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The
House of Delegates and Virginia Senate seem close
to agreement on tackling at least a part of the
transportation finance questions facing Virginia.
Before the week is out, the General Assembly could
have in place a package that produces another $700
million a year for transportation and packages for
Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia that could
produce another $200 million and $400 million,
respectively, in those regions for those regions, if
local governments agree.
That
would be good news in a state that has averted its
official eyes from growing transportation needs
everywhere over the last decade. The statistics
since 1986, the last time the state dramatically
boosted public resources for transportation, are
familiar, but still informative. Virginia’s
population grew 30 percent in the last 20 years,
but licensed drivers jumped 36 percent, registered
vehicles, 61 percent and vehicle miles traveled 74
percent. Virginians like their mobility. The
buying power of the dollar, meanwhile, fell 44
percent in the same period and traditional fuel
tax-based financing systems haven’t kept up.
Add
in some national figures, such as a one percent
increase in road miles and a two percent increase
in lane miles to match a 78 percent increase in
vehicle travel nationwide, and one gets a look at
the longer-term transportation challenge already
built into the national economy. The U.S. Congress
and all state legislatures going forward will
return to transportation financing issues every
year, like it or not. There is a simple reason
Virginia’s General Assembly should do so.
Virginia
is positioned by its geography and human capital
to prosper in the national and global economies
that are dominated by information, communications
and logistics. The Commonwealth is smack in the
middle of future national and international
economic growth. The port of Hampton Roads and
Dulles International Airport are obvious entrance
and exit points in a global economy. But I-81 and
I-95 also are at the heart of the Atlantic coast
transportation and distribution system. That’s
why truck and rail freight movements are just as
important to distribution hubs for Advance Auto
Parts and the Home Shopping Network in Roanoke,
for Nautilus/Bowflex in Galax, for EToys Direct in
Danville, for Sysco in Winchester and Suffok and
for Best Buy, Target, The Home Depot and Wal-Mart
in the I-81 corridor as they are to ports and
airports.
The
size of this opportunity to seize an enhanced
economic future through accelerated investments in
transportation infrastructure increases the risk
of Virginia remaining satisfied with a short-term,
catch-up response. Consider what the Commonwealth
Transportation Board heard in a detailed briefing
from Cambridge Systematics, Inc. transportation
consultants at mid-month.
Freight
volumes are growing faster than passenger volumes,
which is creating bottlenecks in shipping. Among
the bottlenecks for trucks and rail are Northern
Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads.
Transportation improvements turn out to be about
economic drivers and the costs of goods and
services, not just about commuting time and
quality-of-life. Expanding and integrating marine,
rail, truck and air terminals, meanwhile, is
getting costlier and more complex. Community
concerns and local land use decisions don’t
automatically advance the system.
So
Cambridge Systematics poses the question, “If
import/export tonnage were to double as expected
between 1998 and 2030 and domestic tonnage were to
increase 60 percent, would Virginia and the entire
United States have the truck and rail capacity to
handle it?” Without a dramatic new vision, a
willingness to experiment, innovate, take risks
and make new funding commitments, the answer will
be “no.”
Looking
out to 2030, Cambridge Systematics estimates that
there is a national surface transportation funding
gap of $50 billion per year just to maintain the
current system. To improve the system would take
$107 billion more per year. The transportation
challenges for Virginia turn out to be challenges
everywhere. Without new initiatives, moreover,
federal highway funds start laying out more than
they take in by 2009. Transit programs start a
negative flow of funds in 2013.
And
the transportation consultants find that no
transportation system vision or goals have yet
emerged to replace the last great idea, the
interstate highway system. Congressional
representatives of the states, instead, bicker
over which state contributes more transportation
tax dollars than it gets back. Earmarking
practices for the short-term advance individual
priorities and political agendas without regard to
system improvements. State and local governments
are doing more, Cambridge Systematics finds, but
cannot be expected to address national and
international freight, passenger and economic
issues in anything other than fragmented form.
There
are other challenges. Virginia is part of a region
whose population is projected to grow by another
34 percent by 2030. As information and
communications technologies continue to drive down
inventory and administrative costs, transportation
emerges as the single most costly segment of the
logistics industry and, therefore, the most
important to that industry’s location. There are
profound policy shifts ahead related to air
quality, alternative fuels, the response to
climate change and the inevitable tensions among
safety, security, capacity and operational
efficiency in the transportation system.
Still,
there is a basic question that underpins General
Assembly actions this week and the longer-term
decisions that are fast upon the Commonwealth. Do
the public benefits of an efficient transportation
system warrant greatly expanding public
investments in that system? For those who see
transportation as a prime economic driver of
Virginia’s future, the answer is “yes.”
--
February 20, 2007
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