Sunday, January 13, 2008
Editorial: Regionalism will harm roads
Lawmakers must not allow Richmond to follow Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads away from statewide transportation funding.
From the RoundTable blog
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Abusive driver fees were not the only bad idea lawmakers built into last year's disastrous transportation plan. They also created regional transportation authorities to raise money for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Now Central Virginia wants an authority for itself. The General Assembly should prevent further fragmentation.
Richmond empowered the regional transportation authorities to impose local taxes and fees. The revenue would pay for road improvements in the most congested parts of the state. That took delegates and senators off the hook for coming up with the money themselves.
The Virginia Supreme Court recently heard arguments challenging the system, but questions about its constitutionality do not dissuade Richmond.
Del. Franklin Hall, D-Richmond, has teamed up with the head of the Greater Richmond Chamber of Commerce to ask the assembly to allow their region to create its own transportation authority. If enough localities agreed, they would impose a gas tax and fees on car registrations, inspections and repairs. That would raise up to $105 million for transportation.
There's some naïve appeal to the whole thing. If the traffic is the worst in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and the Richmond area, let the people who live there pay for it. Why should the rest of the state foot the bill?
That is a dangerous line of reasoning.
Virginians have long managed and financed transportation as a unified commonwealth. We work together and pool our resources to ensure that sufficient roads, rails and so on exist across the state.
This new regionalism disregards that history. When the most populous parts of the state fund transportation locally, they will have less and less interest in maintaining an adequate state transportation system over all. And as that support erodes, the hurt will spread quickly.
The most congested areas are also the most prosperous. Without their help, the poorer areas of the state will find themselves unable to fund road improvements.
Yet without adequate highways and byways throughout Virginia, goods and services would not reach the prosperous sections. They would trade short-term improvements for long-term failure.
Virginia's interconnected transportation system serves the entire commonwealth. It is a shared responsibility. Lawmakers should not fracture it further simply because they lack the courage to fund the state's transportation needs adequately.
