|
Running
START
In
its third meeting, the senate task force studying
transportation has picked up the pace. The
discussion wasn't all about taxes: Panelists dug
into into a wide range of issues such as transit
and land use.
By
Bob Burke
There
was some straight talk yesterday by members the
senate panel working on fixing the state’s
transportation system, and with good cause. With
just one more chance to come up with legislation
for the coming General Assembly session, time is
running out for the Statewide
Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task
Force (START) to work through a long list of
proposed policy changes – from how to decide
what roads and transit projects to build to how to
pay for them, to how involved the state should get
in local land-use plans.
“It’s
probably the most complicated subject I’ve ever
faced in government,” said Sen. John Chichester,
R-Northumberland, chairman of the Senate Finance
Committee, who formed the group earlier this year.
The
proposals came from dozens of groups and
individuals who took up the invitation issued at
the START meeting in October. They were divided
into six broad categories: the need for a
strategic state plan, spending priorities,
funding, linking land use and transportation,
governance issues, and rail and public transit.
Most of the ideas will likely die next month at
the group’s last meeting, said Sen. Charles
Hawkins, R-Pittsylvania, the group’s chairman.
“We’ve got to consolidate this down into a
workable” set of proposals, he said.
Chichester,
who has repeatedly call for increased state
investment in transportation, is still saying
little about what specific funding strategies
he’ll support, but he is urging action. Momentum
is building for a major policy shift on
transportation, he said on Thursday. “We
cannot continue to be taken seriously by the
people of Virginia if we continue to talk a good
game, yet never take any meaningful action,” he
said.
How
to pay for it all is clearly a big issue. But
advocates of creating a link between land-use
decisions and transportation are determined not to
get lost in the debate. Sen. Edd Houck,
D-Spotsylvania, objected in the opening minutes of
the START meeting that too little time was set
aside to talk about transit and land-use issues.
Those topics “always seem to be a footnote.
It’s always, ‘Let’s spend some time talking
about money, and if there’s a spot at the end…
maybe we can talk about land use.”
But
Mark Rubin, a mediator with the McCammon Group in
Richmond who led the START meeting, told Houck
those issues weren’t being ignored. In fact,
there was relative consensus on those issues, he
said. Rubin spoke to START members by phone in
recent weeks preparing for yesterday’s meeting.
“Virtually everybody talked about public
transit.. virtually everybody mentioned that
finding a way to link land use and transportation
was critical,” he said.
During
a break in the meeting, Houck vowed to keep
pressing the issue. Environmental groups and “smart growth”
advocates, he said, are hoping for “a good first
step” in changing land use and transportation
planning in Virginia, he said. “At least we’ve
got it to the point where people are thinking
about it,” he said.
Evidence
of that shift came from Sen. Sen.
Martin Williams, R-Newport News, who spoke in
favor or requiring localities to do transportation
impact studies when they approve new development.
Five years ago he would have considered that
“heresy,” he admitted. But now, “I don’t
think it’s a bad idea to make local governments
evaluate that impact,” he said.
Another
idea that drew support was a recommendation to
change how the state classifies roads, a system
that has a big impact on how road funding is
distributed. According to a 2001 study by the
Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission the
state’s current system means some roads that
need improvements go overlooked.
The
group also talked about some of the key funding
options – raising the gas tax, funding projects
through tolls, or applying a sales tax to gasoline
sales. Toll-funded projects drew support, as did
public-private partnerships, such as the addition
of
HOT
lanes on the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia.
But Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer told
the group that federal rules limit the use of toll
funding on some highways. Virginia is limited to
“congestion pricing” tolling in Northern
Virginia and Hampton Roads, a pilot program on
Interstate 81 involving trucks, and major
reconstruction of bridges and tunnels, he said.
“So we don’t have an unlimited ability to
apply tolls.”
START
leaders spoke cautiously about how they’ll build
public support for whatever proposals they
produce. “We’re going to have to define what
we’re going to do, so if people have to pay,
they’ll know where the money is going,”
Williams said.
The
START group’s final meeting will be Dec. 16 at
Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
Hawkins reminded START members that their work
will go beyond that day. “Our job does not end
when we say, ‘We like this,’” he said.
“We’ve got to sell it to the public.”
Bacon's
Rebellion News Service
November
19, 2005
|
