No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

Barnie Day

Weighing the Pig

The idea of launching a "Marshall Plan for Transportation" has its limitations, but you have to give Steve Baril credit for taking the lead on transportation funding when no one else will.

C. Richard Cranwell, the gentleman from Vinton, had a favorite admonishment to those who sometimes confused motion with direction: “You can’t fatten a pig by weighing it.”

(If you don’t understand what he meant by that, skip the rest of this column and go on to something else, because you’re not going to understand what follows either.)

In the matter of transportation here in Virginia, there is from our leaders, and our leader wannabes, a hell of a lot of motion here lately, but very little direction.

In case you’ve been asleep, here’s the recap: Gov. Mark R. Warner, at least half the legislature, Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine and Attorney General Jerry Kilgore disavow new taxes and want to spend a big piece of an anticipated surplus that could reach $1 billion on specific, one-time highway projects. 

John Chichester, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says ‘nothin’ doin, we’re not going to put transportation funding into general fund competition with things like education, law enforcement, and the likes.’

Don’t be fooled. This is not as one-sided as it looks. (A hint here: Don’t bet against Chichester.)

Republican Steve Baril, seeking the attorney general nomination, recently took the strongest position of any of the state-wide candidates—the strongest by far—in his call for a "Marshall Plan for Transportation" during a debate sponsored by the Northern Virginia Republican Business Forum. (I am restrained by space here, but I would encourage you to read more about his thinking on transportation at www.stevebaril.com)

If Baril is, for the moment, out front on transportation

--and he is, among the statewides—what does informed opinion say about his proposals? Well, that enthusiasm is restrained.

Ray Pethtel probably knows more about transportation than anyone in Virginia. Pethtel, University Transportation Fellow at Virginia Tech since 1994, and Associate Director of Tech’s Center for Transportation Research, was Virginia’s Transportation Commissioner from 1986 to 1994.

Says he: “I think it positive that Steve Baril is talking about putting more revenue into transportation.  However, the reference to funding a billion-dollar deficit by using “bonds, tolls, and general funds” is highly problematic.

“First, Virginia has stretched its ability to leverage revenue through bonds—some think that Virginia has stretched its leverage too far already. We now owe $1.6 billion in payments for debt service over the next six years and half of that will come directly off the top of the construction fund. If we leverage too much, all we can do in the future is to pay off the debts we incurred in the past. Second, to sell bonds you must have a steady and reliable stream of revenue to pay for them over a 10-, 20-, or 30-year period. If that revenue is to come from General Funds (which is subject to appropriation by the General Assembly every year) what other programs will be cut and how can anyone be sure appropriation of those General Funds to transportation will be a priority every year?

“The Virginia Transportation Act (VTA) and Priority Transportation Acts were premised in large part on the appropriate of General Funds. Even Governor Gilmore who had championed the VTA could not recommend budgeting those funds at the end of his administration. Those funds had vanished into the economic downturn. Virginia had to reduce its six year program by $2 billion—much of it to fund VTA projects.

“PPTAs (Public-Private Transportation Acts) are a good way to build facilities that can be supported by tolls, but Virginia’s transportation problems also involve thousands of miles of open access primary, secondary and urban roads that simply are not possible to toll.

“These are not new ideas—but they are one-shot, or one-project, initiatives, not a long term “Marshall Plan” solution to transportation funding.”

Translation: Denial, deferral, delay is not direction. 

Baril’s thinking may not be the be-all, end-all that there is on transportation, but it still leads the wannabe pack, at least to my way of thinking. 

Here’s the thing—and there’s no way around this one—it takes money—sustained money—to build and maintain our roads, our highways and our bridges.  Sure, we can keep weighing this pig, but at the end of the day it takes money.  

-- December 13, 2004