In a partisan vote, the Cobb Board of Commissioners on Tuesday approved adding a referendum to the November 2024 general election ballot on whether to collect a 30-year sales tax for a major development of the county’s transit system.
Commissioners also approved a project list for the referendum that in East Cobb would include the reinstatements of bus routes running along Roswell Road and connecting to the Dunwoody MARTA station, and a new transit station in the Roswell-Johnson Ferry area.
The Cobb Mobility Special-Purpose Local-Option Sales Tax, if approved by voters, would collect a one-percent tax for an estimated $10.8 billion, financing the creation of several high-occupancy bus routes, the construction of transit centers and expanding microtransit, paratransit and other transit options around the county.
Cobb collects a SPLOST for overall county projects, and the Cobb County School District also has its own SPLOST for school construction, maintenance and technology projects.
But Cobb DOT officials have been planning for a possible transit referendum for several years, with Atlanta Regional Commission projections that the county’s population will near a million people by 2050.
The board’s three Democrats voted in favor of having the referendum, while Republican commissioners were opposed.
The items on the project list would add 106 miles of bus and transit routes to the existing CobbLinc service, which has only one route in the East Cobb area, along Powers Ferry Road.
Commissioner JoAnn Birrell of District 3 in East Cobb said the length of the proposed tax is far too long, and consists only of transit projects.
“In the past I’ve always supported our county SPLOST going to a referendum, but the maximum they were was six years,” she said. “But they had not only transportation, but libraries, parks, public safety and other departments.
“I can’t support a 30-year tax but it will be up to voters to decide and that’s the bottom line.”
Commissioner Monique Sheffield of South Cobb, who grew up in Brooklyn, said she might not have had the educational opportunities she had without being able to ride the subway in New York City, and that many young Cobb citizens are facing similar obstacles.
“The generations are getting younger, things are changing,” she said. “I look forward to see how this plays out in the community.”
Cobb Commission Chairwoman Lisa Cupid said that “we have moment of transformation before us today.”
She compared the chance to vastly expand transit options to the 2013 vote by commissioners to enter into a 30-year memorandum of understanding with the Atlanta Braves to build a baseball stadium, and the county’s buildout of sewer systems in the 1980s.
“I’m sure there were reasonable voices of concern about those times, but there are reasonable considerations of why now,” said Cupid, who was the only commissioner to vote against the Braves stadium deal.
“This is a board of action, this is a board that wants to get this done,” she said. “I’ve seen moments of opportunity come and go.”
Cobb voters rejected a referendum in 1971 to join the then-now Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority. In 1989 the county created Cobb Community Transit (now called CobbLinc) to provide a limited amount of transit services, including express buses serving commuters in downtown Atlanta.
She said Cobb has had “consideration of a robust investment in transit for almost 50 years now. . . . and we’re at a key time to offer commensurate options for our community.”
Commissioners voted along the same 3-2 split to approve spending $187,000 for an education campaign to take place in 2024 ahead of the referendum.
That effort, which includes a combined donation of $100,000 from the Town Center and Cumberland Community Improvement Districts, will include town hall meetings and other information presented to citizens.
After the vote, citizens spoke on the issue in public comment sessions.
Kevin Cutliff of East Cobb, a 21-year-old who supports the transit tax, said many in his generation are struggling to afford cars to get around.
He uses a combination of an electric bike and CobbLinc, but said he doesn’t feel safe with the former and feels “disconnected” with the latter, saying the current system has very limited access to the rest of metro Atlanta.
“This transit referendum hopefully will change that going forward,” Cutcliff said. “When voters use transit, this affects all of us, when all of it is connected.”
But Cobb resident Tracy Stevenson said the overall cost of the Mobility SPLOST—nearly $11 billion—”is a buttload of money.
“Do we need to overhaul the system? Probably? Do we need to have compassion for people? Absolutely. Are there are better ways to do it that use a 30-year technology to move forward. We put rosy new names on things, but it’s still a bus system.
“If we can manage the system better than we have now then why don’t we?”
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Related:
- East Cobb transit center, bus routes on Cobb Mobility SPLOST project list
- Cobb to distribute $4.5M in ARPA funds to child care centers
- Cobb commissioners drop pro-Israel resolution
- Cobb County Manager gets raise, contract extension
- New Cobb Elections director hired; will start in December
- Citizens skeptical of transit tax at East Cobb town hall
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