Question: When the price of beef at the grocery store increases at twice the rate of the price of chicken, what do consumers do? Answer: They buy more chicken, less beef.

Question: When the price of vinyl siding increases at twice the rate of the price of brick, what do home builders do? Answer: They build houses that use more brick, less vinyl siding.

Question: When the price of building new roads increases at twice the general rate of inflation, what does the General Assembly of Virginia do? Look for transportation alternatives that entail spending less money on concrete, steel and asphalt? No, our lawmakers don’t propose shifting to less expensive transportation alternatives. They just spend more money.

The point has come up again in state Senate hearings. Philip Shucet, the highly respected former commissioner of the Virginia Department of Transportation, argued that the state needs to find another $1 billion a year in sustainable transportation funds, according to Hugh Lessig with the Daily Press. “In fiscal year 2005,” he paraphrases Shucet as saying, “the cost of asphalt rose 16 percent, cement prices rose 7 percent and ready-mix concrete rose 8 percent.”

Shucet knows the numbers better than anyone else, and I acknowledge that the transportation system requires more revenue. But there’s a huge point that everyone is overlooking: Our resource-intensive transportation system is broken. The rising cost of construction materials is not an argument for Business As Usual — it’s an argument for change. In an era of expensive raw materials, we need to apply creativity and innovation to find new ways to provide mobility and access…. Balanced communities… Pedestrian-friendly urban design… telework… intelligent transportation systems… Carpooling… Ending the mass transit monopolies…. etcetera, etcetera.