Sales Tax Increase Passed, Roads to be Improved
South Cobb Drive, clogged morning, noon and night from Marietta to the Fulton County line, will be widened to six lanes.
Acworth Due West Road, in fast-growing west Cobb, where frustrated drivers often sit on a crowded two-lane through four or five light changes, will gain turn lanes and other safety improvements.
At I-285 and Atlanta Road, about $37 million will be spent to rebuild an interchange where traffic can back up for miles waiting to turn left across oncoming traffic.
None of this -- nor dozens more similar projects -- would be coming if not for a mere 100 votes that brought victory Tuesday for a 1 percent special purpose local option sales tax in Cobb County. The tax will finance the largest public works project in the county's history.
With the narrow margin -- which became more solid Wednesday -- officials plan to spend $1.2 billion to ease congestion and improve safety on hundreds of miles of increasingly busy roadways across the county.
"Anyone in Cobb County that has to drive during peak hours has to at least acknowledge to themselves that some roads need to be expanded," said Susan Bentzen-Gordet of Marietta, who voted for the tax. "Whether we like it or not, more people move into Cobb all the time. We need to invest in road improvements for our health and sanity."
Cobb's sales tax will go from 5 percent to 6 percent on the dollar in January, but it could be months more before motorists start seeing the orange barrels that herald traffic construction. The six-year tax also will finance a new jail and a new courthouse and bring high-tech communications gear to police.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES
86% Road improvements
8% New jail
4% New court building
2% Emergency communications
BY THE NUMBERS
6%: Sales tax in Cobb*, Fayette and Gwinnett counties
7%: Sales tax in Clayton, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton, Henry, Paulding and Rockdale counties
8%: Sales tax in city of Atlanta
* effective Jan. 1, 2006
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