|
Speaker
Howell Urges Free-Market Solutions to State
Transportation Woes
By
Bob Burke
The
70 or so business types that gathered in a Holiday
Inn Select conference room in Fredericksburg
Tuesday morning didn’t appear to need a pep-talk
on the power of free markets. But Bill Howell gave
them one anyway.
During
a two-hour face-off against advocates of spending
billions more in state funds on transportation,
the speaker of Virginia’s House of Delegates
rejected any talk of raising the state’s
gasoline tax. Instead, he called for more
public-private partnerships, more toll roads and
maybe even selling off some of the state’s major
road infrastructure to raise money.
Government
needs to question “what it does, why it does it
and how it does it,” Howell said. “History has
demonstrated time and time again that market
forces work” in key infrastructure, such as
telecommunications. “Why not highways, bridges
and tunnels? I want to make free markets in
general, and public-private partnerships in
particular, a much bigger part of Virginia’s
transportation future.”
Hanging
over Howell’s words, though, is the fight for
control of the GOP caucus. After last session’s
$1.4 billion tax vote, anti-tax challengers vowed
to unseat Republicans who backed the deal. But
they failed: only one House GOP incumbent lost in
yesterday’s primaries.
Now
the weakened anti-tax movement faces an uphill
battle to counter State Sen. John Chichester, the
powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee
and a supporter of increased state transportation
funding.
The
forum was hosted by the Fredericksburg Regional
Chamber of Commerce, which covers Howell’s home
turf in Stafford County. The group gave Howell a
polite hearing, but openly supported Howell’s
two opponents, Bob Chase, president of the
Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, and
Steve Haner, vice president for public policy at
the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.
At
one point Howell rhetorically asked the audience
members, do you really think low- to
moderate-income workers can afford a higher gas
tax? “YES,” came a voice from the back of the
room, to scattered laughter. “Who said that?”
Howell asked. “Come on, be brave.”
Howell
pressed on, describing other transportation
projects around the country that have been turned
over to the private sector. Last year Chicago
signed a $1.8 billion deal to privatize the
Chicago Skyway, an eight-mile toll road. Indiana
is thinking of selling the Indiana Turnpike. In
Texas, state officials have signed a deal with a
Spanish firm that will invest $6 billion in
private funds to build a part of the Trans-Texas
Corridor and give the state a $1.2 billion
franchise fee. “Imagine what we could do with
that money,” Howell said.
What’s
more, Howell said an investment banker told him
that properties such as the Dulles Toll Road or
the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel could be sold
quickly to investors. “We could do a deal like
that in six months if we had the will and the mind
to do it.”
After
hearing Howell’s pitch, though, Haner just shook
his head. Private companies are willing to invest
in road projects because they expect to get the
money back in higher tolls, he said. “[Howell]
talks about these public-private partnerships as
if the money falls out of the sky,” Haner said.
“These tolls are going to kill people.”
Haner
and Chase argued that the state is in a
transportation-funding crisis that threatens its
economic health.
Chase
touted estimates that the state is “conservatively”
about $3 billion short a year on transportation
funding and said Howell’s approach would provide
for only 10 percent to 20 percent.
Both men repeated their support for raising the
state’s gas tax, which hasn’t gone up since
1986, despite inflation and a 79 percent increase
in the number of vehicle miles traveled. They also
pleaded for support from the gathered business
people. “It’s a numbers game,” Chase said.
“Elected officials count heads.”
Chase
also countered opponents of a gas tax hike, saying
that drivers have already absorbed a $1 increase
in gas prices in the past three years. With gas
prices dropping, drivers would accept a 25-cent
per gallon tax increase if it meant better roads,
he says. “Sitting in traffic is a tax, and you
get nothing in return for that except stress and
frustration.”
Howell
said that two private proposals to built HOT lanes
down Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia sat
unexamined for nine months because VDOT didn’t
have the staff to review them. “That’s
outrageous,” he said. “We need to make
approving PPTA proposals a higher priority.”
There
were still skeptics. “I happen to agree with
practically everything Bill Howell said,” said
Charles McDaniel, chairman of the nearby Hilldrup
Moving and Storage. “But I think if you did
everything Bill Howell said, it’s still not
going to be enough.”
Howell,
though, urged patience. “It’s going to take
time, it’s going to take money, and it’s going
to take serious reform,” he said. “All of us
must be open to new ideas.”
Bacon's
Rebellion News Service
June
14, 2005
|
