State Senate leaders Monday revealed a plan that would virtually gut Georgia's Department of Transportation. The proposal announced by Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers strips all but oversight responsibility from the DOT Board and from DOT Commissioner Gena Evans. However, Rogers was quick to point out that the measure is not so much a slap in the face to the DOT. Instead he says, it's a recognition that the massive job at hand to solve Georgia's transportation issues may be too much for the department to handle:
"The transportation process in Georgia for delivering transportation projects is broken...Georgians deserve better. We spend billions of dollars on transportation, but we're not solving the problem. We're not laying all this at the feet of the DOT...that's not what this is all about."In the proposal, the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority and State Road and Tollway Authority would fall into a newly-created entity--the State Transportation Authority.
Georgia DOT would retain inspection and maintenance responsibilities, but much of the road building could be awarded to private companies.
