UPDATE:  Wheatley isn’t impressed.

From the AJC’s Gold Dome Live blog….

House and Senate negotiators met for the first time shortly after 10 a.m. on the impasse on transportation legislation.

The meeting, announced by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle’s office, didn’t produce any immediate decisions — except an agreement for another meeting, probably on Monday or Tuesday.

Both sides were talking positive about reaching an agreement, hopefully before Day 40 of the 40-day legislative session.

The meeting lasted less than an hour, and the bulk of it involved Rep. Jay Roberts (R-Ocilla) going line by line over the changes that the House made to the governor’s original bill.

Hooray!  Now we can convince ourselves that our efforts yesterday made a difference!  (I’m sure it didn’t have anything to do with Wheatley’s “FARTA” article or all the businesspeople bused to the Capitol as documented in April Hunt’s recent AJC piece.)

Last year, transit trolls breathed a sigh of relief when the Atlanta Regional Commission stepped in and saved MARTA.  But at the same time, many worried that the “bailout” wasted a LOT of momentum.  Here’s how I summed it up last May…

Pissed lawmakers were giving the inside scoop on committee meetings, MARTA was calling for special sessions, we had the House Majority Leader on record saying he went to Disney World more often than he rode MARTA (and therefore couldn’t see the benefits to his Isle of Retirement (St. Simons.)

Yesterday, a piece by CL’s Thomas Wheatley brought out worries that not enough is being done to revive that sort of fervor prior to the end of Georgia’s legislative session next week.  As if she was reading our calls for action, the AJC’s April Hunt comes through this morning with a recap of what’s still being done to get some form of “transportation bill” through the Georgia legislature.

A slew of action alerts from transportation advocates of different stripes have landed in e-mail accounts, exhorting people to call their legislators in favor of passing a bill. Lobbyists for the Metro Atlanta Chamber have headed to the state Capitol, concerned CEOs of big Georgia companies in tow, warning of the consequences of inaction. The Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce bused in 300 business people last week to hobnob with legislators and talk about the jobs to be created by expanding transportation — or to be forgone if legislation sputters out like last year and the year before. They wore buttons that said “New Transportation Funding: Finish the Job.” Now they’ve created a “Finish the Job” logo and launched a Facebook page.

You can join the “Finish the Job” Facebook page HERE.

Hunt also quotes Rep. Jay Roberts – the chair of the House transportation committee – as saying that his office “hasn’t been inundated” with responses to get a bill passed.

Well, here’s Mr. Roberts email address:  jay.roberts@house.ga.gov Inundate away!