T-SPLOST Opponents Celebrate Referendum Outcome

August 1st, 2012

Metro Atlantans headed to the polls Tuesday and defeated the T-SPLOST by a resounding 36 point margin.

For opponents of the transportation plan, it was the culmination of months of effort.

“It’s better than I ever could have hoped for. We’re ecstatic,” said Mike Lowry, a Roswell resident and volunteer with the Transportation Leadership Coalition.

A diverse group of T-SPLOST opponents, about 50 in all, watched the results at a sports bar in midtown Atlanta.

“I think that this demonstrates that voters want smart investments, not just spending more money,” said Colleen Kiernan, director of the Georgia chapter of the Sierra Club.

The referendum asked metro voters to raise roughly $7 billion over 10 years for a variety of road and transit projects. The Sierra Club, the Atlanta Tea Party, and the NAACP are among the groups that came out strongly against the plan, saying it was full of unnecessary projects and didn’t do enough to relieve traffic.

Still, Kiernan said the proposal’s defeat doesn’t mean a comprehensive plan is forever out of reach.

“We’re very optimistic that the ground that we’ve been able to forge between opposite groups shows that we can come together as a region and find solutions that work,” said Kiernen.

The Sierra Club and the Tea Party are now jointly backing some basic guidelines for a potential Plan B, including fundamental reform at the Georgia Department of Transportation, freeing MARTA from a state restriction on spending, and allowing smaller groups of counties to band together on traffic issues.

Debbie Dooley of the Atlanta Tea Party is hopeful political leaders can come together and develop a new plan.

“One thing we expect our elected officials to do is not act like spoiled children – take their marbles and go home because they did not get their way. We expect them to actually work and work with all different groups for a solution.”

Dooley says any new plan must address voter distrust in government.