No
Substitute for Building More Roads
Your
article, “Straws in
the Wind” (April 12, 2004), ignores at least
the last 18 years of transportation history and the
current realities of transportation funding. It
makes me wonder what planet you have been on the
last two decades. Your criticism is inappropriately
aimed at VDOT when it should be directed at the
historic political leadership that ignored funding
sufficient improvements of the transportation
infrastructure — just as they have ignored
sufficient funding of education, higher education,
health and human services, and a myriad of other
State responsibilities. And many of whom, in my
judgment, are ignoring the needs of today’s
Virginians.
I
served in the Baliles Administration when
transportation became a priority. The Baliles
initiative was intended to address critical access,
safety, and capacity problems and do so over a 10-
to 12-year time frame. It is now 18 years later and
much of the spending for transportation is still
grounded on the funds raised by that initiative.
With
regard to highways, I strongly support “demand
management” techniques and new technology
applications. I work with them every day. But I
don’t think for a minute that the need for
projects like the Dulles Greenway, Springfield
Bypass, Route 28, Route 58, Route 460 Bypass in
Blacksburg, or the Route 58A Bypasses in SW Virginia
could have been offset by any form of “demand
management” alone. Can they help? Of course
they can. However, each of those projects I
mentioned, and countless more, gave access where
there was none, relieved congestion for years, or
addressed critical safety concerns.
Do
you remember what it was like to drive to
Loudonville along Route 7? Do you remember how many
people were killed on Route 58 in head-on
collisions? Did you ever drive through the
Interstate 64 tunnel from Richmond
to Virginia Beach on a summer weekend? Did you ever
try to get from just about anywhere in Southwest
Virginia to just about any other place in Southwest
Virginia? Those projects were just as important to
Virginians then as projects like I-495 in Northern
Virginia, Interstate 64 in Hampton Roads, an
expanded Woodrow Wilson Bridge, or an expanded I-81
are today.
In
2002, during the period in which I served as Interim
Commissioner, I had to recommend the Commonwealth
Transportation Board cut $2 billion from the six-year
program. In part it was because of the downturn in
the economy. In part it was to pare down an
unrealistically large program based on the
unrealistic premise that General Funds could finance
transportation construction — funds that were not,
are not, and will not be available. In addition, the
entire ˝ cent sales tax revenue was diverted to the
General Fund to help offset the revenue shortfall,
and that spending was subsequently converted to debt
— debt that has to be repaid by future
transportation revenues. So the construction program
was drastically curtailed even though some increase
in expenditures might have occurred.
We
all hope we can find reasonable alternatives for
people and freight. I think a renewed emphasis on
rail, “demand management”, technology, and
better relationships between transportation and land
use can help. But your reference to something
happening just in the last two months is ironic.
Maybe you do not know that for the first time ever,
during the Baliles administration, transportation
funds were allocated to all transportation modes —
aviation, ports, transit, and roads. A number of
“demand management” initiatives were set in
motion then and continue today — expanded
ride-sharing programs, telecommuting programs and
telecommute centers, passenger rail (VRE),
restricted HOV lanes, Park & Ride Lots, expanded
bus purchase programs. We also started improved
traveler information services, first using airborne
traffic reporters and variable message signs, and
later advanced programs like 511. VDOT adopted
expanded bike programs and improved pedestrian
access by a significant sidewalk constructions
program. In the 1990s, the Department of Rail and
Public Transportation was created to give rail and
transit programs added attention. They promote,
assist, and help fund rail industrial access that
can relieve major industries from relying solely on
truck deliveries of raw materials and finished
products, promote the preservation of short-line
railroads, coordinate rail/highway safety, and have
programs for ridesharing, biking, carpooling,
vanpooling, bus, commuter train, subway, passenger
ferry, HOV, telecommuting, walking and bicycling.
They also assist industries and localities set up or
facilitate on-site ride matching, transportation
incentives, tele-work, parking incentive programs,
vanpool and shuttle programs. Quite a list if
I must say so myself.
None
of those programs are totally new -- all or parts of
them have been in place for years. And as desirable
as you and I may believe they are, and I think they
are, in two decades, not one of those programs has
eliminated the need for new construction to serve
new places, address safety issues, or reduce the
need for more capacity. If we were to spend a lot
more money on these types of programs, we would find
transportation more convenient, comfortable, and
accessible. We would also find need for a
significant highway construction program — far
greater than is funded today.
With
regard to transportation expenditures, many of the
major projects over this period were funded by debt. Recently,
the Auditor of Public Accounts accounted for
$1,474,738,000 in transportation debt. That
total included the
Powhite Parkway, Dulles Toll Road, Coleman
Bridge, Route 28, Route 58, Oak Grove Connector,
Northern Virginia Transportation District Program,
and FRANS (Federal Revenue Anticipation Notes used
for general construction). That spending represents
in part a commitment against future revenue, or
tolls or special district revenue. So just comparing
expenditures from year to year is not an appropriate
way to judge public spending on transportation. It
is interesting, but it’s also largely meaningless.
I
think you must consider the need for funds. If
the need for programs and projects is legitimate, so
too is the need for revenue. I know you are
anti-tax, and to some extent I am also. Sure, I need
food, shelter, clothing, and other things I buy for
my family. But I drive about 20,000 miles a year on
state highways yet I can’t afford to build a mile
of road. Can you? I sent three children to public
schools yet I can’t afford to build one classroom.
Can you? I have a 92-year-old mother with
Alzheimer’s who has been in a nursing home for
three years, yet I can’t afford to hire one nurse
to clean, feed, and care for her during her last few
months. Can you? My daughter attended four years of
schooling at a public university, yet I can’t
afford to pay for any one building she used. Can
you? Pam Curry is absolutely right, public spending
is based on need for dollars to provide the services
that people collectively demand and use, not on the
basis of what was spend last year.
