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My
most recent columns on transportation, which
advocated more privatization and bolder thinking
("Liberate
Transportation", March 28, 2005),
apparently struck a nerve.
Two responses in particular warrant
attention.
The
first was from Stephen D. Haner, vice-president for
public policy at the Virginia Chamber of Commerce,
who opposes my suggestion.
Does it seem strange to anyone but me that a
representative of the Chamber of Commerce would
favor higher taxes and more government over
privatization? This
is not your daddy’s Chamber of Commerce.
Haner
devotes most of his response to proving that
transportation isn’t a government monopoly.
No one, to my knowledge, has argued that it
is. And we
should all be thankful that government doesn’t
have a monopoly.
What
I wrote was that transportation facilities tend to
be owned, developed and maintained by government.
Haner insists it is the role of government to
build and maintain public rights of way.
I believe we should let private entrepreneurs
take on more of that role.
Haner’s
fear is that if rights of way are privately owned,
the public would be denied access.
That is an absurd argument.
First, no profit-seeking entrepreneur would
turn customers away.
Second, government can and should mandate
open access to rights of way even if they are
nominally in private ownership.
The
second response was from Robert O. Chase, president
of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance,
whose principal objection is that I don’t support
another massive tax increase to build more roads.
He also challenges my contention that the
state’s road-building program has caused the total
vehicle miles traveled to increase dramatically.
He says that is akin to arguing that building
more schools is responsible for increasing student
enrollments, building more intensive-care beds is
responsible for more people being critically ill and
building more prisons is responsible for more people
breaking the law.
The
fact that Chase, of all people, doesn’t understand
the difference may explain why
Northern
Virginia’s
transportation conditions are worsening, not
improving. There
is a causal linkage between the kind of
transportation system we build and the number and
length of trips people take each day.
No such cause-and-effect relationship exists
between schools and students, sick beds and
patients, and prisons and lawbreakers.
Anyone
with a passing familiarity with transportation
planning knows of the phenomenon of induced travel
demand. How,
when and where we build highways can dramatically
increase our dependence on automobiles, the average
length of trips and the number of trips taken.
Just compare New
York City and
Los
Angeles.
What
is beyond dispute is that the increase in total
vehicle miles traveled in Virginia has dramatically
outstripped the increase in Virginia’s population
since 1987, the year the Baliles transportation tax
hike went into effect.
And the gap will continue to widen.
The Commonwealth recently projected minimum
funding requirements for road-building through 2025
at $74.2 billion. Combined
funding needs for all transportation modes through
2025 are $108.4 billion.
If history is an accurate guide, the
state’s projection for roads is substantially
understated.
Both
Haner and Chase insist that the 1986 Baliles
transportation tax program was not a failure. Clearly, it failed by the standard that Gov.
Gerald Baliles himself set when he promised that his
tax increase would take Virginia into the 21st century.
Gov.
Mark R. Warner and House Speaker William Howell
believe we need greater privatization to meet our
transportation needs.
The choice is either more of the same, as
Haner and Chase suggest, or a bold departure.
That
deserves an election year debate.
--
April 11, 2005
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