|
Former
Gov. Gerald Baliles should be credited for offering
a financing plan to meet the Commonwealth’s
transportation needs. It is a serious proposal that
deserves serious consideration.
The
Baliles proposal wisely relies on new tolls rather
than higher taxes to raise $1 billion a year for
state highway construction and maintenance, but it
fails in another important respect. His plan imposes
tolls on existing highways to raise revenues
primarily for construction of new highways.
He
suggests that these new toll revenues be leveraged
to support revenue bonds that would generate funds
for new projects.
One
problem with this approach is that it simply
substitutes a huge new pork barrel funded with toll
revenues for the old tax-funded pork barrel.
Politics rather than market discipline will
determine how and where the bond proceeds will be
spent.
This
does not mean that tolls should never be imposed on
interstate highways. If, for example, Virginia
adopts a comprehensive pricing strategy for its
highways, tolls may be warranted on existing
interstate highways to cover their true maintenance
and replacement costs and to level the playing field
for new toll-financed projects.
New
highway projects should be market-tested. The best
way to accomplish that is to use toll-financing on a
project-by-project basis to fund any new major
highway.
The
more troublesome aspect of the Baliles proposal is
that it fails to anticipate future developments,
such as dramatic increases in energy costs and the
hidden costs of the way we develop our urban areas.
When it comes to transportation, politicians and
citizens alike are inclined to indulge in denial and
wishful thinking. Those defense mechanisms could
cost us dearly if we don’t hold them in check.
We
persist in developing our transportation plans on
the assumption that congestion is an evil that
government can remedy by spending vast sums on more
highways and mass transit projects. We ignore the
lessons of our own history.
We
also assume that we will be able to afford to travel
as we have for decades regardless of the cost of
energy. We refuse to consider seriously whether our
way of developing urban regions can be sustained.
At
some level, most of us recognize that the
transportation strategies of the 1950s just won’t
work in the 21st century, but like a drug addict, we
can’t seem to kick the habit. One
reason is that the old approach has the advantage of
simplicity, while any alternative suitable for the
future must necessarily be more complex and more
difficult to get our minds around.
As
the recent congressional action on a $286.4 billion
highway bill demonstrated once again, federal
transportation policy is largely driven by
pork-barrel politics. States have generally follow
the same course. The Baliles proposal does little to
remedy this wasteful approach.
We
can’t afford to continue along the same path,
embracing the old assumptions that we can always
build our way out of traffic congestion and
constantly find more and more revenues to cover the
rising gap between available funds and our
“needs.” A market-driven approach would be more
disciplined and would also create opportunities for
the pursuit of non-structural alternatives. Building
a new highway or transit system is not the only
solution to congestion.
The
plan that Baliles has offered simply gives us
another way of funding business as usual. We need a
bolder plan that invites greater efficiency,
innovation and entrepreneurial risk.
--
September 19, 2005
|
