An important shift in Virginia’s transportation debate has occurred, but it has yet to be fully acknowledged by the Mainstream Media. The push for a statewide, broad-based tax increase to fund transportation has evaporated. The pro-taxes forces have beat a tactical retreat. They’re now working on (a) modest new revenue sources, such as higher auto insurance premiums or traffic abuser fees, or (b) regional taxes to fund regional projects.
Meanwhile, momentum is building to restructure the way the Virginia Department of Transportation does business. At the very least, expect moves to privatize maintenance, more public-private partnerships and new priorities for ranking road-building projects. Finally, there is a lot of rhetoric about aligning transportation and land use planning, although it’s not clear what concrete proposals might emerge.
This is a far cry from the call for $1 billion in statewide tax increases that launched the 2006 session of the General Assembly.
One key figure to watch in the upcoming special session, of course, is Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. We detailed his revised transportation agenda recently on this blog. (See “Kaine on the Transportation Session.”)
Other public figures are re-thinking the political calculus as well. In today’s edition of Bacon’s Rebellion (see “The Dog that Didn’t Bark“), I describe how former VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet, once a vocal supporter of tax increases, has changed his tune. After spending a year in the private sector as president of a Virginia Beach home-building company, he interacts more with people who just can’t handle another tax increase, no matter how bad the roads. Also, his work on “workforce” housing, has sharpened his awareness of the impact of land use patterns on transportation.
Both Kaine and Shucet have concluded that there’s no point in pressing for tax increases that the House of Delegates is unwilling to approve. Instead, they say, look for areas of common ground. Work on these until the political equation changes and then make another run at developing a stable, long-term source of revenue.
