Shame on Transportation Board Chair David Doss

The Atlanta streetcar aside, I was outraged by the gall of Surface Transportation Board Chair David Doss' claim that "he supports transit, too" in "Streetcar victorious" (Oct 20) while plugging the $1.4 billion managed lanes and its potential 34000 riders. Its predecessor agency, the Transportation Planning Board did a study on commuter rail, released in 2007, when building costs were, if anything, higher than today. It found that for $1.17 billion dollars, we could build ALL 7 proposed commuter rail lines (cutting off the Athens line at Tucker and the Macon line at Lovejoy, but keeping the full lines to Bremen, Canton, Gainesville, Madison and Senoia), run 12 trains on each line per day (6 in, 6 out) and get as many as 32400 riders per day. The Canton line via Marietta, in particular would have provided an option for a large number of drivers on the I-75/I-575 corridor. If this state had even a modicum of support for transit in its political leaders outside of the perimeter, we'd be in final design mode by now. As things stand, we haven't heard a peep out of GDOT about it since then.