Business Leaders Told to Organize to Advance Transportation Projects

The state’s transportation department is looking to partner with groups like the Perimeter Community Improvement Districts in the face of rising debt and a struggle to provide for new transportatipn projects, Commissioner Keith Golden told business leaders last week.

The message came at the newly-formed Perimeter Business Alliance Friday. The message is encouraging in the face of recent projects like the “diverging diamond” interchange at Ashford Dunwoody and I-285 that was jump-started by the PCIDs.

GDOT has faced downsizing, and a future of bleak revenues, and is strapped by a debt servivce that is projected to be 18 percent of its budget in 2013, according to Golden.

“Current revenue streams are not adequate to fund our transportation needs in Georgia,” Golden said.

Public-private partnerships are one of GDOT’s immediate focus areas and community improvement districts such as the PCIDs are important to GDOT, Golden said.

“There is a synergy and results driven partnership between the Georgia Department of Transportation and the PCIDs,” Golden said.