James March-April 2025 web - Flipbook - Page 40
RIDE GWINNETT THE COUNTY’S PUBLIC
comprising 33.3 percent 2000 to 49.5
percent in 2023, according to Census
data. And yet Masino says the county
has a magic “ability to work together
and get big things done.”
“There’s just something in the
DNA that I don’t think exists in other municipalities where the cities,
county, nonprofits and other organizations work together,” he continued.
“We have 17 cities, five CIDs and the
county, which is the largest municipal
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MARCH //A PR I L 2 02 5
and a half ago when we had Gwinnett
Medical Center.” (Gwinnett Medical
was renamed Northside Hospital
Gwinnett after Northside merged with
it in 2019.)
Ride Gwinnett, its public transit
system, offers bus and paratransit services. But it’s limited, and the county’s
two voter referendums asking residents to approve expanding MARTA
into Gwinnett, including the addition
of a 1 percent sales tax, were defeated
TRANSPORTATION SERVICE PROVIDER
in 2019 and 2020.
With 53 percent of residents voting
government in the state and the school against a non-MARTA 1 percent transportation SPLOST last year, Hendrickdistrict is the largest in the state and
son said it’s unlikely that Gwinnett
the 11th largest in the United States.”
will have another transit referendum
Gwinnett does occasionally fail
anytime soon.
in its improvement efforts, he said,
“While people have expressed
pointing to residents’ no votes on a
frustration with traffic, they don’t want
special-purpose local-option sales taxto pay for a solution,” she said. “Not
es (SPLOST) in 2024 and around 2009.
only do they not want it, but they hold
However, Masino added, “We can
decades-old claims it’s because of the
work on really big things in the comcrime and lower property values that
munity. There was a decision to bring
heart surgeries to the county a decade MARTA will bring. Those are the same
