There’s been a lot of loose talk recently about raising the statewide gasoline tax to pay for transportation improvements. The gasoline tax has three main virtues: First, it is easy to administer. Second, it is a rough form of a “user pays” tax. Third, it can raise a lot of money.
Here’s the problem. When you raise the tax, it’s a statewide tax. The political pressure for raising taxes to build more roads is limited largely to Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and perhaps far SW Virginia where there’s a lot of agitation for a Coalfield Expressway. But people in the rest of the state, which includes roughly half the population, have little interest in paying higher taxes for something they don’t regard as a problem. Politically, it will be very, very difficult to enact a hike in the statewide gas tax if the purpose is to fund road construction that half the state doesn’t want or need.
That’s the reason why legislators last year tried creating regional transportation authorities: so the regions that were willing to tax themselves more could do so. Unfortunately, the cure — giving taxing powers to unelected, unaccountable bodies — was worse than the original problem.
Lawmakers need to take another crack at devising regional solutions — solutions that avoid the pitfalls of the ill-fated regional transportation authorities. After exhausting all other options, lawmakers should consider regional congestion authorities operated by special “congestion corridor authorities” under very tight guidelines. Authorities would be given power to administer congestion-pricing tolls that (a) maximize throughput on existing highways, (b) allocate scarce highway capacity during periods of peak demand, and (c) provide a stable flow of revenue to invest in congestion mitigation within the corridor.
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