GA: Cobb asks its residents: how would you like to get around in 2050?

May 24, 2021
What county staff and commissioners hear from their constituents over the next month will inform the latest update of the county's long-term transportation plan, due before year's end.

May 22—WEST COBB — Imagine: MARTA's green line, curving up from west Atlanta's Bankhead station to Cumberland. Or: driving along miles and miles of Cobb roads without hitting a single pothole.

Cobb officials have begun asking county residents whether this is the future they want, a process that began in earnest last week and will conclude in June.

What county staff and commissioners hear from their constituents over the next month will inform the latest update of the county's long-term transportation plan, due before year's end. That, in turn, will inform a new sales tax that will likely go before voters in a November 2022 referendum, a tax that could transform how people get around in Cobb County.

Cobb is one of 13 counties in the metro area that can impose a 1%, 30-year sales tax for transit — think buses and trains — under House Bill 930, which became law in 2018. It can also impose an additional 1%, 5-year sales tax for transportation projects — think new roads, trails and sidewalks — under HB 170, which passed in 2015. Both taxes can be less than a penny, or "fractional," and can run for fewer than 30 and five years, respectively.

The county's sales tax is currently 6%. Of that, 4% goes to the state, 1% goes to the Cobb and Marietta school districts and 1% is split between the county itself and its six cities.

At Lost Mountain Park Thursday evening, staff in the Cobb Department of Transportation showed several dozen west Cobb residents what the county could get if they were willing to think big — if they were willing to raise the county's total sales tax to 8%.

"It's easier to scale down than it is to scale up," Drew Raessler, deputy director of the Cobb Department of Transportation, said. "And so what we want to do with the plan is be truly aspirational and to show what could be and then to scale back according to the community's appetite."

Assuming a 30-year, 1% tax for "surface transportation," Cobb County could fund 273 roadway projects covering 221 miles for $1.2 billion, and 184 "active transportation projects" such as sidewalks, trails and bike lanes covering 240 miles for $522 million. Because House Bill 170 only allows for a five-year tax, Cobb voters would have to renew the tax six times in the above scenario.

Assuming a 30-year 1% tax for transit, Cobb could put 75% of its jobs within walking distance, defined as a quarter mile, of a transit stop, and 70% of its residents within walking distance of a transit stop.

Potential projects include heavy rail, such as the MARTA-run trains in Atlanta; light rail, such as Atlanta's streetcar; bus rapid transit, in which buses run in their own dedicated lanes and are not subject to the whims of traffic; standard buses, such as those run by CobbLinc; and more.

Whether a 30-year, 1% tax could fund a brand-new transit network within walking distance of most county residents, however, depends to some degree on the type of projects people want.

An extension of MARTA's heavy-rail lines into Cobb County would cost between $1.8 billion and $3 billion — in other words, between 40% and 65% of a 30-year transit tax.

Cobb transit advocate Matt Stigall has previously questioned such numbers, saying they overestimate the cost of heavy rail and underestimate the amount the tax would raise. They also fail to account for potential federal funding, he has said, which will come in droves should Congress approve a $2 trillion infrastructure bill proposed by President Joe Biden.

The amount of money the county could raise and the number of projects it could fund assume some federal and state involvement, Raessler said. Such assumptions are based on historical trends, he added. In the event federal involvement exceeds historical trends, Cobb DOT would aim to finish projects ahead of schedule and update the Comprehensive Transportation Plan accordingly.

Most questions Raessler and his colleague Laura Beall fielded Thursday came from attendees curious about the suggested rail projects.

West Cobb resident Pam Roach wanted to know whether Fulton County would help pay to bring a rail line over the county border and into Cobb.

Beall, the transportation planning division manager, said the county would have to assume it would foot the entire bill of any rail project. Between 50% and 85% of the three heavy rail projects identified would be in Fulton County, according to Thursday's presentation.

A man in the crowd wanted to know about the timeline of potential rail projects. Beall said a timeline had not been established — that would require further study — but would be at least 10 years.

Speaking after the meeting had ended, west Cobb resident Bruce Marko said the county's long-term transportation plan and "mobility SPLOST" "sound expensive."

"Coming back from Washington State this weekend, Seattle has that 10% sales tax," he said. "(It) sounds like we're trying to be competitive, and that gets expensive in a hurry."

But he said he was pleasantly surprised by the speed with which the state built the reversible express lanes along Interstate 75 and by how effective they have been in reducing traffic. He said he could imagine being pleasantly surprised by a light rail project, too.

A native of Calgary, Canada, Marko said light rail there has been "extraordinarily" successful, and it wasn't something he would dismiss out of hand.

But he was worried about the focus on connecting Cumberland with Atlanta, saying the worst traffic was between his house and the perimeter, rather than the perimeter and the city's urban core.

Cobb residents can complete an online survey about the Comprehensive Transportation Plan. That survey will close in early June. Separately, the county will conduct a "scientific survey" of its residents, to ensure it gets the opinion of a more representative sample rather than those most passionate about transportation issues.

Raessler said county staff hope to present information gathered from town halls, the online survey and the scientific survey sometime this summer and to complete the comprehensive transportation plan later this year.

Should a referendum on the mobility SPLOST go before Cobb voters in November 2022, the size and duration of the tax as well as the list of projects it would fund will have been crafted by the county's governing board using the Comprehensive Transportation Plan and public input.

Cobb Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said in April she prefers a full 1% for transit projects. But she had yet to decide what fraction of a penny she would like the board to devote to the county's roads, saying they had, historically, received the lion's share of county transportation investment.

And two of the board's commissioners gave hints at a retreat in January as to what they might support.

East Cobb Commissioner Jerica Richardson said she thinks her community could support a 1% tax. But she wanted to see proposals funded by a 1.5% tax, to show constituents what's possible and determine what appetite, if any, they may have for a more ambitious initiative.

North Cobb Commissioner JoAnn Birrell said she was opposed to a new tax above 1%. But she was willing to put more of that penny on the dollar toward mass transit than transportation, as the latter will receive hundreds of millions of dollars through the county's general SPLOST through 2028.

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