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The
Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA)
was born of the Virginia General Assembly in 2002 as
a bit of a Plan B scheme. Amid a shortage of state
revenues to apply to exploding transportation
challenges, a once acute condition now made chronic
by General Assembly inaction, NVTA was to collect
special regional tax revenues and apply them to
transportation spending priorities in the
Commonwealth’s fastest-growing region.
When
a regional sales tax referendum failed in Northern
Virginia (as another did in Hampton Roads), the NVTA
could have shrugged and remained an empty vessel.
After all, the 16 representatives of four counties
(Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun and Prince William),
five cities (Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church,
Manassas and Manassas Park) and five towns
(Dumfries, Herndon, Leesburg, Purcellville and
Vienna) weren’t exactly standing around with
nothing else to do. By its own estimates, the region
is adding 650,000 new jobs to the 1.2 million now
there and 918,00 more residents to its current 2.16
million over the next 25 years. And transportation
is primarily a state responsibility in Virginia.
But
instead of going into a shell, NVTA members took
seriously their charge to develop a long-range
regional transportation plan that could guide
transportation investments. Its just completed
"TransAction 2030 Plan" took a hard look
at the challenges: How to improve travel conditions
in heavily congested corridors; how to connect
activity centers and enhance all modes of
transportation; how to attain federally mandated air
quality standards; how to fund aging infrastructure
needs; and how to attain dedicated funding for
critically needed transportation projects.
The
Authority analyzed transit, bicycle and pedestrian
networks needed to complement the road networks in
place and planned. It reached out to all communities
in the region (something one might expect from a
group that includes nine mayors and county board
chairs) to help prioritize the most important
transportation improvements among eight critical
transportation corridors. Seven community events, a
public hearing, a 1200-person telephone survey and
an interactive Web site were among the prime
outreach tactics.
And
NVTA reached a bottom line that is driving
Virginia’s transportation investment strategy for
the next two decades: $46 billion is needed for
Northern Virginia projects, both highway and
transit, over the next 25 years. That is about
one-third more than had been contemplated in the
Virginia portion of the current Metropolitan
Washington Constrained Long Range Plan. Without such
a comprehensive response to regional transportation
challenges, moreover, NVTA found that levels of
transportation service would deteriorate quickly,
posing a serious threat to the health and future of
Virginia’s economic engine.
Just
how serious the threat is has been documented by
researchers at George Mason University, who now
estimate the total cost of traffic congestion in the
Greater Northern Virginia region to be $5.49 billion
dollars a year. Direct costs per resident, including
hours lost ($1,740 worth a year) and fuel wasted (34
gallons or $90 a year) are growing, while indirect
costs, such as nonproductive time, shipping and
delivery delays, recruiting problems, lifestyle
changes and company and workers who say
"No" to the region, mount.
Turning
even a small percentage of $5+ billion a year in
costs into funds for regional transportation
investments could produce some meaningful congestion
solutions, even for those on the edges of Northern
Virginia. GMU also found, for example, that 68
percent of Fredericksburg area residents now spend
more than one hour a day on their commute.
Two-thirds of those residents say they would give up
at least $5,000 a year in salary if they could cut
their commutes by 30 minutes a day.
So
TransAction 2030 also tackles the regional revenue
side of the equation. Each of three different
revenue sources -- an extra one-half cent regional
sales tax, an extra $25 for each $10,000 of taxable
income and an extra 17.5 cents per gallon of
gasoline -- could produce about $175 million more
per year to support a Northern Virginia regional
transportation bond improvement effort to supplement
state taxes, fees and appropriations for
transportation. The regional improvements in turn
could cut the costs of congestion.
Unfortunately,
in the words of former Virginia Gov. Gerald Baliles,
who addressed the forum of another NVTA (the
Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance) late in
November, the state’s transportation investment
effort continues to be "inefficient,
unresponsive and underfunded." So regional
transportation funding efforts could end up being a
poor substitute for state plans, instead of
meaningful supplements.
"The
General Assembly’s own studies suggest there is a
statewide need for $108 billion of new
transportation investment," Gov. Baliles told
the forum hosted by CapitalOne in Tysons Corner.
"Improvements have to be paid for. The only
thing you get for free is congestion. Waiting to
address the problems, 2007 elections or not, amounts
to a legislative abdication of its
responsibilities."
For
the record, the Alliance Forum was headlined,
"Congestion Costs Us All: Virginia’s Future
Can’t Wait."
More
than incidentally, the "TransAction 2030
Plan" also set a new benchmark for other
regions and the Commonwealth by using comprehensive
criteria to evaluate and rank projects by corridor
and by mode. Qualitative criteria included activity
center connections, multi-modal connections, person
throughput, urgency, land use support, reduced
congestion, safety, freight movement and
cost-sharing potential. But performance of the
entire network also meant overall mobility,
accessibility, land use linkage and environmental
concerns were included.
So,
the blueprint is there for Northern Virginia and it
is unanimously endorsed by all counties and cities.
The blueprint is also there as a model for any other
regional planning group that taps into the NVTA’s
comprehensive criteria. And frankly, the political
blueprint is there, too, from a focused, pragmatic,
action-oriented General Assembly of 20 years ago,
which didn’t hesitate to follow the lead of an
energetic, pragmatic Governor and adopt dramatic new
solutions to Virginia’s transportation challenges.
--
December 4, 2006
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