Georgia has underfunded transportation infrastructure for years, and there now seems to be broad agreement, including among the Republican officials who lead the state, that the state needs more revenue, perhaps more than $1 billion per year.
According to veteran political reporter Walter C. Jones from the Morris News Service, ideas on the table include “increasing the gas tax or sales tax, toll roads and billing alternative-fuel vehicles per mile driven.”
Back in 2012, the Savannah area joined most of the state in soundly rejecting the regional TSPLOST. If it had passed, we would have seen an increase of 1 percent in sales taxes in the coastal region, and that money — by law — would have been used for a list of transportation projects that were determined in a transparent political process.
I didn’t like some of the projects on the final TSPLOST list. I didn’t think there was enough money for transit or for alternative transportation generally. I thought the final list would encourage suburban sprawl to a degree.
I also feared that some of those projects would induce so much demand that within a generation we’d be dealing with the very same trouble spots that we have today.
But, from my perspective, there was still a lot to like in that TSPLOST list, including relief for congestion caused by trains on both the east and west sides of Savannah, safer bridges on the road to Tybee and the removal of the one-way Interstate 16 exit ramp so that we could transfer several acres of land back into private hands.
Yes, sales taxes are regressive. An increase in the sales tax would have disproportionately impacted people with less income.
Despite the drawbacks, I supported the regional TSPLOST. It seemed like the best transportation funding method that we could get in the current political climate.
I also assumed that, if we voted against TSPLOST, we’d somehow pay an even heftier price down the road, either in decaying infrastructure or through a funding scheme that would give us even less local control.
Consider that an increase in the gasoline tax would likely be even more regressive than an increase in sales tax. Newly released estimates show that in recent years the poorest quintile of American households has been spending about 12 percent of after-tax income on gas. The wealthiest quintile of households spends only about 3 percent of after-tax income on gas.
Also, if Georgia legislators find new revenue for transportation in 2015, it seems likely that the Atlanta metro area will be prioritized.
So we could end up paying more for transportation without reaping significant benefits.
City Talk appears every Sunday and Tuesday. Bill Dawers can be reached via billdawers@comcast.net. Send mail to 10 East 32nd St., Savannah, Ga. 31401.
By Bill Dawers
