We can all agree that the recent, unlamented passing of the special General Assembly session on transportation was an exercise in futility. We might see a few minor bills coming out of the session, but nothing resembling a grand compromise that would ensure adequate transportation funding for years to come.
Clearly, there was no consensus on how to approach the problem. And one reason there was no consensus, reports the Washington Post, is that the feuding parties weren’t talking to one another. No one, it appears, was even trying to build a consensus. Here’s my favorite anecdote from the article by Tim Craig and Anita Kumar:
Kaine and Howell talk, but rarely in detail about transportation.
Last month, when Kaine was asked about transportation, he told reporters he had just met with the speaker.
But when Howell was asked about the meeting, he said the two sat next to each other at a dinner. “We have had very cordial talks,” Howell said. “He is a nice guy to talk to, but I don’t think we talked about transportation. I asked him about” presidential candidate Barack Obama.
There have been few substantive discussions since the different sides staked out their positions four months ago. Kaine did call at least two meetings between House and Senate leaders of both parties shortly after the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated the regional transportation authorities but could not broker a compromise. A handful of legislators have met behind closed doors or chatted on the phone over the past several weeks, Craig and Kumar report, but they have not found common ground.
The failure to start a dialog doesn’t apply to the politicians only. The environmentalist/ conservation community and significant elements of the fiscal conservative/free market camp offer very similar critiques of the contribution of transportation policy to Virginia’s dysfunctional human settlement patterns. Other than stray personal encounters, however, there is virtually no conversation between the two groups — or, seemingly, any interest in even starting such a conversation.
Jim Noland and Olympia Meola with the Times-Dispatch suggested today that a comprehensive transportation solution may have to wait until the next gubernatorial administration. Their article explores the transportation remedies proposed by the three leading contenders to succeed Kaine — Attorney General Bob McDonnell, a Republican; Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath; and Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria.
But none of the three candidates have proposed anything more than microwaved leftovers from the past failed session. Unless someone, somewhere, somehow, starts a sustained dialog between the diverse and warring constituencies in search of some common ground, Virginia will be no closer to a transportation solution two years from now than it is today.
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