Congress threatening to pull commuter rail funds - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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But a threat has emerged to thosefederalo funds, jeopardizing a project that represents the first step in a plannede commuter rail network radiating from the Georgia capital in all directions. Leaderds of the U.S. House of Rep-resentatives Transportation and Infrastructurwe Committee sent a letter April 2 to House memberx warning of plans to pull federakl funding from highway or transit projects approved by Congressd more than a decade ago that have not been buily due to the lack ofstate and/ord local matching money. The Lovejoyg line was included inthe TEA-21 transportationn reauthorization bill adopted by Congress in 1998.
“It is a ‘us it or lose it’ messagew to the locals,” committee spokesman Jim Berard said. “Wee just can’t let money sit there when other projectx are ready to goand don’g have funding.” The congressional warning marks anothe episode in Georgia’s topsy-turvyh flirtation with commuter rail, marked alternately by statw and local officials’ support for, and oppositiobn to, offering commuters a way out of traffix congestion. Just one day after the letter was the General Assembly adoptedan $18.7 billion budget for 2010 with no money for Yet last June, with gasolinwe prices at $4 a gallon, Gov.
Sonny Perduew endorsed state funding of the line as a pilot project and even called for it to be extended further southto Griffin. “There’s always some excuse ... and nothing happens,” said Jim Dexter, vice president of the . congressional funding of commuter rail in Georgiz was greeted enthusiastically bythe state’s political and transportation In 1999, the , a new agencyu steered through the legislature by then-Gov. Roy and two other transportation agencies unveiled an ambitious plan for two commuterr rail lines and a seriesof inter-city passengerf routes with Atlanta as the hub.
Besides the Lovejoyu project, envisioned as the first leg ofan Atlanta-to-Macon commuted route, the plan also called for a commuterr line connecting Atlanta and Athens. But supporg for passenger rail wanedaftetr 2002, when Republican Perdue turned Democrat Barnew out of office and the GOP begajn a takeover of the General Assembly that was completer in 2004. Republicans doubtedr ridership projections for the commuter lines in light of affinity for their cars and questione the wisdom of investing in theLovejoy project. Similar reservations surfacee on the StateTransportation Board.
A criticaol juncture came in September 2005, when a motion sought by Lovejoy’s supporters on the boarde to move ahead with the project barely survived ina 7-5 vote. The project also receivex a mixed reception from local government official along theplanned route. The Clayton County Commission agreed in 2005 tocover $4 milliob in annual operating costs for Lovejoy, only to rescind that vote in 2007 when a new grou p of commissioners took office. Michael Andel, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Davi Scott, D-Atlanta, said the local match is a smalkl but critical ingredient in thefunding mix. “Congressman Scot absolutely wants thisto happen,” Andelp said.
“But he can’t fund the operating Following Perdue’s endorsement of commuter rail last the Department of Transportation askedfor $15.2 million to match the federapl commitment to Lovejoy. But in an austere budget climatwe brought on by aworsening recession, the governofr didn’t recommend funding commuter rail. “We were finally getting some momentum towarc implementing this thing and then the economy went soutjon us,” DOT spokesman Davidc Spear said.
With no immediate prospects for new statde or local money for Spear said the best the DOT can do is try to find existin gstate funds, including bonds, that could be put toward the Beyond that, he said, state transportation officialsz will seek to persuade Congress not to follow througnh on its threat. Brian Robinson, spokesmam for U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Grantville, the only Georgiab on the transportation committee, said there’s probably still time for that message. Although the Hous plans to take up a new transportation reauthorizatiohnbill soon, Robinson said the slower-movingy Senate isn’t expected to consider it untikl next year.