Bacon's Rebellion

The United States needs to invest between $132 billion and $155.5 billion a year to improve transportation conditions, contends BusinessWeek magazine, but motorists pay only $54 billion a year for road repairs and maintenance. Another $11 billion a year will be needed over the next 20 years to replace aging water treatment facilities and comply with safe-drinking-water regulations; federal funding is less than 10 percent of the total national requirement. Tens of billions of dollars more are needed to repair dams, wastewater treatment plants and waterways.

Who’s going to pay for it all? It looks like the private sector will play a major role. Private investment companies are raising hundreds of billions of dollars to take over aging infrastructure. The good news is, government won’ t have to raise taxes. The bad news is, the private sector will have to raise tolls and fees.

That raises a great debate: What latitude should private investors be given in raising tolls and fees? What return on investment is reasonable? Could government do the job better for less money? BusinessWeek explores the issues here.

My criteria for Virginia are very simple:

(1) Pay now or pay later — pay much more later. The more government delays maintenance of infrastructure, the more it will cost to fix it down the road. Whether state government, local government or a private operator is in charge, hewing to higher maintenance standards generally pays off.

(2) User/beneficiary pays. Politicians will resort to all sorts of trickery to disguise who’s paying the taxes, levies, penalties and fees that fund infrastructure maintenance and improvemetns. Infrastructure should be paid for by those who use the infrastructure, or those, such as landowners whose property gains value, who benefit from it. Furthermore, the payments should be totally transparent so people can seek alternatives. (Virginia’s recent transportation legislation is a case study in indirect subsidy and opacity. We need to go back and fix it.)

(Hat tip to Jonathan Mallard for pointing me to the article.)

In our never-ending quest to promote novel transportation modes, Bacon’s Rebellion has touted the virtues of electric buggies, commonly used as golf carts but often modified in highly creative ways to suit the owner’s tastes.

In the Fairview Beach community of King George County, citizens are agitating to legalize the use of golf carts on public roads. There are at least 80 such carts in the community of some 200 homes, reports the Journal Press, and there likely would be more if the Board of Supervisors would legalize them.

Safety appears to be the foremost consideration: It’s dangerous driving golf carts on roads where far heavier, more powerful cars can drive three or four times faster (unless Fairview residents start driving carts like the Electric Ezgo High-Speed Golf Cart pictured above, in which case the automobiles might get run off the road).

But I see no reason why the carts can’t be ridden on Fairview’s residential streets with 25-miles-per-hour speed limits, which are frequented already by pedestrians and bicyclists. Furthermore, there are the energy/environmental considerations: Electric buggies, which run on electricity, don’t push up demand for imported oil, and they’re cleaner than gasoline-powered cars.

Supervisors will study the issue next week.

(Photo credit: Ringgold Power Sport.)

Once seen as a sure thing, approval of a regional transportation authority for Hampton Roads is now uncertain. Seven of the region’s 12 localities representing more than half the population must vote to create the authority, which would be empowered to impose roughly $170 million a year in new levies. Rejection by six localities could scuttle the entire enterprise.

Earlier this week, the tiny city of Poquoson voted no. Mayor Gordon Helsel called the proposal “sheer arrogance” by members of the General Assembly, noting that Hampton Roads voters had decisively defeated a similar plan five years ago. (Read the account in the Daily Press.)

Poquoson’s action follows a similar “no” vote by York County. According to the editorial pundits at the Daily Press, no one should be surprised if the City of Hampton votes “no” next month. Meanwhile, Isle of Wight and James City counties have delayed their votes, reflecting reservations on the part of local officials. Likewise, according to accounts in the Virginian-Pilot, local leaders in the City of Chesapeake have major concerns. I haven’t seen anything reflecting the temperament in Suffolk, but the fact that it has taken no action yet hints at a lack of enthusiasm. If all six localities rebuff the regional authority, the idea dies.

(The five cities that have voted to create the authority include Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Newport News and Williamsburg.)

