Transportation referendums

Atlanta is set to spend more than half a billion dollars to build a 22-mile light rail line — but the vital public infrastructure won't likely be done until 2050 because the city isn't getting state or federal funding. And that's the problem.

Take that, Koch brothers: Voters in Phoenix have soundly rejected a proposal that would have halted the expansion of the city's light rail system.

The fossil fuel plutocrats are backing an opposition campaign to squelch the city's ambitious transit ballot measure.

The Atlanta Beltline project isn't going away. Project staff want to make that clear. Sure, last week, Atlanta turned down -- by a wide margin -- a major transportation spending package that would have awarded $600 million to the Beltline project. But this project -- an innovative transit and trails corridor that will circle Atlanta's central city -- has seen big setbacks before, says Ethan Davidson, the Beltline's spokesman.

It was fitting that yesterday, the eve of the Atlanta region's historic transportation vote, the Georgia NAACP filed a civil rights suit against the state Department of Transportation alleging discrimination in contracting. Meanwhile, the head of the DeKalb County NAACP has come out against the T-SPLOST tax proposal, saying it will hurt minority-owned businesses. He even took a shot at Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, a dogged supporter of the referendum, saying “certain blacks” had been duped into supporting the tax proposal.