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Macon Area Transportation Study memberships By-Laws Citizens Advisory Committee here Caution Macon |
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The County of |
| MATS - Policy -
Committee Notice |
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Audio of Meeting was recorded by 2 people. Policy Committee
Chairman – Sam Hart,
Chairman, Bibb County Commission (Not present) Vice-Chairman – Robert Reichert, Mayor, City of Macon Miriam Paris - President,
Macon
City
Council - absent Lonnie Miley -Chairman, City of Macon Public Works Committee - absent
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- Please create and automatic sytem for transfer of Proxy so any member of Council can attend and represent the Citizens of Macon at these important meetings. (handout to Council on 3-15-11) |
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The word "Profit" in the title below assumes that the 1% sales tax (taxing the public taxpayers) won't go to only profit the Railroads and the Supersized-Trailer-Truck industry - same people who already ride your tail bumper on the Interstates and byways. Don't get me wrong. I support more rail - to get more trucks off the highways. But if the public helps to subsidize these monopolies, the Public should get its share of the Profits... Meanwhile, Macon-Bibb County infrastructure is rotting on the ground. Streets are falling in. Potholes are busting our tires. Sunday, Feb 13, 2011
Posted on Sun, Feb. 13, 2011 http://www.macon.com/2011/02/13/1449576/midstate-could-profit-from-savannah.html Middle Georgia could profit from Savannah harbor work By MAGGIE LEE ATLANTA -- In his first official address to the Georgia Legislature last month, Gov. Nathan Deal proclaimed there is no public works project as important to the region’s competitiveness than deepening the Savannah harbor. If that $625 million dollar deal gets done, that would mean more rail and road traffic through Middle Georgia. There are at least three major projects stirring in the region that could capitalize on a bigger logistics industry, but robust growth is far from certain. Most everyone has seen what’s called an “intermodal container,” even if they don’t know it. When 18-wheelers roll down the freeway or a cargo train thunders by, they’re often loaded with 40-foot-long, corrugated metal intermodal containers -- called “boxes” in the lingo. A truck holds one box; a train holds hundreds; a ship holds thousands. Each box contains cargo ranging from kaolin to televisions, sometimes bound for one side of the world from the other. Big shipping is about to get a lot easier. A project to widen the Panama Canal will be finished in 2014, meaning bigger ships will be able to squeeze through the locks between Asia and the U.S. East Coast. And those ships, not quite twice as big in volume as what Savannah can handle now, will be plying up and down the coast, looking for the best place to berth. They need a deeper channel than Savannah now has, prompting the deepening proposal. If there’s to be more traffic, the land port of the import-export trail -- roads and rails -- need upgrades, too. McIntyre ‘pinch point’ On most normal days, one Norfolk Southern train of intermodal container cargo travels in each direction on the company’s main line that connects Savannah and Atlanta. It goes via the kaolin hub at McIntyre in Wilkinson County. Norfolk Southern could run more cargo, said Steve Evans, the company’s vice president of ports and international. But McIntyre is a “pinch point,” he said. “When we’re switching out the local customers,” he said, “our through trains get held up.” In laymen’s terms, when the empty and full kaolin boxes are being staged, there’s so little space in McIntyre that the boxes back up on to the main rail line, and all traffic between Atlanta and Savannah has to stop. So, it’s actually faster to put a box on a truck chassis and hire someone to drive it between Atlanta and Savannah along Interstates 16 and 75. Trucking is more expensive and leaves a larger carbon footprint, yet most cargo that Norfolk Southern needs to deliver from Savannah to Atlanta goes by truck. If his train line could run competitive service, that would take between 520 and 580 big trucks off I-16 daily, Evans estimated. So Wilkinson County has a plan: build a 16,000-foot rail siding in McIntyre. That’s long enough to park three trains to load, unload, or simply clear the path. Right now, “we can’t recruit more rail-dependent industry,” said Ralph Staffins, executive director of the Wilkinson County Development Authority, which is helping push for the siding. “We need every tool we can to attract companies. ... Rail is the best thing we have,” he said. The siding would create 50 new, permanent Norfolk Southern jobs, he said, and would lead to more hiring at nearby companies Carbo Ceramics and BASF. The expansion would allow one unnamed company