The
Burgers and Fries Diet
Virginia's
transportation system suffers from hardening of the
arteries. Our lawmakers' answer: Big Macs and extra
large French fries.
Virginia,
and much of the United
States, is
suffering from a transportation ailment that
resembles hardening of the arteries in the human
body. Yet the
solution proposed by many business leaders, several
leading politicians and most editorial pages—
increasing gasoline and/or sales taxes—is akin to
adding even more fat to our diet.
Anyone
with eyes to see should know that the additional
funding needed to implement existing transportation
plans over the next 20 years can’t possibly be
generated by a tax increase.
The tab for Hampton Roads alone is estimated
at $31 billion. So
why do we continue on the same old course?
Instead
of searching for new sources of public funds for
transportation, we should be considering radically
different ways of moving people and goods.
In fact, we should be looking at ways to
minimize the need to travel.
Unfortunately, our leaders are doing neither
in any serious way.
Let
me underscore a stark reality:
The existing transportation system in Virginia
is grossly inefficient.
Even if the Virginia Department of
Transportation and its private contractors could
build highway projects on time and on budget, our
transportation system would still not be any more
efficient. The
inefficiency is inherent in the system.
One
reason for this endemic inefficiency is that
transportation decisions are reached more on the
basis of political considerations than on rational
planning and sound economics.
When the statewide fund for transportation is
distributed, the formula is molded in politics.
When projects are prioritized, the
considerations are overwhelmingly political.
“Balanced transportation” has come to
mean that government provides massive funding to
every transportation mode that masters the art of
lobbying, even though this approach is utterly
irrational.
The
Commonwealth can’t even fund its existing highway
plans. Does
it make any sense to find new sources of funding for
highways and at the same time to begin pouring more
taxpayer dollars into rail projects?
The powerful highway lobby will fight tooth
and nail to see that more, not less, public money is
spent on roads even if rational transportation
planning clearly dictates moving away from building
roads to enhancing our rail system.
Clearly, we can’t afford to do both.
Don’t
expect politicians to make rational determinations
about what resources should be committed to the
various modes and which mode is likely to make the
most efficient use of those resources.
Only markets are likely to produce rational
decisions about resource allocation.
Were
we to find enough money to construct all of the
planned highways and bridges in Northern
Virginia
and to fund the pie-in-the-sky public transit budget
of METRO, that region’s transportation problems
would not be solved.
The complex mobility needs of Northern
Virginia residents, businesses, schools and
government agencies, as well as the needs of those
traveling in and through the region, can’t be
satisfied by more government roads, rail cars and
buses.
The
private enterprise system is far better suited to
meeting the complex mobility needs of Virginians
than the current governmental approach.
That doesn’t mean that politicians will
embrace that option.
They rather enjoy ribbon-cutting ceremonies
for new public projects and the sense of power that
comes from appropriating billions of taxpayer
dollars for transportation.
Some politicians sincerely believe that
government alone can solve transportation problems.
The
question remains: How
much longer can we afford the old government
approach?
--
January 17,
2005
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