Journalists focus on problems they understand. As a result, they address trivial matters while overlooking systemic ones. Nowhere is this truism more evident than the realm of transportation policy. Take the latest mini-scandal at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel Commission.
It turns out that board members racked up a $900 restaurant tab at topless cabaret in Paris two years ago, putatively while learning how other toll roads operate. When the (Newport News) Daily Press disclosed this abuse of public funds, people were understandably outraged. The press flogged the story and now the Commission has changed its travel policy: No more than $45 per day food allowance while on travel.
I have no problem with changing the policy. Here’s my concern. At the bottom of today’s Daily Press’ wrap-up on the policy changes, we read: “Lawmakers also criticized the commission for a plan to spend an estimated $900 million for two additional tunnels. … Commissioners say the tunnels are needed to handle increased traffic in 20 years. Lawmakers said traffic projections do not justify the expenditure.”
Whoah, Nelly! I’d say the $900 million construction is a lot more important than the $900 bill for food and champagne in a Paris strip club. But what gets the attention — the strip club, or the new tunnels and higher tolls directly impacting the lives of thousands of Virginians? The strip club, of course. Where are the headlines about the $900 million boondoggle?
Hopefully, the Daily Press will continue its coverage of Bridge-Tunnel governance by digging into the proposed Bridge-Tunnel expansion. Which lawmakers are opposed? Why are they opposed? Who developed the idea for the project? What are the numbers in the traffic projections? Are those projections, in fact, flawed? Those are the kinds of questions we need to be asking. And we need to ask them not just about the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, we need to ask them about the other $108 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) worth of transportation projects that the Warner administration asserts in VTrans2025 that Virginia needs but cannot pay for.