EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an ongoing series to educate Cobb voters prior to the transit tax referendum that will be on the Nov. 5 ballot.
If you build it, will they come?
That’s the $11 billion question Cobb County voters will weigh before heading to the polls on Nov. 5. The trouble is, no one has the answer.
In addition to voting for the slate of public offices on the ballot, Cobb residents will approve or reject a 30-year, 1% sales tax to fund transit expansion. The referendum is being pushed by the three-member Democratic majority on the Cobb Board of Commissioners, led by Chairwoman Lisa Cupid.
If approved, the Mobility Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (M-SPLOST) would collect $11 billion to construct 108 miles of rapid bus routes, half a dozen new transit centers and a countywide system of on-demand “microtransit” service. Cobb’s sales tax would rise from 6% to 7%.
As the MDJ previously reported, ridership on Cobb’s existing bus system was down 73% from 2013 to 2022, going from 3.7 million annual trips to just shy of 1 million annual trips.
For opponents of Cobb’s proposed 30-year, 1% transit tax, shrinking ridership on the county’s bus system is exhibit A for why not to vote for the tax, illustrating a lukewarm-at-best appetite for public transportation among Cobb residents.
For supporters, though, that’s comparing apples and oranges.
Simply citing low ridership on the existing CobbLinc system ignores the fact that the M-SPLOST would transform Cobb’s…
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