Grassroots transportation group really Astroturf?

Powerful PAC claims to have Georgians’ interests at heart, but donations from road builders cast suspicion

Georgians for Better Transportation is a powerful group “aimed at improving the transportation infrastructure throughout the state,” according to its website.

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But its mission might be better summed up this way: You absolutely can’t improve Atlanta’s traffic woes without building more and more roads.

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If GBT were to have its way, the largest piece of the state’s transportation revenue pie would be dished up to road-building and highway-widening projects.

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And it just so happens that those kind of road projects would benefit GBT’s biggest political donors.

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The companies that have donated to GBT’s political action committee, which is the group’s arm for distributing campaign contributions to state and local candidates, are almost all involved in road construction. And one single company is responsible for most of GBT’s political contributions.

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While that’s not a big surprise, it does call into question GBT’s “let’s all hold hands and fix transportation” veneer, especially since the group’s most singular focus — building roads to relieve traffic — is considered by many transportation experts to be an outdated solution that leads to even more congestion.

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“It’s called Georgians for Better Transportation, and yet almost all the funding is coming from a single company who has direct interest in building roads,” says Bill Bozarth, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, a citizen lobby group.

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Three-quarters of all the money that has gone into GBT’s PAC since 2003 ($30,000 out of $40,000) came from Yancey Bros. Co., the largest company in Georgia that sells and rents the heavy equipment used in road construction projects, according to campaign disclosure reports.

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Mike Kenn, former chairman of the Fulton County Commission and GBT’s president, counters by saying GBT has a variety of members, including Coca-Cola and Delta Airlines.

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“There are a lot of media outlets that would like to portray and are portraying us as a front for the road-building organizations, and that’s just not the case,” Kenn says, adding that “Yancey Bros. are not road builders. They sell earth-moving equipment that’s used in road building.”

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He also points out that GBT supports initiatives that don’t involve road-building, such as several bills that would aid MARTA.

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But GBT mainly concentrates on road issues — and it enjoys strong connections to the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and the Georgia Department of Transportation. In fact, the CEO and owner of Yancey Bros., James Stephenson, sits on both the GBT and GRTA boards.

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GBT recently scored big-time with a lobbying effort to change the state’s grading scale that determines which transportation projects get funded. GBT pushed for more consideration — a jump from 10 percent to 70 percent — to be given to “congestion mitigation,” which most commonly calls for road-building.

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The lobbying was effective. On Feb. 22, after months of debate, the Atlanta Regional Commission approved the drastic change.

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Transit advocates from groups such as Smart Growth America and the Sierra Club say the change — which Kenn says he pushed “behind the scenes” — would make it harder for walkable, mixed-use developments and new mass transit projects to become a reality.

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When asked whether it was appropriate to push a measure that could allow GBT donors to increase their profits, Kenn answers, “Some companies are going to benefit more directly than others, but the entire state’s economy is going to benefit from congestion relief. It touches every person who lives here, whether you’re an accountant or a construction worker.”

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MORE INFO: To read CL’s entire interview with Kenn, please visit www.whatarewefor.com.






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