The theme of the House of Delegates legislative package for the transportation special session is “transforming the delivery of transportation services in Virginia.” The reforms enumerated in the House Speaker’s press release yesterday would live up to that billing. At the top of the list of 10 proposals is the following: “Integrate performance measures, specifically on congestion, into the Statewide Transportation Plan.”
This reform will require Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) and the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) to focus transportation investments on projects designed to relieve traffic congestion. By directing funds to improvements that optimize the capacity of existing roadways and transportation infrastructure, VDOT will more efficiently use available resources.
By evaluating improvements based on performance criteria, such as delay reductions or travel time improvements (achieved through better traffic signal synchronization, faster accident management, more telework opportunities, or other means), VDOT can move beyond “on-time” and “on-budget,” and focus on delivering transportation improvements that achieve direct benefits for commuters and travelers.
This is fundamental. As it stands now, road improvements can be made for all manner of justifications, including the nebulous concept “economic development.” I’m all in favor of economic development, but not when it is used as a cover for opening up new tracts of land for development when there is plenty of underutilized land already served by roads and other infrastructure. This measure would focus scarce road improvement funds on projects that relieve traffic congestion.
With these new performance metrics, it would be much harder to justify building something like the $400 million Route 288 project southwest of Richmond. That project was financed on the basis of an economic development justification — attracting a Motorola semiconductor plant to the Richmond region — that never panned out. Route 288 has helped reduce traffic congestion in the short run (we’ll see what happens in the long run after it has induced scattered development on the metropolitan periphery), but that same $400 million could have eliminated a dozen smaller bottlenecks that would have provided far more congestion relief.
In a huge conceptual breakthrough, House seems to be broadening the definition of what constitutes a “transportation improvement.” Business As Usual has defined it as adding more lane-miles of road. But the House is willing to consider any kind of investment — traffic light synchronization, accident-response management, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) — that increases the capacity of road networks. Such alternative investments have received short shrift over the years. Presumably, the House legislation would put them on a more equal footing for consideration.
Combine the elevated status of ITS projects with an increased emphasis on public-private partnerships (Number Two in the transportation reform Hit Parade), and this legislation can open up all sorts of previously unimaginable possibilities. Public-private partnerships might upgrade entire transportation corridors, for instance, with a mix of traditional road construction (new lanes), traffic light synchronization and mass transit — whatever combination of tools works most efficiently.
If there were a tool for combining that kind of flexibility with changes to local land use along the corridor — increasing densities, allowing mixed uses, adopting transportation management plans — Virginia could create some revolutionary possibilities.