Come July 31, Athens-Clarke County voters will elect judges, county commissioners, sheriff, school board members—most running unopposed—and also decide if package sales of alcohol should be made legal on Sundays after more than 100 years. Republican Regina Quick will challenge Democrat-turned-Republican Doug McKillip for McKillip's statehouse seat; and in newly redrawn county commission districts, five seats are up for election including the open seats of retiring commissioners Alice Kinman and Ed Robinson. Two school board seats are also open.

Also on the ballot: a new 10-year, one-cent sales tax for transportation. All Georgia voters will approve or reject the tax, known as T-SPLOST, region by region, along with regional project lists that were decided last year by local elected officials. If the new tax is approved in the 12-county Northeast Georgia district, ACC's sales tax would rise from seven to eight percent. State legislators came up with the plan to supplement gas tax funding of transportation projects. In Georgia, gas tax revenues are down because people drive less or use more efficient cars, but raising the tax is considered a nonstarter politically.

The sales-tax plan gives locals more choices in where the money goes than they have with traditional funding—gas-tax money, for example, can only be used for roads and bridges, never for buses or trains (or even for sidewalks except when roads are being built or widened). If the sales tax passes, bicycle lanes will be added to Prince Avenue—a fairly expensive project requiring street-widening in places, and one that the state would never fund (and the county might have trouble affording).

If the new tax passes, most of the money will be collected in the Athens area, since that's where most of the region's money is spent (our region also includes Elberton, Covington, and Greensboro). And in some outlying counties, that's a selling point. "Madison County officials say that the T-SPLOST is a way for the largely rural county to draw sales tax revenue from more commercially developed areas, such as Athens and Banks Crossing," reports the weekly Madison Journal Today. "Since Madison County has a lot of road mileage, it stands to gain a larger portion of the T-SPLOST funding for local projects than some more populated counties, like Oconee." Three-quarters of the tax revenues would go to a list of projects already picked by a regional roundtable of mayors and county officials (represented in Athens by Mayor Nancy Denson and Commissioner Alice Kinman).

The regional projects (to be built if voters approve) include widening US 78 east of Athens (a project much desired by Oglethorpe County officials); four-laning Ga. 72 east of Comer; widening congested Mars Hill Road in Oconee County; adding three new overpasses to Ga. 316 in Barrow County (including four-laning Patrick Mill Road to become the "West Winder Bypass"); a new I-85 interchange at Ga. 60 south of Gainesville; widening US 441 south of I-20 to four lanes; plus many smaller intersection, airport, and road-widening improvements in the region. In addition, counties will divide 25 percent of the tax revenue to spend on whatever local projects they choose.

In ACC, a new Loop 10 interchange will be built halfway between Tallassee Road and Atlanta Highway to alleviate Atlanta Highway congestion via Mitchell Bridge Road. A new four-lane Jennings Mill Parkway would connect Commerce Boulevard to Jennings Mill Road, and create another new Loop interchange. Five-foot bicycle lanes would be added to North Avenue (from Willow Street to Loop 10) and to Lexington Road (between Carmike Cinemas and Gaines School Road).

The Prince Avenue bike lanes will run from downtown to Loop 10. Bike lanes and sidewalks will also be added to a four-laned Tallassee Road (from Mitchell Bridge Road to Whitehead Road, with either a stoplight or roundabout at Whitehead). Daytime bus service would be increased from hourly to half-hourly on seven popular routes, and synchronized stoplights and airport improvements would also be funded.

The Athens Area Chamber of Commerce supports the tax; Oconee County Chairman Melvin Davis has also come out in favor of it. Two ACC commissioners, Kinman and Kelly Girtz, told Flagpole they support it. The project list "reflects local priorities," Kinman said. "Folks at the state level are finally starting to agree with Athens voters that transportation does not just refer to the capacity for moving single-occupancy vehicles as quickly as possible."

One opponent is the state Sierra Club, long an active supporter of public transit, which opposes all the regional projects lists as focusing "overwhelmingly on sprawl-inducing road construction, with the percentage allotted to environmentally friendly projects (e.g. transit and bicycle/pedestrian facilities) generally in the low single digits."

But to Girtz, the tax "is our best shot to bring some public dollars to all of those modes." Recent budget discussions about cutting bus service wouldn't be necessary, he said, if T-SPLOST passes.

BikeAthens also supports the tax, but would like to have seen "much more than 5 percent" of the money go to alternative transportation. "The benefits outweigh the shortcomings," the group said, "and will help to push Athens and the surrounding communities to become safer for cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers more quickly than if TSPLOST doesn't pass."