A question-and-answer session on the regional Transportation Investment Act, also referred to as the TSPLOST, with Rockdale County Commission Chairman Richard Oden and Conyers Mayor Randy Mills will be held Tuesday, July 19, 6 p.m. at the JP Carr Community Center, 981 Taylor Street. The panel will be facilitated by Kathryn Lawler of the Atlanta Regional Commission.

The Atlanta regional roundtable and the executive committee is in the process of boiling down the $12.2 billion draft constrained list to $6.1 billion, the amount project to be raised by the one percent sales tax over 10 years. The initial unconstrained wish-list had $22.9 billion in requests. The final list will go before voters next July.

Two Rockdale projects that were on the wish list were cut on the ARC staff-generated draft constrained list.

Projects still on the list were: Sigman Road corridor widening from Lester Road to Dogwood Drive, Commerce Crossing overpass over I-20, Salem Road widening from Flat Shoals Road to Old Salem Road, Flat Shoals Road widening from Salem Road to Old Salem Road, and realignment of Old Salem Road intersection with 138.

Conyers city Councilman Vince Evans, who substituted for Mills during a July 7 ARC workshop, said he felt good about the chances that many of Rockdale’s projects would make it through the process.

“There’s all kind of projects that were submitted,” said Evans. “We submitted what we thought was reasonable to submit. We didn’t ask for the world. It’s conservative in nature, but if we got the projects we asked for, it would go a long way to making our traffic situations so much better.”

The Roundtable is made up of a county commission chairman and one mayor from each of the 12 counties in the metro Atlanta area. The gate-keeping Roundtable Executive Committee, made up of Henry County Chairman B.J. Mathis, Douglas County Chairman Tom Worthan, Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd, Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, and non-voting chairman Norcross Mayor Bucky Johnson, will next meet July 21 at the Atlanta Regional Commission. For more information, go to www.atlantaregionalroundtable.com.