Georgia Transportation Funding Measure Largely Defeated

Georgia voters on Tuesday largely rejected a 10-year, 1 percent sales tax that would have provided nearly $19 billion in revenue for transportation investments over that time. While the referendum was statewide, the votes were regional with the state divided into 12 separate regions. Each region voted separately whether to tax themselves to support transportation projects within that region. Nine of the twelve regions voted in opposition. The vote was seen by many as a test of the ability to sell the public on the need to increase taxes to meet critical transportation infrastructure investment needs by linking the dollars raised with the projects that would be built. For example in the Atlanta region, 10 counties banded together and identified how the $7.2 billion of the revenue raised there would pay for 157 regional projects — including congestion relief at key Interstate highway chokepoints and opening 29 miles of new rail track to passengers, among others — as well as $1 billion worth of smaller local projects. The list of projects was negotiated by 21 mayors and county commissioners from all 10 counties in that region, and contained about half transit and half roads. Similar project selection negotiations were held in the other 11 regions as well. The amount of money raised by the sales tax if it had been approved in all 12 regions would be the equivalent of raising the state gasoline tax by 25 cents per gallon. The referendum was strongly supported by the Georgia business community. Opposition came from a coalition of anti-tax groups, TEA party groups and the Sierra Club.