The Cobb Transit Tax Advisory Board has endorsed putting a referendum on the November ballot for a 30-year transit tax in Cobb County.
Cobb commissioners on Tuesday are expected to take action on an agenda item to ask voters for approval of what’s being called the Cobb Mobility SPLOST (Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax).
The advisory board’s endorsement, plus a recommendation from the ATL, the Atlanta-Region Transit Link Authority this week, were the final requirements before commissioners can formally consider putting a referendum to the public.
Another prerequisite was releasing a project list for the proposed 30-year, one-percent sales tax, which would collect an estimated $11 billion to build out a countywide bus transit system, including high-capacity routes and transfer stations.
Among the priorities is re-establishing a bus route through the heart of East Cobb, from Marietta and along Roswell Road to the Johnson Ferry Road area, where a transit center would be built.
Bus routes to Roswell and the MARTA Dunwoody Station would link with the East Cobb transit center, according to the project list (you can read it here).
There hasn’t been a public bus route in East Cobb since a previous Roswell Road route, and another linking to Dunwoody, were discontinued in the early 2010s when commissioners made recession-related budget cuts.
If the referendum is approved, it would restore bus service to East Cobb that was eliminated in county government budget cuts during the recession.
At the time, that route, bus line No. 65, had one of the lowest ridership figures in the Cobb Community Transit system.
The only CobbLinc route in the East Cobb area for now is along Powers Ferry Road.
Cobb DOT officials haven’t estimated any ridership numbers for the proposed routes.
But last month, commissioners approved the spending of $23,000 for a consultant to provide ridership projections. Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. also is being paid $287,000 by the county to develop an education program for the public ahead of the referendum.
Earlier this year, the MDJ reported that ridership across the overall Cobb bus system has plummeted from 3.7 million annual trips in 2014 to just under 1 million trips in 2022, and that the decline began well before COVID-19.
But commissioners are likely to approve placing the referendum on the Nov. 5. Democrats hold a 3-2 majority, and the two Republicans have said a 30-year tax is too long.
ATL required Cobb to conduct a ridership survey, and at this week’s meeting projected an average ridership of more than 40,000 a week, a substantial increase from current figures.
In remarks this week at the ATL meeting, Lamberton said that “sadly, without that requirement, there is no doubt in my mind that the County would not provide those projections—which I regard as bizarre given the scope and length of the proposed tax increase. I say this because I and other concerned citizens have repeatedly been asking for that information and have been completely stonewalled by the County.”
He wanted a different firm from Kimley-Horn to do the projections, citing a conflict of interest.
“My concern is that data can be manipulated to produce ridership forecasts designed to support specific agendas such as persuading the public to endorse an increased sales tax over the next 30 years,” he said.
Cobb has cited Atlanta Regional Commission estimates that the county will have a population of more than one million people by 2050, compared to more than 766,000 in the 2020 census.
As Brad Humphry, a a mobility member of Commissioner Jerica Richardson’s citizen “cabinet” said last fall at a town hall meeting in East Cobb, “We’re in the transit environment that was envisioned 30 years ago.
“The opportunity is now to envision the transit system of the future.”
Related:
- Temporary lane closures along East Piedmont Road through June 12
- Cobb adopts new policy for traffic-calming in neighborhoods
- Cobb approves ridership survey for transit tax referendum
- Cobb puts indefinite hold on Lower Roswell Road project
- Cobb commissioners set 2024 referendum for transit sales tax
- East Cobb transit center, bus routes on Cobb Mobility SPLOST project list
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I have never heard one single soul lament for not having bus service in East Cobb in the fifteen years or so since the Cobb Linc service was discontinued. Not one.Maybe that’s why the county commission only did ridership projections under duress and does not want to share ridership projections and the underlying methodology for producing those projections with the taxpayers.
County commissioners can’t help themselves when the Feds start tempting them with funds, even if it means a net loss and an assault on taxpayers. Even MARTA runs a lot of empty buses and mostly empty trains throughout the day.
It won’t save the planet. It won’t improve traffic. It won’t carry many people. Why do they do this?
The 11 BILLION BUS to nowhere. (except maybe some backpockets).
Cobb Bus Ridership already operates at 80-90% loss.
Taxing us is not going to make us ride the bus more, unless your goal is to completely decimate the lower and middle class of Cobb (through property taxes, rain taxes, splost taxes) so they can’t afford cars? Is that the goal?
Cobb is mostly suburban, SUPER spread out, lots of trees, low traffic, low density.
Stop trying to turn us into Gwinnett.
They have non stop traffic, growth, density.
The only people who benefit are the developers and the dealmakers. Who take their money and leave.
Not the people who live, eat, breath and pay taxes.
Even at the most optimistic projections it will still cost taxpayers 30 thousand dollars per bus rider, per yea, for 30 years! For that amount every bus rider could get new cars regularly along with gas, insurance and even a chauffeur!
The article in question seems to present a rather narrow viewpoint. It appears that some important perspectives shared by other speakers were overlooked, possibly due to the author’s bias in reporting.