Ga. Transportation Officials To Attend `Summit`
Tony Potts
01-06-2009
Georgia`s top transportation officials will meet Wednesday to
discuss the state’s transportation funding crisis.
Officials will discuss how to make up for the lack of money due
to hundreds of millions of dollars being cut from planned spending.
The agenda for the meeting, called jointly by the participants,
has three sections: Immediate actions in advance of any new
funding, Short-term funding and strategy, and Long-term funding and
strategy.
The immediate action on everyone’s plate is budget and project
cuts. Tad Leithead, head of the Transportation and Air Quality
Committee of the Atlanta Regional Commission, said the region
will probably have to cut three-quarters of the money from the
current year’s project list.
In the short term, Georgia officials hope for federal stimulus
dollars, and for the state Legislature to approve a measure
allowing referendums to raise transportation funding. Longer
term, transportation experts recommend a shift from the gas tax
as a form of user fee, perhaps to an odometer tax.
The meeting is scheduled from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 40 Courtland
Street, where the Atlanta Regional Commission also has offices,
and is open to the public.
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