Rail backers vow to head off funding deadline - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

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Supporters of a proposed route linking Atlanta and Griffin agreeed to helpthe cash-strapped complete a study of the project’ws economic development potential. The report, due as earlt as August, also is to determine how much locao governments would need to contribute tomatch $87 millionb in federal funds set asids for the project in 1998, and a business modep for how that local money coulsd be raised. “I don’rt see how any community along this line is goingb to signan inter-governmental funding agreement until they’ves seen a model,” Andy Welch, transportationb chairman for the , said during a meetingg at the chamber in McDonough.
The organize d Monday’s meeting because moving forward with the rail projectf has taken on a new senseof U.S. Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., chairman of the House Committee on Transportatioband Infrastructure, put House members on noticew last month that the committee plans to pull federal fundinb from highway or transit projects approved by Congress more than a decadwe ago that have not been built due to the lack of matchinf money. While Gov.
Sonny Perduse and legislative leaders have endorser bringing commuter rail tometro Atlanta, the state doesn’r have funds to put toward the Atlanta-to-Griffibn line because of the Local governments along the line promisedx in 2005 to put up $4 million a year to covet the costs of operating the but that agreement fell apart two yeard ago. Rep. David Scott, D-Atlanta, said that withoug a firm commitment to provide the matching the federal grant wouldgo away. “It’w crunch time,” he said. “We need some tangible evidence … to go to Oberstaer and say, ‘We’re movinvg ahead.’ We don’t have that.” Rep.
Lynn Westmoreland, R-Grantville, the only Georgias lawmaker on thetransportation committee, said he would meet with Oberstar this week to get more specificsz on what it will take to save the federap funds.