I took it for granted that the measure would win approval, so I haven’t followed developments as closely as I should have. Bacon’s Rebellion columnist Jim Bowden, by contrast, has been riding the issue hard. His latest column, “Speak to the Camera,” raises issues for which the Axis of Taxes has no good answers.

Now that it’s clear that the approval of the H.R. transportation authority is, in fact, in play, I will start paying closer attention to developments.

Update: The fate of the transportation authority hinges upon the votes of a handful of undecided local elected officials, reports Tom Holden with the Virginian-Pilot. There is a widespread sentiment that the enabling legislation is bad. If people had a clear idea what might replace it, they might reject it more decisively.

Said John J. McGlennon, chairman of the James City County Board: “Everyone understands that this is pretty terrible legislation. The real question is whether anything better will emerge if we reject it.”

The Rail-to-Dulles project will cost about $5.15 billion, according to a presentation given earlier in May to the board of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, reports the Times Community Newspapers. The highest official figure yet, the number is about 25 percent higher than preliminary estimates bandied about as recently as a year ago.

While the federal contribution will remained capped at $900 million and the state donation at $75 million, other costs are determined by fixed percentages. Under the latest scenario, Dulles Toll Road users are expected to fund 56 percent of the total cost, or $2.89 billion. (Fairfax County, Loudoun County and the MWAA will chip in the balance, about 25 percent of the total.)

What happens if the price tag escalates yet again? Everyone but the state and feds will have to pony up a larger share. Bottom line: Commuters using the Dulles Toll Road constitute the deep pockets that will cover 2/3 of any cost overruns. Fairfax County land-owners whose properties will soar in value will pay only a small fraction through a special tax district.

Let’s add up the pieces… The heavy rail construction project will be managed by the airports authority, which regards the Metro extension to Dulles International Airport as vital to its long-term interests but pays only 4.1 percent of the project cost… The MWAA board is stacked with a majority of non-Virginians who feel no pain if Virginia commuters get hosed… Commuters have absolutely no say-so in how the project is administered… A negotiated contract is likely to be granted to Bechtel, the company who brought Boston the Big Dig project…

I’m going way out on a limb here, but it looks like Dulles Toll Road commuters are going to get royally hosed. I’m glad I live in Richmond, not Northern Virginia.

Sixty-six miles of U.S. Route 15, stretching from the Potomac River in Loudoun County to the town of Orange, have been designated an official Virginia Byway by the Commonwealth Transportation Board. The byway is part of the four-state, 175-mile “Journey Through Hallowed Ground” corridor that runs from Gettysburg, Pa., to Monticello.

Commuters prefer driving alone over carpools and mass transit because they feel more comfortable and in control during the trip, reports George Mason University PhD candidate Mitchell Baer. In his study, “The Emotional Response to Commuting,” for which he surveyed 900 households, Baer found that solo drivers feel more emotionally satisfied with their commute, even if it ends up taking longer or costing more.

States a GMU press release:

Commuters say driving alone offers up more freedom — choosing when to leave, what route to take, which radio station to listen to, or what temperature to set in the car. In many instances, notes Baer, commuters say that driving alone is the only option, the least expensive option or the quickest option.

“With cars affording more creature comforts and independence and mass transit options becoming more crowded and uncomfortable — especially in light of Metro’s recent experiment to remove seats from its subway cars—it will be difficult to convince commuters to switch away from driving alone to and from work,” says Baer.

Prying people out of their cars, won’t be easy. But Baer’s survey offered grounds for hope. Those who walked or biked to work were the most emotionally satisfied of all commuters.

Baer also suggested new approaches to coaxing people into mass transit. “Transportation planning agencies … should look at transportation strategies that provide mass transit commuters with additional control over their commuting environments and improved comfort during their commutes,” says Baer.

Why can’t an entrepreneur refit a bus to provide more legroom, docks for laptops and a satellite Internet link? Talk about control over your commute! Riders could download and answer their e-mail before they arrive at work, check the news on the Web, finish work projects, and then arrive at the office ready to rock and roll. I think that a segment of the marketplace would find that mode of travel more attractive than listening to talk radio or their iPod while driving solo.