As a laissez faire capitalist, I never thought I would say this, but raise my taxes (gas use taxes) to pay for a higher quanity and quality of projects such as 5th street/17th street projects. We might need to a create separate funding mechanism for the Atl metro, that keeps all funds generated in ATL region, in the metro and visa versa.
I know it is a little off subject from Atlantic Station, but since it leads back to the same issue, I think that interstate commuting should become more of a fee based system (I know it is somewhat now
, but that is gas usage not miles driven, which produce very different results), preferably by adding express tolls in addition to what is already there.
For Example: Instead of expanding 575 traditionally, allow Goldman Sacks (or bond issue, for non-libertarians such as Markets
) to double the capacity by building toll lanes in the center of the road. This will relieve traffic on the existing lanes, and charge only those who dont have the patience to wait. Going this method, would free up that billion that would have been spend expanding the highway to be used for fixing the feeder road problem in the metro, and adding alternative transit lines where feasible.