Transportation Deal
By Greg L | 18 January 2007 | Virginia Politics | 6 Comments
The announcements regarding the Republican House-Senate transportation plan have been flying thick and fast today, and while there are a lot of devil-in-the-details components that need further review, it seems that a reasonable compromise has been achieved that won’t make everyone happy, but can at least leave most of us generally satisfied. Perhaps best of all it re-frames the debate and pretty much takes Governor Kaine’s insistence on a major tax hike off the table, as well as demonstrating that Republican leadership can indeed provide better solutions.
Jim Bacon over at Bacon’s Rebellion summarizes the plan as follows:
- Reform “linking transportation and land use.” The package includes all of the major governance reforms introduced by the House of Delegates in the September 2006 transportation special section and modified slightly for this session. These allow for (1) the creation of “urban development areas” in fast-growing counties, (2) the establishment of “urban transportation service districts” whereby Northern Virginia localities can take over responsibility for secondary roads, and (3) a ban on VDOT accepting any “local subdivision roads” into the state system for maintenance.
- Transportation funding. The transportation funding package would raise $500 million annually in recurring statewide revenues from the General Fund, the General Fund surplus and a variety of other sources. This would be supplemented by $2 billion in bonds issued over five years. Additionally, regional transportation authorities would be able to raise up to $383 million a year in Northern Virginia and $209 million a year in Hampton Roads to spend regionally.
- VDOT reform. The package envisions sweeping reforms for the way VDOT does business. It would (1) institute”quantifiable and achievable goals” relating to congestion and safety; (2) put VDOT functions for competitive bidding; (3) streamline the environmental review process; (4) require tolls to be electronically automated; (5) reclassify primary, secondary and urban roads to bring them in line with current function; and (6) allow the General Assembly to elect at-large members to the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
I’m not thrilled about regional transportation authorities, nor that so much of the current surplus is going to priorities other than transportation. I’m not terribly pleased by a lot of these fees being raised. With the Senate we have now however, these compromises will have to serve us until we can change the makeup of the Virginia Senate and retire a few of these “Republicans” who seem so enamored with the notion of raising taxes at a time when the state is running a surplus. Given the current political climate, this isn’t that bad of a deal. The alternative probably would have meant another year of inaction, which might have yielded difficult political consequences.
If Governor Kaine acts as irresponsibly regarding transportation as he recently has regarding controlling illegal immigration, the unraveling of this deal would bring him and his party into the exact same dire political position they hoped to corner Republicans with this year. The Republicans managed to run by the Governors lack of any serious proposals and have now set the stage for the debate. Governor Kaine can agree, which it seems like he will, or not and suffer terrible consequences. And down the road, this agreement can be improved upon provided we give the House of Delegates a better Senate to work with.
And a new Governor wouldn’t hurt either.
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6 Comments
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One example is that Braddock Rd. (620) is considered a secondary road yet it looks a lot like a primary road to me (and likely carries more traffic than some primary roads).
The real treat in this is that, and I’m sure many of you agree with me, that Democrats never wanted a solution so long as they were in the minority. They didn’t have to do anything, and didn’t want anything done because Republican infighting and failure to get anything done has become a powerful political tool in elections. NOW, the Dems and the governor are in a position where its up to them. If the Dems fight this, they will be the ones who “killed a Transportation deal” and will have to go to the voters with that.
I know in Fairfax County, where I live, people aren’t so much partisan as they are desperate. ANYTHING is good at this point, and if Democrats in the county who could be in trouble (Caputo, Bulova, etc) will not help their cause by coming out against this.
This is as good as we are going to get. The fact is that NOVA does need more revenue, but its equally important that we don’t force our problems on other parts of the state–AND to make sure that our tax dollars go to what they are suppose too.
MC,
I agree with you comments about NOVA. I personally am not totally thrilled about the package but I do think the “compromise” was about as good as could be expected and may indeed save the GOP in NOVA in the long term. It will be interesting to see how the various conservative special interest groups handle the compromise. Will they attempt to label McDonnell and Howell as a “traitor” to their cause. In my opinion McDonnell and Howell both showed real leadership by getting things done when the stakes were so increadibly high.
Greg, Im impressed with your analysis. Im a conservative who also thinks this may be a good compromise that does show true leadership.
Can you get any feedback from the Prince William delegation? How will Frederick/McQuigg/Lingamfelter/Marshall/Miller come down on this one?
[…] BVBL […]
What about the billion surplus? Raising taxes, fees, whatever you want to call them isn’t right when state budget growth is skyrocketing.