h/t Rusty, as reported in the Marietta Daily Journal:

Despite metro-Atlanta’s population now more than 5 million and growing, Cagle dismissed ideas for a light rail system in the metro area.

“The jury is still out on light rail,” he said. “We don’t have the density that can substantiate light rail.”

Meanwhile, in Boston, the costs of the Big Dig continue to skyrocket:

Two top state officials on Monday expressed concerns about the Big Dig’s rising price tag, with Lt. Gov. Tim Murray worrying that the megaproject could take more funds away from other projects and Treasurer Tim Cahill saying state taxpayers shouldn’t be asked for another project bailout.

The Patrick administration plans to tackle the Big Dig’s costs - potentially $333 million higher than the latest estimate - as part of a broader effort to rehaul state transportation financing policies, Murray said.

The Georgia Public Policy Foundation, the Reason Foundation, and Georgians for Better Transportation have done a remarkable job of feeding at the trough. With only a few hundreds-of-thousands of dollars worth of investment, the roadbuilding interests they represent earn back billions of dollars in unneeded highway infrastructure investment.

And now they want to bring the Big Dig to Georgia, calling it the fiscally responsible thing to do? Who are they kidding? And who is Casey kidding, to think that tunnels under Atlanta, or a 23-lane-wide highway through Cobb County will solve anything? They will solve nothing. The tax base will never be able to sustain this obscene level of funding to maintain the highways, mostly because the consumers making up that tax base would be paying so much to maintain their own cars.

New roads are fine, as far as I’m concerned — small, connecting roads that strengthen the grid. Even as America’s governments continue to do nothing about the ongoing infrastructure crisis, a cabal of highway lobbyists continue to steer our elected officials astray in asking them to overinvest in precisely the wrong types of transportation infrastructure. It’s a shame because it’s my generation that’s going to pay for a bulk of that infrastructure in an age of declining oil supplies.

Meanwhile, in the next couple of weeks, I’m likely going to sell my car. Thankfully, I can find ways to contribute a little less to all this madness.