Can Atlanta's traffic problem be solved on a regional basis?

The problem is there are fictional beliefs that we are over taxed which is far from it and all government is bad. So people keep voting against their own best interests. So anything involving raising income will be voted down.

As I looked at the TSPLOST projects, most of what I saw was replace asphalt with more asphalt. An "intersection improvement" will only move the clog to the next intersection.
Any decent business person understands the productive merit of economy of scale. If a business making 1000 widgets is expanded to making 100,000 widgets in the same time frame, the accepted way to do this is to mass produce the widgets. We are STILL thinking about transportation in a one-at-a-time manner. One person + One car = One traffic mess. The HOV lanes made so little impact on commutes the savings in fuel will never recoup the cost of painting double stripes and adding the signs. The cost of the pay-lane lands in the "total boondoggle" category.
In 2008 when gas prices spiked to $5 a gallon, traffic dropped and mass transit became very crowded. So we know what the pain point is that forces a behaviour change. What we need is a working solution before the pain hits. MARTA is woefully tiny. The public is woefully ill-informed of the need to provide funding for a total rethink of our transportation system for a multi-million transports a day need.
Our political leaders, the ones we pay to evaluate needs, raise resources and provide solutions, are pathetically inept at doing the job we pay them for. Instead of leading with a well-devised plan with good analysis of the problem and intelligent proposals with a timed budget, they punted the decision to the public at large.
Adequate is NOT enough.

Isn't it unlikely that any politician is going to stick their neck out on any transportation related funding now?

If there's any hope now, maybe it would be for smart, focused projects vs. a "big bang" approach like T-SPLOST.

For example, time all the traffic lights so traffic actually flows. Have you ever noticed how a dozen cars will sit at a red light for several minutes when there's no cross-traffic? Or, as soon as a light turns green, a few hundred feet ahead the next light suddenly turns red? Most cities have "intelligent traffic lights". Atlanta doesn't. I think that would go a long ways to helping our intown traffic situation.

Roger That, I couldn't say it better so I will just quote you.
"TSPLOST was a message to us: "Vote for this, or else!" Wait until the light is shined upon the money that has already been mis-appropriated! How do you trust someone you gave a dollar to go to the store and buy a loaf of bread who comes back with a half eaten bacon sandwich? Fire the porkers! Vote them out!"

the way to fix the traffic problem is to offer an incentive to drive less and use public transportation and carpool more. Do this by raising the cost drivers have to pay. Increase the gas tax and install toll roads. TSPLOST's premise was to improve conditions so we can cram more cars on the road while increasing the public transportation infrastructure. News flash- people dont ride marta because its more convenient and less expensive to drive. If you want to create a demand for public transportation, make it less convenient and more expensive. I voted against TSPLOST because without doing anything, traffic will become so bad that the demand for public trans. will increase.

I made many calls for 'Untie Atlanta' to promote the TSPLOST; people were confused by the non-transportation projects like the Atlanta Beltline, they distrust GA/DOT to get the job done, they distrust metro & state elected officials to keep commitments, & they felt left out of the early process and see 'favoritism' in the projects. Lastly, the sales tax had low support. The Governor is ducking 'blame' by dropping any leadership, a disappointing political posture. Metro-Atlanta is key to Georgia growth & Gov. Deal has primary responsiblity to re-ignite this process.

Peter:
You sound like you were actually LISTENING while you advocated. The people you volunteered and sweated for -- establishment elite, pols and corporatizers didn't and apparently still aren't--and haven't LEARNED anything. They said it was voter responsibility to "show" the rest of the world how serious Atlanta is about correcting its problems. No, no, no--its leader responsibility to do that--they are the ones with the bully pulpit, the press, the PR dough. Now Governor Deal says he isn't going to do diddly. He didn't learn the lesson--the world is watching yes--watching HIM--NOT you and me.

These guys didn't accept their responsibility when they put everything on our backs with a referendum tax that was the absolutley worst approach--and CONTINUE to dodge their responsibility. There's going to be trouble.

Jordan,
I just ran for school board district 4 in DeKalb County. My paltry 1700 votes I count as outstanding success given my total contact time was 6 weeks from totally unknown and only 3000 direct contacts.
I intend to run again in 2014 when the redistricting forces a county-wide free-for-all. My election site is http://electjimkinney.org
Thank you for the complement on my writing on the TSPLOST. I really do want to see transportation improve to meet at least the early 1900s in Paris and New York. If we manage to make a leap to being recognized as a "Forward Thinking Metropolitan Area", I, and several million other people, would be totally astounded. It's a solid goal but reality is the likely best we will ever do is meet 20-30% of the perceived need. Politicians make lousy engineers.

