By Johnny Edwards

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

With just two scheduled meetings left before a panel of elected officials signs off on the $6.1 billion transportation project list to put before voters, the transit vs. roads debate that has brewed throughout the drafting process may be about to boil over.

It’s an issue that’s causing friction between counties — and within them — as a 21-member panel works on a list that will go before voters in 10 counties in a referendum next summer. A 10-year, 1-cent sales tax would fund the list’s transit and roadway projects in hopes of loosening metro Atlanta’s stagnating gridlock.

Cobb Commission Chairman Tim Lee, responding to outcry voiced at public forums, said at Wednesday’s regional roundtable meeting that he wants to add a list of road projects that didn’t make the cut, and reduce funding for a controversial rail line that would run from MARTA’s Arts Center station to Cumberland Mall.

The change would make the rail line’s completion uncertain. While Lee said the line could be finished with federal dollars, the funding isn’t a sure thing.

“There’s no guarantee that we’ll get it,” Kennesaw Mayor Mark Mathews said.

Clayton Commission Chairman Eldrin Bell is continuing his campaign to re-include a commuter rail line running from Atlanta into Clayton and Henry counties, envisioned as eventually linking to Macon.

And DeKalb County CEO Burrell Ellis threw down a gauntlet, of sorts, announcing that he wants funding for MARTA’s I-20 east line beefed up from $297 million to $522 million. Some of the money, he said, should come out of the $172.5 million allocated for the Ga. 400/I-285 interchange overhaul, a project viewed as benefiting north Fulton.

Ellis called the MARTA line “critically important,” and said since Ga. 400 is a toll road, that project could leverage more federal dollars. The total project is

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