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Atlanta City Council Debates MARTA Expansion Project List

June 8th, 2016

Atlanta’s City Council has to approve a list of MARTA expansion projects by the end of June in order for them to appear on November’s ballot. But at a Tuesday work session, City Council members were hung up on the question of whom the projects should benefit.

A bill passed by Georgia state lawmakers gave Atlanta the right to ask voters to approve a half-penny sales tax to expand MARTA within city limits. Last month, the transit agency put out a map of potential projects that could benefit from the $2.5 billion in revenue from the tax, including bus rapid transit and expanded rail lines.

Over the course of the more than two and a half-hour Transportation Committee session, several council members said repeatedly that the projects were too concentrated in already developed areas, like Midtown.

“We have to not only look at what we’d like to do, where it’s hot in the city of Atlanta, but setting a fire in some of these other areas,” said At-Large Councilman Michael Julian Bond. “And as I look at the current projects list I don’t see that.”

Councilman Bond and several City Council members representing neighborhoods on Atlanta’s south side said there needed to be proof on the project list that the city’s long “neglected” areas wouldn’t be left out of new infrastructure investment again.

MARTA general manager Keith Parker, a panelist at the work session, pointed out that one of the most expensive projects being proposed was a light rail expansion into southwest Atlanta. Parker said the council members’ comments showed his agency hadn’t done enough to explain what projects are on the table.

The City Council is scheduled to vote on the MARTA expansion referendum at its June 20 meeting, which is its last full session before the June 30 deadline. The council has until August to approve another separate sales tax referendum, which would add up to another half penny for infrastructure projects, like sidewalk repair and further BeltLine construction.