With traffic congestion reaching crisis proportions, why would more than half of the Northern Virginia delegation to Richmond vote against a comprehensive $2 billion transportation bill that allows local jurisdictions to raise $400 million to improve mobility on their overburdened roads? No wonder the rest of Virginia finds it hard to take Northern Virginia’s transportation crisis seriously.
Ask Dels. Kristen Amundson, D-Mt. Vernon, Bob Brink, D-Arlington, Chuck Caputo, D-Chantilly, Adam Ebbin, D-Arlington, Al Eisenberg, D-Arlington, David Englin, D-Alexandria, Jeff Frederick, R-Woodbridge, Bob Hull, D-Falls Church, Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, Brian Moran, D-Alexandria, KenPlum, D-Reston, Jim Scott, D-Merrifield, Mark Sickles, D-Alexandria, and Vivian Watts, D-Annandale.
All 14 voted against HB 3202 which, no thanks to them, passed the House of Delegates by a bipartisan 24-vote margin.
While the old adage about not looking too closely at how sausage — or legislation — is made remains true, the bill for Richmond’s decades-long failure to update Virginia’s transportation infrastructure is coming due.
Del. Caputo even had the gall to offer an amendment to prevent the legislature from using any future growth in General Fund revenues for transportation. Caputo’s amendment was defeated 70-29, but not before the same group (joined by Dels. David Bulova, D-Fairfax Station, David Poisson, D-Sterling, and Steve Shannon, D-Vienna, but minus Eisenberg, Frederick and Marshall) voted for it.
Northern Virginia can no longer afford the luxury of turning up its nose at any reasonable efforts to avert gridlock. The House bill generates $500 million in new revenue in part by raising vehicle registration fees $10, imposing stiff fines on bad drivers and dedicating half of the state’s budget surplus to transportation. That’s a better approach than Gov. Tim Kaine’s absurdly inadequate idea to raise taxes on vehicle purchases by 66 percent, or the state Senate’s equally unpalatable plan to raise the gas tax statewide.
House Speaker William Howell, R-Fredericksburg, is right in calling the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform Act “the best opportunity for legislative action on this urgent issue in years.”
Complaints that it “takes” $250 million from education, health care and public safety by using less than 1 percent of general fund revenues for road and transit projects are without merit, as every educator, medical professional and emergency first-responder is adversely affected by clogged roads.
And don’t forget — those categories got nearly all of the $1 billion-plus tax hike passed in 2004.
Northern Virginia’s representatives have until the legislature’s Feb. 24 adjournment. Don’t come back from Richmond empty-handed.
