Thomas Wheatley’s got the goods.  And I don’t just mean that in a slightly uncomfortable way.

Creative Loafing’s resident transit-psycho has obtained a 2007 analysis done for MARTA (PDF), which details all of the potential financial problems that would need to be overcome if Metro Atlanta’s Rapid Transportation Authority was ever dissolved and merged into a larger regional transportation infrastructure – as has been recently suggested by Decatur Mayor Bill Floyd and a majority of Fulton County mayors.

Among the higher hurdles that would have to be cleared:

• Any “entity” that acquired MARTA would be required to pay in full or defease (aka annul) all $1.9 billion of MARTA’s bonds and $400 million in sales tax revenue “commercial paper” notes.
• If MARTA still has withstanding “lease back” transactions on any of its railcars – Wheatley thinks that most of these have since been “unraveled” – a merger would trigger a default under the lease agreements and MARTA would be forced to give up the railcars “or require a significant termination payment”.
• If MARTA ceases to exist, the existing 1-cent sales tax in Fulton and DeKalb would also cease to exist.

Wheatley believes with an insane amount of “lawyering”, all of these issues could probably be overcome.  However, this just goes to show you, none of this is going to be EASY.