“Seventy-five Years” is the first of three columns exploring the thinking behind the House of Delegates’ transportation agenda. The House plan to restucture the institutional arrangements that Harry F. Byrd put into place in 1932 is one of the most sweeping reform proposals of my 30 years of reporting on Virginia government. Incredibly, the Mainstream Media has brushed it off as a figleaf or subterfuge to avoid raising taxes. The MSM coverage of the transportation debate amounts to nothing less than journalistic malpractice.
This column documents that the transportation debate is taking place at two levels.
- Institutional reforms. Virginia’s mechanisms for building and maintaining roads, defined nearly 75 years ago, have not kept pace with the dramatic shifts in human settlement patterns. The MSM is not covering this discussion at all, indeed, is barely even cognizant that a discussion is taking place.
- Who pays? Virginia’s transportation system clearly needs more money. The question is who pays for the improvements. The MSM has mischaracterized the debate as a simple one, between more taxes/no taxes. But the issues are, in fact, far more complex.
Future columns will take a close look at the keystone solutions the House proffers for transportation reform: the creation of Urban Transportation Service Districts and Urban Development Areas.
