You may or may not have read about a certain one percent sales tax that has been proposed for metro Atlanta. This would fund transit and highway improvements across ten metropolitan counties (specifically, Fulton, DeKalb, Clayton, Cobb, Gwinnett, Douglas, Fayette, Henry, Cherokee and Rockdale), and, as unpopular as the idea of added taxation always seems to be in this country, it is being heavily promoted by the Atlanta Regional Commission and has the support of the mayors of Atlanta and Norcross. Many other regional politicians are either ambivalent about or adamantly opposed to the tax, for various reasons. Many transit advocates have planned to vote against it because some proposed transit lines, such as an eastward expansion of MARTA's Blue Line and a light rail line to Cobb County, recently lost their place on the list of projects to be funded by the tax. Transit skeptics and anti-tax advocates are likewise prepared to vote against it, some actually attempting to stop it from coming to a vote.
Why am I, a college student who can barely afford an increase in the price of anything, voting for this tax? I'm a transit advocate, and I have been since I discovered, as a young teenager, that other lifestyles exist beyond driving uncountable miles per month and stewing, slowly losing one's health and will to live, in heavy traffic. This is the first time since 1971 that the entire Atlanta region has considered a vote to fund any mode of transportation not related to the automobile, and though roughly half of the funding list has been given over to road projects, that's noticeably less than their usual 100%. The bombshell, for me, was the Clifton corridor transit line between Lindbergh Center and Emory University. It takes a bit of digging to find mention of it, but it's on the final project list, and it has been described as a new heavy rail MARTA line.
If this vote fails, which I fear it will, we won't have another chance for quite a while. After all, it's not easy to bring so many mayors and county commissioners into the same room, let alone spend years narrowing down a list of projects, then spreading awareness of a vote that happens on a date with which most voters are unconcerned. The will to try again won't be there.
So what's the big deal? Pretend you're on the board of directors of a large multinational corporation with offices in Atlanta. It's 2013, and Atlanta's voters have demonstrated that they would rather save on groceries than pay for an alternative to some of the United States' worst traffic congestion. Workers continue to come in late, day after day. You fire some of them. Others quit because they cannot sustain their commute with what you pay them. Then, another city with either lighter traffic or better public transit offers a hefty incentive for you to relocate your company's Atlanta offices. What would you do? Better yet, imagine that your company has no offices in Atlanta, but is considering establishing some in any given southern city. Would you choose Charlotte, where light rail extensions are underway? Would you choose Nashville, where suburban-to-urban commuter rail actually exists? Or would you choose Atlanta, a region that, now resembling Tetsuo's mutant form, is perfectly content that way and vehemently resists change?
What happens when corporations leave? Paid positions leave. The city's income gap widens further as fewer residents are employed. Recent college graduates leave at an accelerating pace, eliminating what would have been contributive gains to the health, culture and intellectual wellsprings of Atlanta. Conventions that regularly met in Atlanta leave, and potential incoming conventions avoid the city, siphoning yet more money from the local economy. Restaurants and stores close, the zoo and museums raise ticket prices, and services such as sanitation and park groundskeeping decline in frequency. Fewer people fly into the airport, depriving the city of landing fee revenue, and routes to Atlanta are discontinued, leading to peripheral job losses extending far beyond the region geographically.
The city becomes quieter and noticeably more "dead" with passing months. Because of drastic declines in revenue, Atlanta city government eliminates emergency personnel. Crime of all sorts increases, and slowly, the death toll rises from slower ambulance and fire brigade responses. The suburbs experience large numbers of job losses from this fallout, but because of the relatively isolated nature of these environs, neighbors do not immediately notice. Despite a plateaued or declining population, suburbs begin to turn inward to justify their existence, with mixed success.
This cycle continues until it has reached terminal velocity.
Currently, the vote is scheduled for July 31st, 2012, though supporters are still trying to reschedule it for the Presidential election.
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