The GOP in the House of Delegates is promising an “extreme makeover” of Virginia’s transportation system when the General Assembly reconvenes in a month, reports Garren Shipley with the Northern Virginia Daily.
The delegates have absorbed the results of the recent Mason-Dixon poll that showed voters had little appetite for higher taxes. During a recent retreat, they explored a range of new policy options. Shipley quotes Del. Clay Athey, R-Front Royal, as saying, “The people of Virginia believe that we have enough money to have a fine transportation system. The message we’re getting [from voters] is ‘fix it with some innovative ideas.'”
Some of the ideas under consideration:
- Give control of secondary road system in urban areas back to county governments, along with funding from what was the Virginia Department of Transportation’s budget. VDOT would remain responsible for interstate highways and primary routes. The transfer of responsibility, says Athey, “clearly ties those decisions [together], land use and transportation.”
- Experiment with congestion-pricing tolls on gridlocked stretches of Interstate. Raising money would be a secondary goal. The main purpose would be to incentivize drivers to drive less on bottlenecked roads during periods of peak traffic.
- Prioritize transportation projects on a Return on Investment basis. In other words, give funding preference to projects that provide the most congestion relief per dollar spent. Projects that deliver the most “bang for the buck” would get the money, Athey says. Mass transit and rail projects would have to compete on an equal basis with roads.
The delegates are to be applauded for their serious outside-the-box thinking. These ideas would constitute the most significant change in state transportation policy in my memory, surpassing even the introduction of public-private partnerships into the transportation policy mix.
As readers of Bacon’s Rebellion know, these ideas, as significant as they are, represent only a first step down a long path. But at least these proposals would get Virginia moving down the right path. The latter two ideas are ones that we have been calling for, and the first is one we wish we had. The special transportation session next month will be fascinating to watch.
