idea of small government and contends that most taxpayers want the state to do little more than “leave them alone.” There are some issues, however, that are so big and complex that only governments have the resources sufficient to deal with them. Traffic congestion is one of these issues. The state’s business leaders certainly recognize that. In making their pleas to a legislative committee to enact a major change in the tax structure, they are implicitly saying that Georgia has a crisis situation that the governor is doing nothing to address.

Is HB 434 the best solution for the state’s traffic congestion woes? That’s difficult to know, but even legislators from the governor’s own party are recognizing that something has to be done. “We can’t study, plan, debate and delay any longer in Georgia,” Martin said.

The lack of leadership at the top has allowed the traffic problem to reach the point where it threatens Georgia’s economic well-being. The men and women of the General Assembly are going to have to figure out a solution on their own.

Tom Crawford

tcrawford@capitolimpact.net