The responsible way to relieve the transportation problems in the whole of Georgia is to start immediately on the "Northern Arc", going from I-75 east to I-85 and then South down to I-20. Require trucks that don't have stops in the Atlanta area to use the Northern Arc. Several benefits to doing this......1) Relieve traffice, 2) Reduct our dirty air problem and 3) Revive a lot of small towns that were decimated when the big Interstates came through which would give these folks a higher standard of living and 4) make a lot of trips shorter milewise and timewise. I'd vote for a referendum proposing this.....how 'bout you.....c'mon, let's hear from you on this

bulldogger (and Jordan),
I-285 was the solution to trucks going through downtown Atlanta. Over the last 30 years, the truck traffic has increased but nowhere near as much as the car traffic. The cost of building a major highway through one of the most expensive areas of Metro Atlanta is a substantial roadblock (joke intended) to the Northern Arc. Once the usual unscrupulous secret land grabs happened, and the media got wind of the profiteering, the Northern Arc died quickly as it looked to be more of a way to line politicians pockets as their friends bought lots to be purchased by GDOT for the project.

Jordan Fox, as to your number 2 - well, maybe you couldn't enforce it, but you could make I-75, I-85 and I-20 toll roads for truckers only, require them to drive in the outside lane only and make the tolls so high that they would want to use the northern arc......you know, something like the GA/DOT did to taxpayers in Georgia when they confiscated the "Inside Lanes" on I-85 and required drivers to pay a toll if they wanted to use it. We had already paid for that highway one time and now we're paying for the re-doing of it so the GA/DOT can charge drivers (stupid drivers, I might add) to use it. If everyone had refused to use it, it would eventually have been returned to a HOV lane......this is coercion on the part of our state and should not have been tolerated by our legislators. No Jordon Fox, it can be done but we have to have the intestinal fortitude to do it.

At my Neighborhood Planning Unit [R] meeting last night, I asked the representative of a Councilmember what was the conversation amongst Atlanta City Councilmembers about "Plan B". As of now, there appears to be nothing to report.
Perhaps when the NPU-R Transportation Committee becomes functional, NPU-R residents and stakeholders will have a vehicle for the assimilation and promotion of their thoughts on the matter.

The failure of TSPLOST makes MARTA the best tool we have to service future growth. While growth will bring more congestion we can mitigate that congestion by guiding future new jobs and residences to locate near MARTA rail or well serviced bus corridors.
Currently MARTA rail only operates at 1/3 capacity. This means we can add more riders at little additional cost. Adding riders by locating more jobs and residences near transit increases fairbox recovery rates. And though transit service on the Beltline will not happen as soon as hoped the trail itself will increase access to MARTA and increase job and housing density in the MARTA service area. The Auburn/Edgewood Streetcar also offers opportunities for congestion mitigating growth. Fort McPhearson is another example, not far from Downtown and next to its own MARTA Station hopefully this area will get renewed attention now that people realize the commute up 400 or through Gwinnett will not be improving.

A major issue with any rapid transit project is proximity. Many people don't want to be near the rail lines for noise reasons. It's a very valid quality of life issue. Steel wheels are horribly loud. Heavy rail also requires chopping up neighbourhoods for tracks.
DisneyWorld uses rubber tires and elevated monorails. They are quiet and apparently very cost effective for maintenance. With some judicious planning, the support columns can be installed to minimize yard encroachment and made tall enough to be a visual minimum impact.
Yes, people will raise a stink about "lowering property values near a transit line". The neighbourhoods adjacent to the current MARTA lines are significantly more expensive than those outside of walking distance to a station. There is a temporary decline (3-5 years) as people who would never use a mass transit facility move away then property values climb above where they were before the stations was built. What I don't know is increase rate adjacent to a monorail since very few US locations use them.
Interlocking loops of monorails can be used in this manner to link high density/value residential areas above the major arterial streets joining homes to commercial districts and heavy rail facilities. I can envision these as loops between the major MARTA rail lines that allow for rapid movement diagonally across town both inside and outside the perimeter.

This talk about "drive less"... with severely lacking public transportation options in Atlanta, that's impractical for most people. These days, people's jobs change faster than they can sell a home and relocate. Moving closer to your workplace just isn't practical or affordable for many.

To the question at hand... I think T-SPOLST was killed -- not because it wasn't well designed. Sure, you can poke holes all over it. But we all know most voters probably didn't look at the plans. T-SPLOST was likely viewed by most simply as a tax. A tax with a horrible name. ** T-SPLOST ** Who would vote FOR something called T-SPLOST when all they think about it is, it's a tax on transportation. (I bet simply calling it the 'Traffic and Transportation Improvement Program' would have given it a lot more votes!)

With the economy in recovery, a tax is the last thing many people want right now.

I voted in favor of it. I'll gladly sacrifice a bottle of wine each month for all the improvements (assuming they'd actually take form) over the next 5-10 years.