Donald Trump’s presidential victory and Republicans’ imminent control of both the U.S. Senate and House show a fairly clear direction for policy in 2025.
And voters in Gwinnett and Cobb counties resoundingly defeated pivotal transportation SPLOSTs that would have largely expanded bus services, including door-to-door microtransit.
So where does this leave transportation policy for the coming years?
First, suburban Atlanta voters’ decision to nix a 1% sales tax to fund several forms of mass transit sends urban planners in Gwinnett and Cobb back to the drawing board. Gwinnett voters, by a 28,000-vote margin, nixed a penny sales tax for transit for the fifth time in more than 50 years; Cobb residents killed a similar measure by 95,000.
The economy seems to be the main fallback for why Democrats think their 2024 efforts nationwide went so poorly. And supporters in Gwinnett and Cobb said as much to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the failed transit measures.
I would argue that packaging of these SPLOSTs was the second-biggest reason they failed. Cobb County opponents were very loud and kept pointing to the sheer numbers – 30 years, $11 billion – as reasons for alarm. And then they pointed to dreadful CobbLinc ridership numbers and stated the county was creating a low-demand solution that was seeking a problem.
President-elect Trump’s first administration very much stood in favor of roads versus transit. However, the 2019 infrastructure bill that Trump supported needed support and influence from Democrats to pass. That bill did contain elements on clean energy, but it largely focused on streets and bridges.
Biden’s infrastructure covered those, too, but also had many more green and climate-friendly initiatives than did Trump’s. Biden’s 2021 act also invested much more heavily in mass transit and rail, along with expanding the network of electric vehicle chargers.
The Trump team has already announced former New York congressman Lee Zeldin as his nominee for the Environmental Protection Agency.
“We will restore US energy dominance, revitalize our auto industry to bring back American jobs, and make the US the global leader of AI. We will do so while protecting access to clean air and water,” Zeldin said in a post on X.
The fact that energy dominance is in Zeldin’s opening remark on his environmental role certainly signals the EPA’s new direction. Rolling back environmental regulations will be very much on Zeldin’s agenda.
Loosening those regulations is favored by the trucking industry. For one, operational costs will go down in the freight industry. According to FleetOwner.com, Trump’s stance on increasing foreign tariffs could actually bolster trucking, too. Over time, the higher cost of importing goods should bolster domestic production and put more freight on the nation’s roads.
Of course, more heavy trucks on the streets means more wear and more traffic.
Because local counties have not been able to get mass transit initiatives enacted via the ballot box, they likely will lean into federal grants and funding to try to bolster local bus networks. How Trump and his team’s less transit-focused posture affects this is unknown. Some money from Biden’s infrastructure bill has been spoken for, and changes after the fact from the Trump Administration could take years to trickle down.
For now, Georgians have spoken. The short-term economy meant more to voters than long-term mass transit. The counties spooked people with 30-year plans and did a poor job explaining the difference between bus rapid transit versus the current buses that people know.
Doug Turnbull has covered Atlanta traffic for over 20 years and written “Gridlock Guy” since 2017. Contact him at fireballturnbull@gmail.com.
