Council Representative Reminds Voters About TSPLOST's Local Impact

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the July 31 TSPLOST vote, but Ward 1 Smyrna City Council Representative Melleny Pritchett thinks one key point about the referendum has been overlooked.

“If this TSPLOST passes, the city of Smyrna will receive between $8.5 and $9 million of the money,” she said at . “It will come to the city directly from the TSPLOST. It won’t go to the county. It will come directly to us (…) Nobody’s talking about that. I haven’t heard much about it. It’s all about the big picture, but it does benefit the actual cities.” 

According to the Atlanta Regional Commission, 85 percent of the funding collected from the TSPLOST would be used to fund a list of 157 approved transportation projects throughout metro Atlanta. The remaining 15 percent would be distributed to local jurisdictions like cities and counties based on a formula that calculates a municipality’s population and roadway mileage.

Each local governing body then decides how to use the funding. The money can be used for projects like road maintenance and resurfacing, sidewalks, transit services and roadways.

Pritchett said if passed, the city will ask citizens what they’d like the money to be used for at public meetings. A project list will be created from these suggestions.

According to the Cobb County Department of Transportation, Smyrna is estimated to receive $8,584,041. Of that money $5 million is designated for road improvements, $1 million is designated for sidewalks and $2,584,041 is designated for resurfacing.

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