Chesterfield County has 4,000 miles of roads and streets, and it’s adding new roads at the rate of 35 miles per year — more than any other locality in Virginia. Despite a massive gift of state General Fund dollars to pay for construction of the Rt. 288 circumferential highway, Chesterfield officials worry that they need hundreds of millions of dollars more. About $1 billion more.
Under the new transportation funding legislation, Chesterfield will get a little more money for new construction but not much: only $45 million over the next six years for secondary roads. According to Julian Walker with the Times-Dispatch, Chesterfield officials are considering raising some $300 million in local funds to play catch-up.
Some of the options: higher impact fees, issuing bonds through Community Development Authorities to be repaid through special tax districts, and issuing county-backed bonds to be repaid.
Here’s what’s not being considered, assuming that Walker’s article is fairly comprehensive in covering the spectrum of debate: Reforming land use patterns. Although the county has approved, or is in the processing of approving, a handful of major mixed-use, New Urbanism-style developments, it is responding to the initiatives of the development community, not making the changes proactively. There is no discussion of creating Balanced Communities. There are no moves, above and beyond the current modest initiatives, to aggressively re-develop aging districts of the county already served by roads. There is no discussion of Transit Oriented Development served by rail.
You’d think someone among Chesterfield’s leaders would ask: If we’re building more roads than anyone else, why are traffic conditions deteriorating faster? Could we be building roads in the wrong places? (Is Rt. 288 accelerating the pattern of leapfrog, disconnected, low-density development at the root of congestion?) Is building more roads really the remedy? How about making better use of the roads we already have? How about building communities where people can drive fewer, shorter trips in their cars?
Unless there is a breakthrough in thinking, traffic congestion in Chesterfield County will continue to get worse, not better, no matter how much money the County raises for new construction.
