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They
Still Don't Get It
The
transportation plans proposed by Gov. Warner and
Speaker Howell differ in details but share a common
delusion: that it's possible to build our way out of
traffic congestion.
On
January 4, House Speaker William J. Howell,
R-Fredericksburg, unveiled a $1.83 billion, six-year
plan to improve transportation in Virginia.
This House Republican proposal is far more
ambitious than the proposal announced last month by
Governor Mark R. Warner.
Each deserves close examination.
Despite
the insistence of Warner and Howell that each has
developed an “innovative” strategy to deal with
the Commonwealth’s transportation problems, there
is nothing radical or new in either proposal.
Each is predicated on the questionable
assumption that massive and constant government
funding for structural solutions is needed to meet
our mobility needs.
Each
proposal unmasks once and for all the
misrepresentation made by proponents of the 2002
ballot measures to increase the sales tax in
Northern
Virginia
and Hampton Roads that the General Assembly had
already fully repaid the hundreds of millions of
dollars diverted from the Transportation Trust Fund
to balance the General Fund budget.
There is no longer any debate that the
Transportation Trust Fund diversion has yet to be
restored.
The
key to meeting Virginia’s
mobility needs is not guaranteed government funding
for roads, public transportation and other modes.
In fact, such dedicated and assured funding
will stifle real innovation over time.
Congestion
is not a problem but an opportunity for an
entrepreneur willing to risk private capital in
pursuit of a return on his investment.
The solution the entrepreneur offers
needn’t be another highway.
It might be a bus service or a rail project.
Whatever the method, the risk involves
private investment, not taxpayer funds.
Centralizing
and bureaucratizing the development of solutions to
congestion or other transportation problems is
precisely the wrong approach.
Virginia
should let the private sector design solutions that
would never be considered by a state or federal
agency, then allow the market to work.
The
General Assembly was headed in that direction a
decade ago when it authorized privately financed
transportation projects.
It has since moved away from that model
toward public-private partnerships, which means that
the private partner takes on less and less financial
risk. Virginia
should return to this earlier model.
The
traditional method of constructing roads and other
transportation projects is to award contracts to
private companies, following competitive bidding.
By this method, money to fund construction
comes from the state treasury.
The public-private partnership model
doesn’t depart from this traditional approach
nearly enough. Providing
heavy government funding will not break the pattern
of transportation mistakes that have caused demand
for even more government funding to spiral upward.
Massive
government-financed highway projects have induced
sprawl and left localities with horrendous problems
on secondary roads. Huge
government subsidies for public transportation
create market distortions of their own.
The best way to reduce the demand for
increase taxpayer support for public transportation
is to discontinue the policy of building roads
without user fees in urbanized regions of
Virginia.
Let
users of every mode pay the true cost of their
transportation. When
the cost becomes too high, entrepreneurs will be
encouraged to find alternative solutions or people
may simply decide to move.
Rational policy is more likely to derive from
the operation of the market than from political
debate.
This
is bitter medicine, particularly for politicians.
Most of us cling to the belief that we can
build our way out of the current mess.
Let’s not rush to spend another $1.8
billion in public funds before challenging that
belief.
--
January 17, 2005
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