Given the hostility at a in East Cobb to the proposed metro Atlanta regional transportation SPLOST, the results of a new poll suggesting changing attitudes in key suburban areas may be surprising.
As The Atlanta Journal-Constitution detailed the poll results on Monday, the passage of the TSPLOST next summer could very well hinge on how the vote goes down in Cobb and Gwinnett.
Voters in the 10-county TSPLOST area will either approve or reject the penny sales tax across the board, regardless of the results in individual counties.
The Mason-Dixon results showed support for TSPLOST from only 51 percent of voters polled, with slightly less than half in favor from Cobb.
Both Cobb and Gwinnett famously refused to join MARTA when the public transit system was created in the early 1970s, and much of the current TSPLOST opposition in Cobb is over a proposed light rail station between the Cumberland Area and the MARTA Arts Station that would eat up most of Cobb's nearly $900 million share of the anticipated $6.1 billion sales tax revenues.
But rapid growth over the last 40 years, coupled with changing demographics, might also affect the vote.
Most political leaders in Cobb who have spoken publicly on TSPLOST have expressed some form of opposition, including all the candidates who recently qualified for the open state House District 43 seat in Northeast Cobb.
Cobb legislative delegation chairman Rep. Ed Setzler (R-Acworth) is proposing an alternative to the Cumberland station plan. Only state Sen. Doug Stoner of Smyrna, whose district includes the Cumberland area, has come out in favor of light rail.
While debates abound about whether light rail , and whether it will have the ridership , longstanding suburban concerns about crime don't appear to engender as much emotion as they once did.
At the East Cobb hearing at Walton High School, the only question raised about crime and public transit was asked by a Boy Scout.
But others attending the hearing said it's long overdue for Cobb to join the rest of metro Atlanta in linking up to light rail.
The other line of opposition has come from Tea Party organizations, which are deeply critical even of the public proceedings leading up to the mid-October deadline for finalizing the draft list of projects to be included in the referendum.
Tom Maloy, a board member of the Georgia Tea Party, wrote on Powder Springs Patch on Monday that last week's Atlanta Regional Roundtable public hearing was "contrived," and that Cobb residents are being "railroaded" (some pun intended) .
Like many Cobb light rail opponents who spoke up at Walton and elsewhere, Maloy called the Cumberland plan a "boondoggle."
Whether that station is ever built may depend on how many people agree with Maloy.
The metro area's traffic, pollution and lack of transit are major factors driving businesses away from Atlanta or keeping them from moving here. If we do nothing or we just spend the tsplost on roads we will find in ten years that our home prices have plummeted because East Cobb is now a 3 hour commute to downtown Atlanta and the air in the summer is too brown to breath.
We need options that reduce the use of personal vehicles, streamline traffic flow to create efficiency, and reduce the number of accidents. Better yet, I wish the outer suburbs were doing more to create localized smart growth (higher density, mixed use developments) making it easier for people to work at professional jobs right in their own part of Cobb County and be able to get there easily and quickly by walking or biking.
Check out Canton and Woodstock. Very people friendly places to live. Are you originally from here or just young and ill informed.