Guest Column

Gary T. Johnson


 

A Modest Plan

 

 

Here's what Virginia's transportation system needs: more money, a more rational pattern of land use, and a stronger commitment to mass transit.


 

The time may finally be right to do something about transportation. Papers throughout the Commonwealth have been filled with exposés outlining the nature of the growing crisis along with editorials decrying the negative implications of complacency.

 

Legislative committees, most notably the Statewide Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task Force (START), continue studying the problem, with the goal of proposing legislative solutions during the upcoming session of the General Assembly.

 

The Chamber, local governments, road builders, developers, environmentalist and other interest groups are poised to do battle.  And, for the first time since the late 1980s, Virginia will have a governor at the helm whose top priority is transportation and who exhibits an apparent willingness to spend his recently earned political capital to address this issue.

 

While this represents the most hopeful climate for meaningful change in almost 20 years, the political landscape today is vastly different than it was in 1986 when Gov. Gerald L. Baliles enacted the last round of transportation reforms.  For one thing, Gov. Tim Kaine and the controlling interests in the General Assembly now hail from different parties. For another, both anti-tax sentiments on the right and the environmental movement on the left, are stronger and better organized than they were in the late '80s. Finally, while there is considerable agreement within the electorate that we are facing a real and difficult transportation challenge, there is less consensus that additional money will solve it.  Each of these factors will have to be taken into account for significant progress to be made.

 

Based on the above, I believe it unlikely that we will see a legislative package resembling that pushed through in the mid-1980s during the early years of the Baliles administration.  To be politically palatable today, lawmakers need to address not only the issue of funding but also the demand side of the equation. What is desirable is a moderately large infusion of new revenue -- perhaps in the range of $500 million to $750 million per annum — coupled with meaningful changes in our spending patterns and significant efforts to curb the growth in new traffic.

 

I would suggest a ten-point plan by which this can be accomplished.

 

Developing the Appropriate Revenue Stream

 

Point 1:  Moderate tax increases are required.  While nobody likes to talk about tax increases, it is clear that they are necessary if we are to address our transportation challenges. User charges – particularly the gas tax, the tax on diesel fuel and the motor vehicle sales tax — seem particularly promising. Such charges can generate significant sums of new revenue while simultaneously acting as disincentives to increased traffic congestion.

 

Virginia’s gas tax has been capped at 17.5 cents per gallon since 1986. North Carolina, a state with a road system fairly comparable to ours, has a gas tax of 26.6 cents per gallon. In Pennsylvania the gas tax is a whopping 31.1 cents per gallon.  An increase in our levy of six to seven cents per gallon seems highly appropriate.

 

Our tax on diesel fuel is currently 16 cents per gallon, while it is 20 cents per gallon in the District, 26.6 cents in North Carolina, 22 cents in Delaware, 24.25 cents in Maryland and 20.5 cents in West Virginia.  An increase in our levy of six to eight cents per gallon appears reasonable.

 

Finally, a 1.5 percent increase in the motor vehicle sales tax should be considered.  While the motor vehicle sales tax is in the five to six percent range in most surrounding states, it is only 3 percent in Virginia (although most surrounding states, unlike Virginia, allow the value of trade-ins to be subtracted from the sales price).  An increase to 4.5 percent in this tax should generate well over $200 million per annum.

 

These three modest tax increases will together yield a revenue package in the $500 million to $750 million range, as called for earlier, and can be implemented without being excessively onerous on taxpayers.  This tax package, while significant, will not come close to providing all the transportation improvements on Virginia’s transportation establishment’s wish list.  Quite frankly, that’s a good thing; we should not give VDOT a blank check. Nonetheless, if properly spent and coupled with meaningful planning reforms, this proposed revenue stream will enable us to maintain the high quality of life currently enjoyed in our state.

 

Point 2:  We must protect new revenues for transportation.  The last major tax increase for transportation was enacted in 1986, during the early years of the Baliles administration.  Shortly after Baliles left office, the state found itself in a recession and state transportation funds were raided to help balance the budget.

 

If we are justifying new tax increases on the basis of our transportation crisis, taxpayers should be confident that any monies raised will actually be used for that purpose. Gov. Kaine is correct in suggesting that taxes should not be raised without safeguards to protect them from other uses.  We made the mistake of not adequately protecting such funds in 1986 and the Commonwealth paid a price. This mistake should not be repeated.

