Reader Larry Gross has brought to my attention two very cool — and under-reported — pieces of legislation.
Road reclassification. In HJR 623, Del. Michelle McQuigg, R-Occoquan, would establish a subcommittee to study the current, outmoded (circa 1930s) classification of roads and streets in Virginia with a functional system as outlined by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in 2001. The current classification, notes the bill, “oftentimes bears little relationship to the significance of a road, its location, its traffic volume, or its function.” JLARC proposed categorizing roads by statewide significance, regional significance and local significance.
This is no academic exercise. Real state dollars are dumped into different administrative buckets, with the result that many less-deserving roads get priority over more deserving roads. Additionally, determining which roads are of “local” significance is a critical step in devolving authority for local roads to local governments.
Expanded Tolling Authority. In SB 782, Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II, R-Fairfax, would grant the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, currently a shell organization, with the power to impose and collect tolls for use of new and reconstructed facilities “so as to increase their traffic capacity” and to issue bonds supported by those toll collections. The bill also stipulates that every toll facility in Northern Virginia must be capable of fully automated electronic operation.
SB 782 is part of a broader package of legislation designed to address transportation and land use in tandem. Said a Jan. 8 press release from Cuccinelli’s office: “If his transportation legislation passes, Cuccinelli said that localities would finally have the right to reject denser development if it would negatively impact local transportation networks, the transportation trust fund would be constitutionally protected and a HOT lanes network would reduce congestion on our worst roads.”
Cuccinelli isn’t exactly Mr. Popular with the Axis of Taxes running the state Senate, so I wouldn’t expect his proposals to get very far. But you never know. In any case, it’s good to know that at least one member of the upper chamber shows signs of thinking outside the tax-and-spend box.
