A coalition of activist Virginia conservatives has distributed an analysis of Virginia transportation policy, “A Conservative Transportation Alternative,” in the hope of informing the General Assembly during its upcoming special session on transportation. No single author is listed, but I suspect that the guiding light behind the document is Patrick McSweeney, the Richmond-area attorney whose legal work persuaded the state Supreme Court to strike down the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority.
The ideas in the “Conservative Alternative” will sound very familiar to readers of Bacon’s Rebellion. They are based on the propositions that (a) the existing transportation is broken and cannot be fixed with more tax money and (b) Virginia needs to devolve responsibility for transportation policy to municipal governments, where transportation and land use planning can be aligned. The document also supports the idea of a “user pays” financing system.
The “Conservative Transportation Alternative” is significant because it represents an important advance in the conservative movement beyond the “Just Say No” rhetoric of the past. Instead of fighting an obstructionist battle against bone-headed ideas — raising taxes, creating unconstitutional regional authorities and perpetuating Business As Usual — these conservative activists have shifted to the ideological offensive, so to speak, articulating a positive set of principles to guide transportation policy going forward.
The manifesto is significant in another way. In the past, free-market and fiscal conservatives opposed Business As Usual policies mainly on the grounds of opposition to new taxes. That left them little in common with the Smart Growth movement, comprised mainly of liberal-leaning environmentalists who emphasized land use reform and environmental issues. By embracing land use reform, at least in principle, the “Conservative Alternative” builds a conceptual bridge between the two groups, opening up the possibility that Virginia’s free marketeers and Smart Growthers may find sufficient common ground to collaborate in the future. Mark my words, “A Conservative Transportation Alternative” is a very important document.
I will delve into the document’s detailed arguments in subsequent posts, but for now, let me leave you with the principles it espouses to guide Virginia transportation policy:
1. Fund transportation:
(a) without tax increases,
(b) without more tax-supported debt,
(c) without allowing diversions of funds earmarked for transportation to non- transportation programs, and
(d) by imposing the costs of new projects, to the extent possible, on those who will directly benefit from new transportation spending.
2. Refocus state transportation policy to encourage greater investment, innovation and risk-taking by the private sector.
3. Transfer responsibility for secondary roads to cities and counties that are not already exercising that authority, and accompany such transfer of responsibility with the authority over the revenues currently used at the state level to build and maintain secondary roads.
4. Adopt true performance-based criteria for spending government funds on transportation, with relief of traffic congestion having the highest priority.
5. Develop a methodology for allocating the cost of new, upgraded and expanded transportation facilities and other infrastructure that appropriately accounts for distance-related factors and any hidden cost of sprawl so that subsidies borne by taxpayers at large can be reduced or eliminated.
These are all sound principles, and they represent a huge conceptual leap forward for Virginia conservatives. The document does leave some work undone: It does not offer specific policy prescriptions for raising the funds that the transportation system clearly does need. (For my thinking on how these principles might translate into a “user pays” system for paying for transportation improvements, I refer readers again to my essay, “User Pays.”) But that is a minor quibble. This is a very important document indeed.
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