Businesses back T-SPLOST

“We have a lot of demands from a time span standpoint about when they want to get their order and when we need to be there,” said Hertz.

Hertz says grocery stores want their beverages before 11 AM when shoppers arrive. Restaurants only want their deliveries before lunch and package stores only schedule deliveries when they have staff to stock them. Balancing those needs tightens drivers’ schedules. The slightest traffic congestion or accidents makes things worse according to United’s operations director Marcus Steed.

“Probably, the most frustrating thing the driver has to deal with is traffic,” said Steed. “He has little or no control over it and it sort of dictates to him what’s going to happen in his regular route.”

United’s GPS and time systems show Hertz what traffic congestion does to his business.

“Every truck is spending an hour a day in idle mode,” said Hertz.

United’s drivers aren’t the only ones spending a lot of time on Metro Atlanta roads and highways.

“We drive, on a typical day, 200,000 miles in Atlanta,” said UPS CFO Kurt Keuhn.

“Just a 5 minute delay on those drivers due to traffic costs us about $3,000,” said Keuhn.

$3,000 a day per truck said Keuhn during an interview at UPS’ Sandy Springs headquarters.

If the referendum passes and projects on the list relieve traffic congestion, both UPS and United Distributors argue that would help them receive and deliver goods on time. Companies in Metro Atlanta are watching T-SPLOST. Others say companies considering Metro Atlanta are also watching T-SPLOST.

“They say, ‘We hear your traffic is really terrible,”’ said Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce economic development senior vice president Hans Gant. “What they want to hear is do we have a plan to address it.”

Gant says sometimes his sales pitch of international reach, educated workforce and low business costs can’t compete with traffic congestion.

“When we were working with Mead Westvaco Corporation when they were doing their corporate headquarters search, traffic congestion was a big factor in their decision not to come here,” said Gant.

Gant claims that company would have generated at least 800 local jobs. He says transportation investments in Dallas, Washington D.C. and Denver have helped those cities beat Atlanta.

“Our competitors are watching us very closely,” said Gant. “They want us to fail.”

That’s why companies and business people have contributed the bulk of the almost $6.5 million towards the group advertising for the transportation sales tax vote.

“They’ve been willing to open their purses to get this done,” said Citizens for Transportation Mobility chairman Doug Stockert.

CTM, also known as Untie Atlanta, filed its campaign financials with the state yesterday. Stockert is also CEO and President of Post Properties. Stockert gave $5,000 in cash. Post gave more than $101,000 in cash and in-kind contributions. UPS gave $100,000 in cash. United Distributors gave $25,000 in cash. Contributors also include road, highway and train builders, engineering architects and regular citizens.

Meanwhile, the Transportation Leadership Coalition, an anti-T-SPLOST group, says it’s raised about $22,000.

Stockert says most of the millions he’s raised have gone towards ads on radio, television, cable, the internet as well as mail fliers.

“Roughly, three quarters of the money is being spent directly on voter contact effort in one of those forms or another,” said Stockert.

Stockert says the plan was always to flood the market with ads and mailers two weeks before what he calls a tough election. He says July primaries usually turnout 20% of Georgia’s registered voters. Stockert hopes their final push will convince some of the 80% to come out and vote yes.