Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Transportation Bill Sails Through Senate

The State Senate passed a transportation bill Tuesday that is favored by Atlanta business groups and takes a regional approach to funding projects.

It would leave the decision to raise taxes up to voters. Yet the bill is designed with Metro Atlanta in mind. The area already has a ten county region. The bill aims to let those counties charge a one percent sales tax to fund transportation projects. Other counties would vote on the measure individually or as a group of neighboring counties.

Senator Kasim Reed from Atlanta says improving the state’s roads and traffic problems is key to growing the state.

Reid: “This bill is about job creation and maintaining metro-Atlanta’s dominance and our state’s dominance as a place where business can grow, work and thrive.”

Atlanta business groups like the senate bill because they believe the projects would ease congestion and aide the economy. The House, for it's part, prefers a statewide tax that funds designated projects across Georgia. That plan would cost twenty five billion dollars over ten years.

-By Carl Zornes

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