The future of Atlanta traffic and the Atlanta economy will be decided today, if you ask the supports of the transportation referendum.

Or a bad plan will be sent packing and we will try again, according to the opponents.

The endless hours of debate and advertising ends today as voters in 10 metro Atlanta counties will decide the TSPLOST referendum once and for all.

“This is an historic opportunity,” Dave Williams, Vice President of Transportation for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, told News/Talk WSB Scott Slade during a debate Monday. “We are on our backs from an economic development standpoint. Traffic congestion is choking us.”

“I am not opposed to the TSPLOST referendum conceptually,” said Steen Miles, Co-Founder of the Georgia Tea Party Patriots. “I am adamantly opposed to it as it now stands.”

Miles says she is worried about that it has been not definitively decided “who will mind the store.” She also says there should be more for light and heavy rail.

“Send it back, tweak it, fix it, and bring it back in two years,” said Miles.

Because of the TSPLOST, voter turnout is expected to be around 25-30 percent, unusually high for a general primary. By comparison, only 18.6 percent of voters punched their ballot for the general primary in 2008.

“The higher turnout so far that has been reported is in Cobb, Cherokee, north Fulton and Gwinnett,” said News/Talk WSB political analyst Bill Crane. “Those areas are poling 3-to-1 against the TSPLOST.”

Perhaps the heaviest turnout for Tuesday’s election will be in Cherokee County.

“I think folks are coming out,” said Cherokee County Elections Supervisor Janet Munda.

That could be an understatement. Even before the polls opened on Tuesday, early and absentee voters cast more ballots than all voters did in the 2008 primary, she said.

“I think it’s the TSPLOST,” explained Munda. “We could have close to 50 percent turnout.”

Munda said about 10 percent of all eligible voters in Cherokee County have cast early ballots. The turnout could also be increased in Cherokee because of hotly contested primary races for sheriff and tax commissioner. Incumbent Sheriff Roger Garrison faces fellow Republican David Walters. In the primary battle for tax commissioner, incumbent Sonya Little, who took over when David Fields resigned last year, faces challengers Kenny Phelps and Robert Wilkie.

The latest round of polling shows the TSPLOST supporters will almost have to pull off a miracle to get the referendum passed.

Only 35 percent of voters said they were going to vote yes on the one cent sales tax, while 55 percent are going the other way. 10 percent are undecided according to the poll commissioned by WSB-TV/Rosetta Stone Communications.

“The people voting no start out with a base vote of about 35 percent who vote against any and every tax increase,” said Crane. “So they only had to sway 16 percent (of undecided voters) in that direction. Those pushing this have to get half of voters, plus one. That’s the bigger challenge.”

Those pushing the TSPLOST have certainly spent the coin to get it through.

Recent election campaign filings showed the main pro-referendum group, Citizens for Transportation Mobility, had raised nearly $6.5 million as of mid-July while an opposition group — the Transportation Leadership Coalition — had raised less than $15,000.

Also on the ballot are two non-binding referendums on the finance cap for legislators and the expansion of the lottery into video gambling machines.