Perdue's pick for trans planner moving ahead

In a Tuesday vote, the state House Transportation Subcommittee approved Gov. Perdue's pick for the newly created statewide "transportation planning director," Todd Long.

Long, a Georgia Tech-trained civil engineer, worked at GDOT prior to his nomination.

Perdue selected Long to "lead the state’s road planning efforts, via a position created by the transportation reform bill approved this past legislative session."

If confirmed, Long will work for the governor, but have to navigate the sometimes conflicting interests of Perdue, legislative leadership and the state Department of Transportation board.

If there were spots of disagreement between Long and the subcommittee, it often focused on the split of state transportation dollars between metro Atlanta and rural parts of the state.

How about the split between sprawl-subsidizing road projects and the paltry amount spent on rail and transit in this state, much less bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure?

If past actions are any indication, Long will be encouraged to explore other solutions.

Tying it all together

Tom Crawford, author of the "Capitol Impact" column run in Flagpole, provides an excellent summary of - and insightful predictions based on - the dramatic reorganization of transportation planning in Georgia:

SB 200 will drastically revamp the Department of Transportation, shifting much of the power over the agency’s $2 billion yearly budget to the governor and, to a lesser extent, the legislators. The office of governor, already one of the strongest in the country, becomes that much more powerful with the ability to control which highways get built and which do not.

“Mark my words,” said Rep. Alan Powell (D-Hartwell), a longtime House member. “It may take three years; it may take six months, but we just changed the face of politics in Georgia.”

...

Perdue’s ultimate goal in getting SB 200 adopted may be to facilitate the awarding of major contracts to private companies that want to take over the construction and management of public highways in Georgia. One of the world’s leading private developers of toll roads is Cintra, an international conglomerate based in Spain. Cintra has built and operated such major American highways as the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road.

When Perdue flew to Spain last September with a contingent of business leaders - at the same time that Georgia motorists were struggling to cope with a severe gasoline shortage - one of the companies he met with was Cintra. That could be the ultimate legacy of SB 200 - Georgians paying high tolls to drive on highways owned by a European conglomerate. You heard it here first.

Road & development plans

Two items from the ABH today:

1. The state Department of Transportation will hold an informational meeting this afternoon about a proposed interchange at the Athens Perimeter intersection with Peter Street and Olympic Drive.

   The meeting will be held from 5-7 p.m. at Stroud Elementary School, 715 Fourth St.

   Visitors will be able to view interchange plans, ask questions and make comments. There will be no formal presentation.

2. Oconee [county] approves Epps Bridge shopping center despite environmental & traffic concerns:

Oconee commissioners voted 3-1 Tuesday to rezone the site from agricultural use to allow the shopping center. Commissioner Margaret Hale voted no.

Commissioners were more concerned about the problems visitors to Epps Bridge Centre will create for already-clogged traffic in the area, especially if plans for a new state road never come to pass.

The entire project hinges on a road that hasn't been built, the Oconee Connector extension, with which state Department of Transportation officials still have not moved forward.

Oconee officials hope the shopping center, if approved, and the road - if it's ever built - likely will be finished about the same time, early in the next decade.

But, the potential lack of access, along with environmental concerns, kept a regional planning organization from recommending the project last summer.

The Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center found in its nonbinding July review that Epps Bridge Centre would not be in the best interest of the region.

Privatized roads - follow up in CL

Creative Loafing further explores Sonny Perdue's in-progress trip to Europe, where he is meeting with reps from a road-privatization company. See our earlier post for links to more information.

Excerpts from CL:

Road privatization is a cause celebre for free-market idealists who argue everything government can do, private enterprise can do better. Private roads have long been common in Asia and Europe, and are gaining traction in the United States.

In such a deal, a private company pays the state – sometimes billions of dollars – to take control of an existing road or to build a new one in a congested area. The company agrees to maintain the road, often for as long as 99 years. In exchange, it reaps the revenue from drivers, and in many cases, sets the tolls.

...

The fine print of privatization contracts usually includes noncompete clauses, dictating for example that a government can't build another road or transit system nearby to compete with the toll road. Georgia Motor Trucking Association lobbyist Ed Crowell says some lawyers in Indiana have opined that merely resurfacing a nearby road could be considered "competition."

And with Georgia's newfound focus on rail projects – the "Brain Train" commuter rail, the Beltline, a high-speed line to Chattanooga – the state could find itself in a similar spot to Indiana's should it not vet the contract.

Privatized roads in Ga's future?

Creative Loafing reports on Gov. Perdue's upcoming trip to Europe (9/27-10/3), where he will "meet with executives from Cintra, a Spanish company considered a global leader in privatized roads."
From the official press release, Perdue says:

Europe has some of the world’s most innovative ideas on financing transportation infrastructure. We will see some of these ideas first-hand in order to understand what approaches could be used here in Georgia.

Before he gets all fired up to privatize public infrastructure, Perdue should take another look at the other innovative ideas on transportation that Europe has developed.