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By
emphasizing the differences in their politics, their
regions and their priorities all year long, the 99
Delegates and 40 Senators in the Virginia General
Assembly have evaded any serious response to
Virginia’s transportation challenges. Many expect
the foot-dragging to continue as the Assembly
reconvenes in special session at the end of
September, as if they are helpless victims of their
own lack of determination to make something happen.
The rest of us declare as Patrick Henry would,
"Enough, already! Why sit we here idling?"
The
situation reminds me of my mother’s reaction when
a poor attitude and excuses to match were offered in
lieu of results. "Can’t never could, won’t
never would," she still says at age 87. Working
through the differences, then getting together to
finish a job or solve a problem was the course she
sought. For the Commonwealth, that’s what happened
back in 1986, the last time the Assembly reached a
consensus on new, sustainable funding dedicated to
transportation.
No
Virginian disputes that individuals, communities and
regions may have developed some different views and
priorities since then. Virginia now has about 20
percent more people, 55 percent more registered
vehicles and 80 percent more vehicle miles
traveled.
An
August 2006 survey of likely voters conducted by iQ
Research & Consulting, a Qorvis company,
confirms that Northern Virginia (now with 45 percent
more people than in 1986) and other regions of the
Commonwealth do have distinctly different policy
priorities. Thirty-three percent of voters in jobs-
and education-rich Northern Virginia, for example,
say traffic is the number one problem for state
government to address. But other regions don't cite
traffic as any more of a priority than than public
education, efficient state spending and job
creation.
Logic
suggests, therefore, that delegates and senators
from job-creating, education-performing Northern
Virginia may have transportation solutions as a
higher legislative priority than some of their
colleagues. But differences are starting points, not
ends for public officials charged with solving
problems.
How,
for example, when the average transportation fund
split among states is 42 percent federal/58 percent
state, did the Commonwealth get to 74 percent
federal this year? A totally inadequate level of
effort by Virginia is the only explanation.
The
iQ Research survey also identified a point for
Virginia to build on. Forty-four percent of voters
in regions outside Northern Virginia said they
understood there was an "echo effect" from
Northern Virginia. They agreed that a stronger
Northern Virginia economy meant a stronger Virginia
economy and a weaker Northern Virginia economy meant
a weaker Virginia economy. (For the record, 37
percent surveyed in regions outside Northern
Virginia disagreed that there was an "echo
effect," another reason Economics 101 should be
in the core curriculum.)
These
two survey research insights help explain what will
be happening on transportation in the next two to
three weeks. While the House of Delegates and
Virginia Senate have stalemated for years on
statewide funding solutions, appreciation for
regional transportation initiatives that can be a
part of the statewide solution has grown. New funds
for statewide needs, such as maintenance, are not
diminished by new regional funding initiatives that
could speed the completion of specific projects in
those regions. And such regional initiatives are
hardly foreign to Virginia. Toll roads, local bond
issues, special taxing districts and other methods
have been used by regions for decades to supplement
the Commonwealth’s transportation funding
strategies.
Twenty-one
business groups in Northern Virginia have put their
special interests and pet peeves aside in meetings
this summer, for example, to unite behind a regional
effort to raise Northern Virginia business fees and
fund regional transportation priorities. The groups
will announce this week the principles that have
guided their work, including Assembly action now to
adopt transportation funding plans that produce a
minimum of $400 million in "new, dedicated
ongoing transportation funds for Northern
Virginia."
The
business groups see their unity as an essential
first step toward creating a consensus among
delegates and senators who represent Northern
Virginia, then helping position that delegation as a
catalyst to regional and statewide initiatives that
complement one another in the September special
session. The groups, by the way, suggest that there
is nothing special about a September deadline and
that the Assembly should stay in session until it
agrees on a solution.
Delegates
and Senators in Northern Virginia also are getting a
earful from local governments, particularly those
that have representatives on the Northern Virginia
Transportation Authority (NVTA) created by the
Assembly in 2002. NVTA also will announce this week
that all local governments in Northern Virginia have
endorsed its "TransAction 2030" study
plan, which was developed with serious citizen
input. TransAction 2030 documents a regional need of
$46 billion in multi-modal transportation
operations, preservation and system expansion --
$441 millon annually for system expansion alone.
Undoubtedly,
there are still those who would prefer to widen the
misunderstandings among communities and regions and
to exploit the divisions in priorities for
short-term political advantage. Most voters in
regions outside of Northern Virginia, the iQ
Research study shows, believe they get back less in
state funds than they pay in and that Northern
Virginia gets more back. Only seven percent of them
agree that "My region gets more money back from
the state than it contributes in tax revenue."
Thirty-seven percent believe their region gets back
less.
The
reality, according to studies directed by Dr. John
Knapp, Research Director at the University of
Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public
Service, is that virtually every Virginia region
gets back more than it puts in courtesy of Northern
Virginia. Northern Virginia gets back about half of
what it sends to Richmond. Richmond, Charlottesville
and Culpeper get back about 1:1.
There
is real danger if such ignorance and
misunderstanding is encouraged. Denying Northern
Virginia the resources it needs to fill the gaps in
its transportation system will hurt all of Virginia.
As George Mason University’s Dr. Stephen Fuller
noted this week, even the economic engine has not
been immune to national and global economic forces,
such as oil prices, interest rates, a softening
housing market, inflation, turmoil abroad.
"While
it continues to outperform the national economy and
the economies of most other major metropolitan
areas," Fuller said, "it is also
exhibiting the early signs of slowing."
The
economist also
documents a slowdown in federal spending growth
immediately ahead. On the upside, other regions can
benefit from a stronger effort on transportation in
Northern Virginia. Access to Dulles International
Airport, for example, is critical both for Virginia
commerce and Virginia air travelers. And consider
how transportation improvements could ease the
commute of tens of thousands from fast-growing
Stafford, Spotsylvania, Culpeper or Frederick
Counties into Northern Virginia jobs.
A
regional plan based on raising business fees in
Northern Virginia could provide relief without
residents of those counties having to pay directly
for it. How could a delegate or senator from those
localities not support such a regional effort?
Northern
Virginia’s share of the gross state product
growing from $129 billion today to $152 billion by
2010 also could provide a lot more resources to
statewide efforts if it isn’t slowed
artificially by under-funded transportation
infrastructure.
The
"Can’ts & Won’ts" in the General
Assembly could continue to string things out on new,
dedicated, sustainable transportation funding if the
public keeps lowering its expectations and if their
colleagues let them. Lawmakers then would have to
face this issue again just 100 days later in the
January 2007 General Assembly session, of course,
and perhaps again in a very different way in the
November 2007 elections.
One
thing should be clear by now. The need for dramatic
action on transportation funding doesn’t go away
until the Assembly acts. Seven years of the current
majority proves that. Part of the Assembly action,
too, might be a state strategy that more directly
links priority issues, such as transportation,
education and jobs creation, across regions and
targets investments in what regions need most. That
would be pulling together.
--
September 11, 2006
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