 

Point 3:  The State’s Transportation Trust Fund formula must be revised.  Raising and protecting the revenue needed will be of little use unless the funds are spent in an appropriate manner.  The 1986 Special Session on Transportation created the Virginia Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) for transportation capital improvements.  As outlined on the Secretary of Transportation web site: “The law divides the TTF investments according to a formula: highways (78.7%), mass transit (14.7%), ports (4.2%), and airports (2.4%).”  Much has changed since 1986 and no one believes that these are the appropriate allocations to build the type of transportation system needed by the Commonwealth in the 21st century.

 

Clearly, a higher percentage of trust fund revenues should to be allocated for public transit, particularly if we want to promote the development of high speed passenger rail within the Commonwealth.  In any case, the General Assembly needs to carefully evaluate and revise this formula to ensure that our spending patterns reflect the new transportation priorities of our State.

 

Spending our Limited Transportation Funds Wisely

 

Point 4:  We must get serious about planning in Virginia. We need to think through what we want the Commonwealth and its major metropolitan areas to be like in another 25 years and then use our transportation improvements, along with effectively coordinated land use and economic development planning efforts, as tools to achieve our desired visions.  Until we know what we want to be when we grow up, we cannot possibility know what sort of transportation system we will need to get us there.

 

Do we really want to kill off the Chesapeake Bay and allow our “Golden Crescent” to become little more than one continuous blackened maze of asphalt, subdivisions, office parks and shopping malls?  Of course not, but that is what our business-as-usual approach will yield.  We need to think about the type of state we want to leave to our grandchildren and withhold support from transportation improvements that do not help us achieve our desired vision.

 

Planning District Commissions and associated MPOs of our state should be charged with the development of detailed regional vision statements.  These statements should define not simply what they want their Regions to be like 25 years from now, but also how they plan on achieving their ideal.  What sort of transportation system would be required? How should land uses be configured? What magnitude of economic development will be needed?

 

Most importantly, how will local transportation, land use, and economic development planning efforts be coordinated across jurisdictional lines to ensure that they are not working at cross purposes?

 

Once these vision statements have been completed and vetted with our citizenry, the state should consolidate them into a statewide plan to guide our future growth and development and the spending of our limited capital improvement dollars.  Our Commonwealth’s future is too important to leave to chance!

 

Point 5:  There must be more accountability and coordination as major land use decisions are being made.  There are countless examples throughout the Commonwealth where local land use decisions have been made without adequately thinking about their transportation implications and associated costs. In 1998, for example, Fredericksburg approved a 550-acre development along I-95.  Approximately two years after approving the project, a consultant’s study put the price tag for needed road improvements at a whopping $500 million. (See: Virginia Business, October 2002, p. 7.)

 

Land use decisions, like this one, are a local prerogative. Nonetheless, it is imperative that they not be made until local officials have an adequate understanding of the potential fiscal implication of their decisions. It is also imperative that VDOT and surrounding localities that might be affected by such decisions have a voice in the process. Regional Impact Statements have been used in other states as a means of promoting additional analysis and dialog on such massive projects. Virginia should consider implementing this approach.

 

Point 6: VDOT should be empowered and required to utilize its subdivision street approval process to encourage smart growth.  To be accepted into the state system, subdivision streets must meet minimum criteria as outlined in VDOT’s “Subdivision Street Requirements”.  These requirements ensure that such streets are well engineered for both safety and durability. According to VDOT’s web site, about 200 new lane miles of subdivision street are added to the state’s system annually.  The annual cost to maintain a lane mile of a local street is around $8,243 dollars and this figure is projected to increase by about 4 percent per year.  Assuming a continuation of current trends, we can expect +/-2,000 new lane miles of subdivision street to be added to the state’s system over the next decade and that approximately $120 million will be spent on the maintenance of such.

 

The state’s continually escalating maintenance costs are problematic, but even more problematic is the manner by which many of these new subdivisions are being developed. All too often they are sited in leap-frog type development patterns. Moreover, they are often located great distances from job opportunities, tend to be built at extremely low densities, and are usually totally automobile dependent.  Because of these facts, many of these new subdivisions place great pressure on the highly expensive arterial road networks into which they feed.  Local governments around the state are approving these poorly conceived subdivisions and state taxpayers are unwittingly forced to pay the price.

