Former asphalt king goes commuter rail

When Wayne Shackelford was commissioner of the state Department of Transportation, he was known as a champion of road projects.

Given his background in the engineering business and hard-nosed reputation at the DOT, Shackelford’s op-ed piece last week in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that called for alternative transportation prompted some pumped fists of vindication from the alternative transit crowd.

Granted, Shackelford’s chief argument was less Greenpeace activism than economic opportunism, but it was emphatic.

“Unless we tap every drop of every transit alternative to its fullest, the extraordinary economic growth the state has enjoyed will grind to a halt,” Shackelford wrote. “Commuter rail ... is an opportunity we cannot ignore to remove thousands of automobiles from our gridlocked roads.”

Shackelford came out publicly in favor of commuter rail in 1991, shortly after he was appointed to lead the DOT. But he left it cooling in study committees and continued to try to fight traffic problems with asphalt up until he left the position in 1999.

The former commissioner could not be reached to comment on what prompted his change of heart. But he stands in stark contrast to the Republican leadership’s position on rail transportation.

“I hesitate to commit to big [rail] projects ... without studies that show those services would be used,” says state Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, a floor leader for Gov. Sonny Perdue. “I’m not convinced people would use the train.”

David Goldberg of Smart Growth America says Shackelford’s path to alternative transportation bears the mark of inevitability. The realization was “slow in dawning,” Goldberg says. But considering the build-out in Gwinnett County, he says Shackelford is right in acknowledging that future suburban development must include rail alternatives.

“I think Shackelford was misinterpreted by a lot of people to be ideologically predisposed to roads and asphalt,” Goldberg says. “I think he would argue that he’s a pragmatist.”