Athens-Clarke county "fared really well" in the projects list that will be built if voters pass the T-SPLOST regional one-cent transportation tax, commissioners were told last week. Athens would get a "balanced" list of projects, ranging from "transit to airport to bikes," Transportation and Public Works Director David Clark told commissioners—yet most money will go for road projects, including two new exits onto the Loop 10 bypass. Commissioners haven't voted to endorse the tax (which must pass overall in our 12-county region, not county-by-county), but may decide to do so.

Commissioner Alice Kinman, who served on the regional "roundtable" that picked the projects, noted that the Clarke County projects were not new; all had already been planned for eventual construction. "We didn't make up any projects for this," she said, and she pointed out that ACC is in a good position to put the tax money to good use, having been proactive in transportation planning. Kinman praised one of the projects—$15 million worth of road-widening between the quarry and the Loop on Winterville Road, which Clark said is intended to provide "a more direct route" for asphalt trucks. Kinman described the plan for the road as "kind of beautiful," with medians and bike lanes.

If the tax passes, bike lanes will be added to Prince Avenue, North Avenue (inside the Bypass) and Lexington Road (outside the Bypass). So far, the project that has generated the most public interest is Prince, Clark said. Bike lanes would be added for its entire length (widening the street where necessary), and he's heard "a lot of concern, a lot of worry about exactly how those bike lanes will be put on that corridor."

Clarke said he hopes ACC staffers—and not the Georgia Department of Transportation—will be allowed to design the local projects. He is optimistic that they will, because he said GDOT is not equipped to manage all the new projects that could be funded under the new tax, if it passes in the 12-county Northeast Georgia region or other regions of the state on July 31.

In ACC, a new Loop 10 interchange will be built halfway between Tallassee Road and Atlanta Highway to alleviate Atlanta Highway congestion, and a new four-lane Jennings Mill Parkway would connect Commerce Boulevard to Jennings Mill Road, creating another new Loop interchange. Congested Mars Hill Road in Oconee county would be widened, so would Simonton Bridge Road in that county. Similar projects would be built in other regional counties, including three new GA 316 overpasses in Barrow.

The new one-cent tax would raise ACC sales taxes to 8 percent. The T-SPLOST tax has been endorsed by the Athens Area Chamber of Commerce and BikeAthens, but it is opposed statewide by the Sierra Club, which says the plan gives "sprawl-inducing" road projects priority over transit alternatives.

State legislators came up with the plan as an alternative to a higher gas tax, which is considered a nonstarter politically. In addition to the preselected projects in each region, the tax would also give each county more money for projects that would not be under state control—and could therefore be used for services like building new sidewalks and operating buses. (If the tax passes, many ACC buses will begin running every half-hour instead of hourly.)

But legislators also included a cut in funds to the counties in regions that don't pass the new tax: matching-money requirements for local roads would jump to 30 percent, instead of 10 percent.

"If voters here decide not to pass it, we're getting punished," commissioner Ed Robinson said. "The state doesn't want to collect any taxes. They don't want to be responsible, essentially, to do anything. So, they're trying to force local people to vote for taxes."

If voters in Clarke, Jackson and Newton counties—the most populous in our 12-county region, which extends from Elberton to Greensboro—favor the tax, then it could well pass, Clark told commissioners. But Robinson speculated that "the Libertarian, I'm-not-going-to-pay-any-taxes vote is lining up with the Athens liberal vote this time, because they don't like the Bypass.”