 

The state should establish a reasonable cap on the number of new lane miles accepted into the state system annually and develop a rating system by which to determine those subdivisions to be accepted.  Points in this rating system should be given to subdivisions that are: reasonably dense, contiguous with existing development, close to job opportunities, well serviced by existing infrastructure,  developed according to sound urban design principles, and/or developed within reasonable proximity to transit.

 

No single subdivision is likely to receive points in all these categories, but those receiving the highest overall ratings will be the least likely to excessively overburden our transportation arteries.  The proposed rating system should be phased in over a period of 3-5 years to give localities and developers sufficient time to adjust. Moreover, it should be accompanied by enabling legislation allowing localities to phase their growth.

 

Point 7:  We must recognize that we can not pave our way out of this crisis.  While additional lane miles of highways are desperately needed, we need to be very careful about massive highway construction programs which tend to be not only prohibitively expensive but also counterproductive.  All too often such projects stimulate additional sprawl and worsen already bad traffic situations.

 

John Seabrook demonstrated the futility of this approach several years ago in an article he published in the New Yorker. As he pointed out: “In the 23 American Cities that added the most new roads per person in the 1990s, traffic congestion rose by more than 70 percent.”  Clearly we need to build the roadways that are necessary for us to achieve our vision of what we want Virginia to become, but we must also be careful not to destroy the quality of life enjoyed by the Commonwealth’s citizens in the process.

 

Point 8: Rail must play an increasingly important role in Virginia’s transportation future.  High speed passenger rail from Washington, D.C., through Richmond, and on to Tidewater and points south, is an idea whose time has come.  Similarly, the Richmond and Hampton Roads metro areas are approaching the size necessary to justify consideration of light rail systems. While no panacea, rail can play an important role in relieving traffic congestion and in so doing offer important environmental benefits.  A significant increase in public transit spending will be necessary if we are to achieve our rail potential.

 

Point 9:  Existing public transportation systems must be enhanced and expanded. Where densities allow, we must make public transportation a truly viable alternative to the automobile. When one looks at some of the first-rate public transportation systems elsewhere in North America, you can not help but realize just how far we have to go in Virginia. You also realize the potential that public transportation has for helping the Commonwealth achieve a more environmentally sustainable future, while helping our elderly, disabled, and lower-income citizens meet their transportation needs in the process.

 

Point 10: We must not lose sight of the transport- ation needs within rural Virginia. In thinking of the transportation challenges facing the Commonwealth, we tend to think mostly of our urban challenges.  What comes to mind immediately are the traffic jams of Northern Virginia and Tidewater, along with the difficulties being experienced by the transit dependent populations within our older central city neighborhoods.  While of a different nature, for those experiencing them, the transportation problems of rural Virginia are no less severe.

 

They tend to be related to two issues:  accessibility and safety. Because of the isolation of many of our rural communities, it is difficult for them to both attract and retain sufficient employment opportunities for their residents.  As a result of the limited employment opportunities within their own communities, many rural residents must commute great distances for employment, often over poorly designed and highly dangerous roadways. These transportation challenges, too, must be addressed.

 

Conclusion

 

Virginia faces major transportation challenges and for the first time in almost 20 years seems poised to address them.  The political dance will start in mid-January.  At this point it is impossible to tell whether it will be our newly elected Democratic Governor or our Republican-dominated legislature that will lead the dance. Ideally, they will choreograph their moves with the type of holistic approach outlined above.  To the extent that they do, the attractiveness of our state and the quality of life to be enjoyed by future generations of Virginians will be enhanced. 

 

But, to the extent that they step on each others toes and fail to act, our state will pay the price in the form of increased traffic congestion, longer commute times, unaddressed safety issues, a less-than-optimal economy, and a spoiled environment. In any case, this is a dance well worth watching by all of us wallflowers, as it will determine the very future of our Commonwealth.   

 

-- January 16, 2006

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Gary T. Johnson is an emeritus faculty member of the Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. Johnson served as the Research Director of the Commission on Transportation in the 21st Century (COT-21) during the Baliles administration, the last major effort to address Virginia’s transportation challenge.