Let’s
be judicious about what we take on as public
programs and services, but if the political decision
makers take them on, let’s raise revenue based on
the need for dollars — not on a simplistic
comparison of one year to the next.
Ray
Pethtel
University
Transportation Fellow
Virginia
Tech
rpethtel@vt.edu
Flex
Cars: Cool Concept. But Try Selling it to Teenagers!
I
enjoyed your points about flex cars ("Step Up
to Flex," May 10, 2004). The American love
affair with the car is 100 years in the making, though.
Even I, as a marathon runner and bicyclist and with
a strong urge to begin riding my bike to work, have
yet to do so yet.
We
need a paradigm shift. Teenagers today expect
that at 16 their parents will buy them their own
car. I'm sure you and I would have gotten some
pretty interesting looks from our parents had we
laid that on them.
Gordie
Ziegler
Roanoke
gz@TheTechnologyCouncil.com
Excuse
Me, But How Does Bashing Methodists Fit the
Editorial Format of Bacon's Rebellion?
For the past several months,
I have mostly enjoyed receiving and at least
skimming issues of "Bacon's Rebellion" on
my e-mail at the law firm with which I am
associated. I must, however, take strong exception
to the current issue, which I received today,
containing the guest column. "Well,
Bless Their Hearts," May 10, 2004, by James
Atticus Bowden.
First, I fail to understand
how the topic of this column falls within the
parameters that you define as appropriate for the
subject matter of guest columns, i.e.,
"within the Bacon's Rebellion sphere of
interest: business, civic or public policy issues of
statewide or community concern in Virginia, [and] not
columns addressing national topics unless they have
a strong local angle."
Although I certainly
recognize that recognition of domestic partnerships
or civil unions between persons of homosexual
orientation is an issue of public policy in Virginia
and throughout this country, the article did not
address, or even articulate the considerations
involved in the greater public policy debate and,
instead used Southern and allegedly christian (small
c intended) euphemisms, guile and dishonesty to
denigrate and demean members of a national religious
denomination having no apparent connection to
Virginia.
If it is truly your
publication's purpose to "commence a new
discourse [and] . . . examine how a global economy
and digital technologies transform our state, our
communities and our institutions of
governance," and particularly, "to set new
goals and higher standards [and to] subject the
actions and utterances of our political, civic and
business leaders to a critical eye," this
mean-spirited and intolerant article was unworthy of
your publication. I also trust, that in keeping with
your stated goals, you might be willing to accept
one or more "guest columns" in
rebuttal."
Barbara Marvin
Still
Looking for the Full Story on the State Budget
I am still waiting for
someone to give the full story regarding the budget.
You cited various budgetary pressures in your column
("What's a Budget
Shortfall?" March 29, 2004), such as the
increase in the numbers of students, prisoners,
Medicaid recipients, etc., but you haven't given us
any idea what kind of percentage increase that is,
or whether the spending per student, per prisoner,
etc. is going up or down, and how those percent
increases compare to percent increases in the
budget.
For example, you've
concluded that the state colleges have actually
increased revenue by $444 million, but you also note
that there are over 17,000 more students in our
higher education system. If you assume that all of
the increased costs were the result of the new
students, that comes to about $25K per student,
which seems a bit high, but is actually not that
much more than the per pupil spending by the
legislature alone in other states (North Carolina
spends about $22K per student. That's in addition
to tuition charged to the students).
Frankly, the spending per
pupil on higher education is, as you note,
being shifted to the students, and I think that's a
shame, since the whole idea of a state college
system is to make higher education affordable for
its citizens. For example: At present, UVa's law
school gets zero dollars from the
Commonwealth -- it even pays back some money to the
university for things like bus service. As a result,
tuition is over $23,000 per year in state.
That doesn't include room and board. How many law
students do you think are going to be able to attend
three years of law school at that rate and then
afford to live on the $35-$40K they pay starting
commonwealth's attorneys these days?
If you can show that
spending is increasing per resident, or per affected
person, in a particular category, then maybe those
budget items deserve a hard look for cuts instead of
new taxes. But how do you expect the budget for,
say, public schools not to increase when you
add almost 50,000 kids to the system?
I like some of your ideas
about transportation. Public transportation is
abysmal in Hampton Roads (just try taking a bus from
the Peninsula to the Southside in a reasonable
amount of time and you'll see what I mean), and
nobody seems to want to invest in it. If they still
ran the ferry from Hampton to Norfolk, I'd use it
every day, but it died for lack of ridership (not to
mention the end of public funding). But apart from
the transportation costs, it does seem to me, based
on the examples you cite, that we need to get more
money to pay for all these extra students/prisoners/medicaid
recipients somewhere.
Kevin
W. Grierson
Willcox
& Savage, P.C.
Norfolk
kgrierson@wilsav.com
Where
Do Pam Currey's Numbers Come From? Better Check
Again.
The
statistics you got from the Warner administration
are passing interesting. I was intrigued to see, as
one example, the statistic that there are 44,700
more students in Virginia's public schools.
A quick check of what is the generally cited
authoritative source for such numbers does not
appear to support that number. There is an annual
"fall membership" of students taken by
individual schools and reported to the state board
of education by Sept. 30 of each year. For Sept. 30,
2001 (just before candidate Warner's election as governor)
the relevant statewide number was 1,163,094; for
Sept. 30, 2003, the total registered stood at
1,192,539.
I count that as 29,445 new students, not 44,700. The
relevant numbers can be checked very quickly at the
Virginia Department of Education website.
BookManVA
BookManVA@aol.com