Metro Atlanta transportation: tolls in, knuckleheads out | Atlanta News & Opinion Blog | Fresh Loaf | Creative Loafing Atlanta

Don’t ask for whom there will be road tolls, Atlanta. There will be road tolls for thee.

At least that’s what the bosses of Georgia’s transportation agencies, speaking at yesterday’s forum at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, are suggesting.

Jane Hayse, director of the Center for Livable Communities at the Atlanta Regional Commission, the agency in charge of coordinating the metro area’s cities and counties, said that managed lanes are the “foundation of our long-range plan.”

By “managed lanes,” she means toll lanes that would cost money for cars carrying a single passenger. Chris Tomlinson, executive director of the State Road and Tollway Authority, Georgia’s toll collectors, said that people who have used the nearly two-year-old toll lanes on I-85 “are getting used to the idea” and have seen a benefit.

There aren’t many immediate options for a growing metro Atlanta to decrease traffic besides funneling people into car alternatives such as express buses or vanpools.

The state’s road-building money comes mostly from a flat tax based on each gallon of gas sold. That’s lost its robustness as new, more efficient cars consume less gas to go longer distances. Most of Georgia, including metro Atlanta, voted down T-SPLOST, a 1-cent, 10-year transportation sales tax proposal, last year that would’ve raised $748 million for statewide transportation projects.

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