"We have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge" - Barack Obama (aka President Malaise)
What Would You Do With $4 Billion?
By Greg L | 16 March 2007 | Virginia Politics | 2 Comments
Let’s say you have a bit more than two billion dollars in state money to spend on transit improvements in Virginia. How would you spend it? Maybe to solve the congestion nightmare near I-64 in Hampton Roads? Or to deliver drivers stuck on I-66 in Northern Virginia from the perennial gridlock they endure? We can all think of congestion or safety issues that need to be addressed in the Commonwealth where an extra $2.5 billion in addition to the bonding package in HB 3202 could really make a difference. There’s no shortage of problems to address.
Would a metrorail extension out to, and a little beyond Dulles Airport been your pick as the best way to spend this money? Not for many. But that’s what has been the subject of fierce lobbying and endless negotiations which may thankfully be on the verge of derailment. Doug Mataconis reports today that even with a billion or so in additional federal dollars that the bids on the project aren’t likely to come in at or below the projected four billion dollars that project proponents have been expecting and the project might be in trouble. We could only hope.
Four billion dollars is pretty stunning figure when you consider that the biennial budget appropriation for capital improvements of our transportation system in the commonwealth will only amount to $2.3 billion in 2007-2008. Also of note is that this is being done through a transfer of authority of the land and project to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, an unelected and notoriously unresponsive regional authority, as a sole-source provider of the project. Meanwhile the entire scope of the debate has only been whether this should be some ugly above-ground rail line, or some expensive and difficult underground project equivalent in some ways to Boston’s “big dig”. All of this will help to promote mass transit and reduce congestion in the Dulles corridor, which is one of the few areas in Northern Virginia where there doesn’t seem to be a tremendous congestion problem.
It’s not only places like Hillsville, VA which get transportation projects that don’t seem to match dollars with priorities. Hillsville may be getting millions of dollars to build a bypass where the population of the town is equivalent to that of a large high school, but Fairfax and a portion of Loudoun is going to rake in billions of dollars to build a mass transit extension that won’t measurably relieve congestion either. If we won’t use the dollars we have to actually solve problems we’re facing, perhaps it’s time to turn everything over to the counties and let local officials control how their local transportation dollars will be used to solve their local issues. If they want to waste them on projects that won’t solve transportation problems, at least they can be held accountable. With little accountability for results at the state level, our state transportation dollars are now being spent without much regard at all to what they will accomplish.
And as for this Dulles rail extension taxpayer boondoggle? It’ll happen. I’ve never seen a government that was unable to find a way to spend a big chunk of money, and the larger it is the more people there will be who have an interest in seeing it spent. And as for whether it will be above or below ground, whichever alternative will cost the taxpayers the most will inevitably be selected. If this had anything to do with cost-effectiveness, the conversation of a metrorail extension to Dulles would never have started in the first place.
The opinions expressed here are solely the views of the author, and not representative of the position of any organization, political party, doughnut shop, knitting guild, or waste recycling facility, but may be correctly attributed to the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. If anything in the above article has offended you, please click here to receive an immediate apology.
You can follow the discussion through the Comments feed.
2 Comments
Views: 728
Loading ...
Amen.
Couldn’t agree more.