The AJC transportation Ariel Hart reporter cites three recent developments as hopeful signs that the metro area finally could be moving toward “regional mass transit, tolerable traffic and less sprawl.” Those three developments:

• Gov. Sonny Perdue’s proposal to allow regions to vote whether to add a penny sales tax for transit, roads and other transportation projects;

• Perdue’s separate proposal to issue $300 million in bonds to buy up rail freight routes, including two in metro Atlanta;

• An Obama administration decision to make more federal money available for projects like the Beltline and the Peachtree Streetcar – just as Atlanta awaits news on its application for $300 million in stimulus money for a streeetcar system.

At the same time, Hart notes that — even if all those developments pan out — there still would be big gaps in transportation funding for the metro areas:

• Perdue’s transportation plan calls for increased parking taxes in Atlanta and big private investments in toll roads — neither of which seem about to happen;

• Revenues from the sales taxe almost certainly wouldn’t cover operating costs for transit systems;

• Improving tracks to enable a high-speed rail network in Georgia would cost way beyond the money that would come in from any of the measures (Hart also notes that there’s not money to widen Interstates, but that I say, hurrah to that).

• A vote of the transportation tax wouldn’t come until 2012, meaning that Perdue’s punting the problem to the next administration.

Find the full article here.

Related posts:

1. Resolution: Take transit away from GDOT
2. N.C. wins money for rails, Ga. runs off them
3. Feds dis Georgia high-speed rail
4. Perdue to propose transport plan
5. Transportation plan would fund rural roads