The leadership of the House of Delegates has released the details of its regional transportation-funding packages for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. You can read the press release and the fact sheets on both regions here.
I don’t have time this morning to analyze this is any details, so I will make only a couple of quick observations and then turn it over to the piranhas.
First, I have nothing good to say about the way these plans are funded. They violate the basic maxim that there needs to be a link between how much people pay in taxes/tolls/fees and how much they use the transportation capacity, and when and where they use them. Other than the abusive driver fee, any links between taxes/fees and the use of the roads is negligible.
However, there are aspects of these packages that save them from being unmitigated disasters:
Congestion tolling. The legislation allows for tolling (a) to pay for new facilities, and (b) for congestion tolling. At last, the concept of congestion tolling has entered the lexicon of our legislators and has been introduced into legislation. That’s a small breakthrough. The fact that such a tool exists, however, does not mean that it will be employed.
Performance standards. The Northern Virginia regional plan (but apparently not the Hampton Roads plan) includes this provision: “Projects undertaken by the [Northern Virginia Transportation Authority] must be contract out to private entities and meet performance measure standards. These projects will be determined by the NVTA based on even distribution between regional localities and projects that move the most people or the most commercial traffic in the most cost-effective manner.”
Wow — funding projects based on cost-effectiveness. How about that? That does represent a breakthrough. …. It also makes you wonder why the same verbiage is not included in the Hampton Roads package. Could it be that certain projects are fore-ordained not to be cost effective?
Should you be interested in what the legislation says, as opposed to what legislators say it says, go to the bills here:
Rail to Dulles. Finally, note this language tucked away in the House bill: “… no agreement or contract to transfer responsibility from an agency or institution of the Commonwealth for control, maintenance, or operation of any toll facility that was operated by such agency or institution of the Commonwealth on July 1, 2006, to any other public or private entity shall be entered into by the Commonwealth or any agency, instrumentality, or political subdivision thereof without prior legislative authorization from the General Assembly.
In other words, the bill would block the transfer of authority over the Dulles Toll Road to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, scuttling the Kaine administration’s plan for managing the Rail-to-Dulles heavy rail project.