Last week, in my blog "Ideas For More Road Money", one of the ideas I mentioned was a regional 1% sales tax that voters could decide for themselves.

Admittedly, this idea was not originally mine, but nonetheless, I felt that it deserved mention.

According to an article in this week's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a "big tent advocacy group" called Get Georgia Moving, conducted a poll among Georgians, both Republican and Democrat, regarding the special sales tax idea.

Based on the poll, 75% of Republicans and 75% of Democrats are in favor of the matter going before voters in a referendum. This doesn't necessarily mean that the voters would approve or disapprove the tax, but nonetheless, voters want to decide.

In the last Georgia General Assembly session, the House passed a bill "to allow regional referendums on a penny sales tax", but it failed to pass in the Senate. To make matters worse, Governor Sonny Perdue came out against this proposal, which to me, as a Georgia voter, says that he doesn't give a flip about what Georgia's residents want (or don't want).

If voters, regardless of political party affiliation, see that we need to fix something, but our elected officials are not listening, then that in and of itself is a travesty. Hopefully, our elected officials, especially those at the top (Governor Perdue, Lt. Governor Cagle, and House Speaker Glenn Richardson), will heed the voice of the people and become advocates for allowing us, Georgia's voters, to decide.

REMINDER: Tonight (Saturday, 1/10/2009, at 9:30 PM EST) I will be discussing "Ideas For More Road Money" on tonight's "GRG On BTR" episode. Callers will be welcomed. If Georgia's elected officials won't give you a voice, then I will.

In other Georgia road news...

According to the Macon Telegraph, GDOT officials are scaling back plans to renovate the I-75/I-16 interchange in Macon.

Please click here to read the article.

After reading the article, I'm not quite sure what the first "phases" will be, but based on my many travels thorugh this interchange, the first phases of this much-needed overhaul should be as follows...

- Eliminate the left-hand exit ramp from I-75 south to I-16 west.

- Eliminate the left-hand exit ramp from I-16 west to I-75 south, allowing traffic to merge into I-75 south from the right instead of the left.

Those changes in and of themselves would go a long way in making travel through the interchange less hazardous.

If the interchange isn't renovated, the only other alternative IMHO would be to build a northern by-pass from I-75 in northwestern Bibb County, proceeding through southern Jones County, and ending at I-16 at the Bibb/Twiggs County line. Moneywise, that would be a lot more costly than renovating the I-75/I-16 interchange, not to mention that it would potentially invite too much development into Jones County like I-285 did to the Atlanta suburbs (especally the northern burbs).

And finally...

Thanks again to "Elementary History Teacher" at the "Georgia On My Mind" blogsite for including last week's blog in the latest edition of the "Georgia Blog Carnival".

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and please come often.

        

 

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