Pollution Threat Outweighs Traffic Congestion Concerns

"It's no surprise then that state Transportation Board Chairman Mike Evans had nothing but high praise earlier this month for a $25-billion-plus roads-only plan put forth by the libertarian Reason Foundation and the conservative Georgia Public Policy Foundation. Or that state House Transportation Committee member Vance Smith provided a welcome ear when the road-builder-dominated Georgians for Better Transportation proposed an apparent tax increase -- under which a 1 percent sales tax hike would replace the gas tax -- to pay for car-and-truck-oriented projects."

"The pro-highway crowd is pitching such prescriptions as its antidote to traffic congestion. Those who support a more balanced approach point out that more roads inevitably bring more traffic."

"But limiting the whole transportation debate to the issue of traffic congestion ignores what may be the greater problem: air pollution. Public health experts say hundreds to thousands of metro Atlantans die prematurely from problems related to the bad air, and that thousands more suffer such maladies as asthma and lung disease."