Saslaw is right. And he’s pushing what’s best for NoVA. The General Assembly does not have the money coming in the door for transportation and NoVA has the worst transportation problems. It’s past the point of new road construction and now is a matter of continued maintenance. Is NoVA getting screwed by the General Assembly? You bet. Will that be rectified any time soon? Nope. There is a chance that NoVA state politicians and Tidewater state politicians could “band together” and claw back some of the ripoff but that would require a level of voter-centric logic that is beyond the present set of NoVA state politicians.

So, what will happen? There are a few choices:

1. Raise the gas tax. Nobody wants to pay higher taxes but this would at least charge all drivers in the state.

2. Institute “congestion tolls”. Under this scheme various “congested” roads would be subject to substantials tolls. Think in terms of $10/trip going up Rt 95 during rush hour. And where would these “congestion tolls” be implemented? Exclusively in NoVA and Tidewater. The rest of the state would continue to gets its transportation via a gas tax that has not been increased in decaded. In other words, the rest of the state will suck even more money out of NoVA and Tidewater.

And the further you live from where you work - the worse these “congestion tolls” will hurt. Don’t a lot of Prince William County residents have long commutes? Don’t they often use major highways to get to / from work? Guess who will bear the lion’s share of increased costs under the “congestion tolling” schemes that are proposed as alternatives to the gas tax? You got it - anybody making a long commute - especially if they drive on major highways.

A higher gas tax forces every driver in the state to pay for the increasing costs of transportation. “Congestion tolls” focus the costs on NoVA and Tidewater specifically screwing those who commute for locations that are relatively far from the job centers. Locations like Prince William County.

Saslaw may be a loudmouth but he’s doing the right thing here.