Over the next few months Georgian’s will be bombarded by more and more and worse and worse politically driven ads for the open Senate seat and the Governor’s race. We all know those players so this column is about the issue most critical to Georgia’s future, transportation.
In the last fifty years Georgia has grown into the capital of the south in a multitude of areas. Economic development across multiple states is due in part to Georgia’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport and the Port of Savannah.
All one has to do to understand the impact of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport is to travel during the evening hours. I fly frequently and no matter where I fly from to get home one thing is clear, Hartsfield- Jackson never sleeps and almost all other airports are in some state of comparative napping. Not only are we fortunate enough to be the busiest airport on the planet but we are also the benefactors of the $32.5 billion dollar economic impact that it generates. Every day 2500 planes take off or land at Hartsfield. The take-offs and landings are carrying over 250,000 people to their next destination along with 54,000 metric tons of cargo and 60,000 metric tons of mail each month. The wages associated directly with the airport are estimated at over $4 billion annually and another $10 billion related to, but not at the airport itself.
As impressive as the airport stats sound, and they are impressive, the Port of Savannah is laying claim to being the grease to the wheels of commerce throughout the south and the nation. The Savannah port is responsible for over 350,000 jobs across Georgia or a whopping 8.3% of the workforce. The state budget gets $2.5 billion in state and local taxes each year from the port. These numbers quickly show the value of transportation to the state but freight floating or flying into Georgia has to be moved to the next point somehow and that’s where Georgia and its vast network of highways and bridges complete the picture.
Georgia has over 1200 miles of interstate highways and an incredible 121,000 miles of public roads. Each week the roads carry 5.9 million tons of freight from the ports and Hartsfield- Jackson to various destinations seemingly all using I-285 at rush hour! Would you believe that Georgia roads are traveled at a rate of over 108 billion miles per year? Are you starting to understand why our roads are in poor condition and why doing something about that is imperative? How do we sustain and even grow these most enviable assets that we created and nurtured for the last fifty years? Where will the money come from to simply maintain the roads?
To begin with the state has allocated over $200 million for the Savannah Harbor Expansion Project and Governor Deal put an additional $50 million in his 2014 budget. This level of commitment shows that state leaders understand the ports impact. The President has shown his desire to play politics with the port but the project is underway. Governor Deal has taken this “bull by the horns” and the harbor deepening will have decades of benefit.
Hartsfield- Jackson opened its new international terminal in 2012 at a cost of $1.4 billion for the 1.2 million square feet of additional space. The new runway is now handling an average of 100,000 take-offs and landings annually and is saving the airline industry $260 million a year. If it’s good for the airlines it’s good for Atlanta!
Now back to the political ads…
With the need for maintenance and improvement of our roads being so important to our economy (the ports and the airport) it is essential to elect those with experience in the process at both the state and federal levels. Road improvement dollars are not coming in fast enough to keep up with the need. Whomever is elected will be faced with the difficult decision of prioritizing the states tax dollars. It won’t be an easy decision and forward thinking is a must. This is not a hidden ad for a candidate or even a political party. It is however a reminder that the elections are coming very quickly and both parties will attack the other side as much as they will toot their own horns. As voters make their decisions about who will lead this state it would seem that experience counts. The next few years could set the stage for the next fifty….
