The current MARTA Act of 1965 requires the agency to spend 50 percent for operations, and 50 percent for capital improvements. Such a repeal of the sales tax restrictions would give MARTA an extra $65 million toward closing the current funding gap. These drastic cuts would hit Black Atlantans especially hard. More than 76 percent of MARTA's rail and bus riders are African Americans and other people of color; and more than 63 percent of users have a household income of less than $30,000.
Ironically, many transit dependent and poor blacks from Atlanta's demolished public housing developments have been pushed into Clayton County. On March 31, Clayton County is scheduled to shut down C-Tran, bus service operated by MARTA, because of a budget shortfall of $1.3 million. More than half of C-Tran riders have no regular access to a car. Local residents take about 2 million rides a year on C-Tran. In 2006, Clayton County had an estimated population of 271,240, with a racial make-up of 20.4% white non-Hispanic, 62.9% African American, 5% Asian, 11.3% Hispanic or Latino, 0.4% American Indian or Alaska Naive, and 0.1% Pacific Islander. 1.5% were reported as multi-racial.
As MARTA goes broke and as Atlanta's black population shrinks, a $2.8 billion quasi-governmental organization known as Atlanta BeltLine Inc., is leading one of the largest redevelopment projects in the country that will create light-rail transit, green space, trails, and new development along 22 miles of rail segments that encircle the many of the city's historic urban core. When completed in 2030, the BeltLine Project is projected to create 1,300 acres of new parks, green space, and trail construction, and 28,000 new homes. However, there is a down side. In a 2007 report, The Beltline and Rising Home Prices, Georgia Tech real estate and community development expert Dan Immergluck found city and school property taxes on homes within an eighth-mile of the TAD along the BeltLine's southern side increased 68 percent since the project was announced (compared to 32 percent for a home located a mile from the TAD). In some neighborhoods property values skyrocketed as much as 174 percent, especially in heavily black Southwest Atlanta. Professor Immergluck warned that if the city does not set up tax breaks and incentives that support low-income homeowners to keep their houses, the BeltLine will "create a circle of wealth and an outer ring of concentrated poverty."
The BeltLine moved forward with the blessing of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and other city leaders despite a Georgia Supreme Court ruling in February 2008 that school property tax money cannot be used to help fund the massive loop of transit, trails and parks around the city's core. The project has fueled real estate speculation by developers eager to build upscale homes near the green space. It has also heightened residents' fears of displacement--even though no track had been laid. Houses that once appraised at $30,000 now appraise at more than $150,000. Such sharp increases hit elderly, low-income, and homeowners living on fixed income especially hard--greatly increasing the likelihood they will be pushed out their homes and their neighborhoods. Atlanta's black residents are finding themselves with drastically higher property taxes, or in some cases, on the verge of displacement.
Over the next 25 years, using a tax allocation district or TAD--known elsewhere as tax increment financing (TIF), Atlanta residents can expect to see an estimated $2.8 billion dollars of investment surge into the old railway line. The storm surge from Hurricane Katrina swept thousands of black families from their homes in New Orleans East and the Ninth Ward. The question in Atlanta is will blacks and low-income families be swept away in the surge created by the BeltLine Project?
No Stimulus for Black-Owned Businesses
Atlanta needs a strong and healthy regional transit system.Transit projects are the most effective way of reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT), congestion, and emissions. Transit projects have a multiplier effect from environmentally friendly technology to renewed development in underserved areas. They also offer a less sprawl-inducing and less costly way to accommodate the anticipated 300,000 people that will be added to Atlanta's population by 2030.
Every $1 invested in public transportation generates $6 in local economic activity. Every $1 billion invested in public transportation infrastructure supports approximately 47,500 jobs. Investment in green transportation and clean energy could save money and save lives. The clean energy investment agenda could improve the accessibility and convenience, improve air quality, and reduce air-pollution related illnesses. Metro Atlantans could save 1 - 4 percent of their incomes if they increase their use of public transportation to between 25 percent and 50 percent of their local travel. Households that limit their use to one car could reduce their living costs by roughly 10 percent.
Nationally, and in Metro Atlanta, African Americans businesses are getting shorted in stimulus contracts under the Recovery Act. According to statistics from the Transportation Equity Network (TEN), in December 2009, the U.S. Department of Transportation had awarded $163.8 million in direct contract, with only $16.8 million, or about 10 percent, going to minority-owned businesses, $4.7 million, or about 3 percent, had been awarded to Hispanic-owned firms. No black-owned firm had received a single contract from the DOT stimulus pot of money. The shortchanging of black and other minority firms has trickled down to local governments.
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