This week, I found an article in the Macon Telegraph regarding Georgia's proposed transportation sales tax..

According to the article, leaders in both Georgia's Senate and House of Representatives have been meeting to draft a new such bill for the 2010 General Assembly session to consider.

In a possible compromise deal, the bill would allow Georgia's voters to decide in a statewide referendum the following...

- A half-penny statewide sales tax to fund transportation projects anywhere within Georgia.

- Voters in one or more Georgia counties can decide, via a separate referendum, to impose a half-penny sales tax for the sole purpose of funding local transportation projects.

Please click here to read the entire article.

If I am interpreting the proposal correctly, then here is an example of multiple counties getting together...

Gwinnett, Barrow, and Oconee County officials get together and come up with a proposal to impose an additional half-penny sales tax within their respective counties and place a referendum for their respective voters to decide accordingly.

Under this hypothetical proposal, the three counties tell the voters that proceeds of said tax would go solely toward the improvement and upgrade of GA 316 (a.k.a. University Parkway) from its current state to a fully limited-access Interstate-grade highway. Once construction has been completed, said additional sales tax would be repealed.

Assuming the local referendum passes, the monies would supplement the regular funding that comes from not only the special statewide transportation sales tax, but also the existing statewide motor fuel tax. This, IMHO, would be much better than imposing any kind of tolls.

In any event, it is still my hope that we, Georgia's voters, will get to decide whether or not to allow the transportation sales tax to become a reality.

Regardless of the fate of the proposed transportation sales tax, the fact of the matter is that we, the people, have to do something to maintain (and improve) our transportation infrastructure. China, which has become the world's "industrial park", has been on a quest to build a 250,000-mile (400,000 km) superhighway system and has been making improvements on their seaports, for they know (by observing America) that such investments are necessary to be competitive. It is my hope that people in this country will realize that if we do not take care of the great infrastructure (roads, bridges, seaports, etc.) that those before us had built, then we will truly run the risk of becoming a second-rate nation. It may cost us a whole lot of money now to improve and maintain our own infrastructure right now, but given such calamities as the collapse of the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis, either we pay now to maintain and improve... or we pay a whole lot more later when even more of our infrastructure fails before us.

Speaking of infrastructure, the Georgia DOT had just reconstructed and reopened the 14th Street bridge that goes over I-75/85 in Midtown Atlanta. Here's a photo I captured from the Ox Blue webcam site...



According to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he webcam was set up by a Georgia Tech assistant professor and his students for the purpose of studying the entire process to learn about construction efficiency.

If you go to the OxBlue webcam site, you not only can get some cool photos, but you can also get a time-lapse sequence of the construction from day one all the way to the present.

And finally, here's our newest staff member here at GRG HQ...


We here at GRG HQ are truly honored to have him on board and wish him much success.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading, have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend, and please come back often.

        

 

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