to invest $70 million near the line and make 11 hires, according to a report by the Fall Line Regional Development Authority. That authority would own the siding and lease it to Norfolk Southern. A pair of proposed power plants, coal-fueled Plant Washington and the PT Power Plant that would run on shredded tires, are not possible without the siding, according to the report. However, this $7.8 million project depends on some state funding. The report lays a plan for a $1.5 million grant and a $1 million loan from the state’s OneGeorgia program. But the governor’s office confirms McIntyre is not in line for Deal’s proposed bonds next year. State Rep. Bubber Epps, R-Dry Branch, is lobbying the governor for that necessary money. It can’t go forward without state money, said Epps, because it’s a public-private partnership. However, he’ll have a chance with the state House, too. The House will draft its own fiscal 2012 budget this month and can pencil in the funds, all subject to the normal debate and ratification of the annual budget. Cordele on same train Cordele, in southern Middle Georgia, has opened what’s called an “inland port” -- basically a large rail depot from which intermodal containers can be distributed. It’s served by the Heart of Georgia rail line. The problem is, the rail line between Cordele and Savannah cannot handle the biggest, heaviest trains that carry boxes stacked two high. “The only holdup is some bridges,” explained state Rep. Buddy Harden, R-Cordele. He, too, is quietly laying out the case for a little state money. In his case, the money would be used to finish bridge work that’s already under way. Once the Cordele Inland Port is fully operational, it could be worth a few hundred jobs and would make the city attractive to logistics and distribution companies. Bibb may hit the road Some in Bibb County also are thinking of a transportation plan that would take some state aid. A new bypass highway south and east of Macon would get traffic out of the city, pointed out state Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon. The idea to connect I-16 at Sgoda Road to Ga. 247 via a new highway belongs to Macon Mayor Robert Reichert. He also happens to be in charge of the Middle Georgia Transportation Roundtable, a group of elected officials charged with drawing up a regional road, rail and bridge wish list and lobbying the state Department of Transportation for funding priority. Peake predicts that such a southeast bypass will be at the top of the roundtable’s wish list when it’s drawn up later this year. As for a price tag that may approach $100 million, that may depend on voters in Bibb and the surrounding counties. Next November, they will vote on a regional penny sales tax to pay for projects on the wish list. Peake thinks the bypass is a smart idea for the roundtable to focus on, saying it really is “regional” and is good not only for Bibb but also for Twiggs and Crisp counties. Tough competition Savannah is only one port on the East Coast, and all its competitors also want to be the port of call for the newer, bigger ships that will appear. Jacksonville, Fla., wants to dredge, too. It handles far fewer boxes than Savannah, but is ambitious. Charleston, S.C., is a bit behind schedule-wise but wants to conduct a federal study on a dig, officials said. Norfolk, Va., is already deep enough and has authorization to go deeper. All the projects need federal funds. There’s lobbying not just under the Atlanta gold dome, but under the much bigger roof in Washington, D.C. To contact writer Maggie Lee, e-mail mlee@macon.com. |
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| From
NYT
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February
14, 2011, 10:30 am http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/14/to-get-america-growing-again-its-time-to-unleash-our-cities-a-guest-post-by-ed-glaeser/ To Get America Growing Again, It’s Time to Unleash Our Cities: A Guest Post by Ed Glaeser By STEPHEN J. DUBNER Stop subsidizing suburbs. We don’t need housing and highway policies that push people away from our productive cities. Brown economist Nathaniel Baum-Snow found that every new highway built into a city reduced that city’s population by 18 percent. Our pro-homeownership policies, including the financial fiascos of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, implicitly push people out of urban apartments into suburban homes. The great housing bust reminds us that the government shouldn’t be bribing people with the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction to bet everything on the swings of the housing market. |
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CAUTION Macon |
| Lindsay 'Doc' Holliday | |
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Holliday Dental Associates 360 Spring Street Macon, GA 31201 |
office 478-746-5695 home 478-742-8699 Thank-You... |
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