All eyes were on the Atlanta region the week before its one-cent sales tax ballot measure was scheduled for a vote (July 31)—as 90 board members and staff from bus and rail agencies visited July 21-24 to participate in APTA’s 2012 Transit Board Members Seminar & Board Support Employee Development Workshop, hosted by the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA).

APTA Chair Gary Thomas, APTA President & CEO Michael Melaniphy, and MARTA General Manager/Chief Executive Officer Beverly A. Scott were among those making presentations.

Speaker after speaker highlighted the need for investing in public transportation. The keynote speaker, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, gave impassioned remarks, noting that when he worked with Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal in community meetings in the 10-county area that will be affected by the ballot initiative, “traffic and congestion came up first.” Reed said traffic was one reason why Time-Warner decided last year to locate 1,000 jobs in Tampa rather than Atlanta.

“This is a regional challenge,” he said. “The leading world cities are moving towards transit. Many young people choose to live in town and not to own cars. Transportation investment is also important for the tourism industry which affects thousands of jobs.”

In reference to what has become a controversial transportation referendum, Reed said: “We’re taking on a tough problem. People all over the country are watching what we're doing.”

Catherine L. Ross, director, Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, Georgia Institute of Technology, agreed. “Transportation is economic development,” she said. “Redevelopment and regeneration needs transit from the beginning. This makes transit a fundamental part of the community in solving economic problems—jobs—rather than thinking only of what time the bus shows up.”

Ross discussed 10 growing, consolidating U.S. economic regions, saying that—although 70 percent of U.S. residents will live in a connected mega-region by 2050—“We’re not planning this way.” She said: “Changes in governance rather than government are needed; there’s a difference. We already have metropolitan planning organizations. A new governance model for mega-regions could include MPOs on steroids.”

She suggested that agreements can cross state lines as long as they don’t go against state covenants and said arrangements among state DOTs are needed to work on water, energy, and transportation issues.

“The connected economic regions will do well because there will be economic opportunities that we can take advantage of. They can be more self-sustaining and can provide transit much more efficiently so the regions can be competitive and sustain themselves financially,” added Ross.

Working together was also the theme of Edward Jennings Jr., regional administrator for Department of Housing and Urban Development Region IV in Atlanta, who suggested that transit boards could meet with housing authority boards.

“Fifty-two cents of each dollar spent is on housing and transportation,” he said. “The majority of over 700 projects funded in our region the past three years by HUD Region IV were done with the DOT.”

Jennings cited Memphis as an example of leveraging HUD and DOT funds together, adding: “Of $250 million in grants the past three years, an additional $240 million were leveraged in private investment, so it isn’t only leveraging funds among public agencies.”

MARTA Board Member Noni Ellison-Southall, left, with current and past officers of the APTA Transit Board Members Committee at the workshop in Atlanta: from second from left, Valarie McCall, the committee's new secretary; incoming Chair Fred Daniels; outgoing Chair Crystal Lyons; and past Chair Alison A. Hewitt.