Local transportation experts and officials say a greater funding commitment from federal, state and local governments, for both public transit and highway transportation projects, is necessary to solve the Washington region’s escalating traffic congestion concerns.
“We don’t have sufficient funding for either roads or transit, and the funding that is available is heavily focused on maintenance, as opposed to expansion,” said Bob Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.
Chase said the Washington region is expected to add between one million and two million new residents during the next 30 years, and said without significant new funding commitments to road and transit improvement projects, the area is headed toward “a transportation disaster.”
Ron Kirby, director of transportation planning for the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board, said needed highway projects already have been sidelined because of a lack of funding.
“We’ve had to defer a lot of road projects that we’d like to have implemented because the money just isn’t there,” he said.
Kirby said the funding problem stemmed partly from an unwillingness on the part of local and federal elected officials to raise taxes to pay for transportation improvements, and pointed out that Virginia, Maryland and the District all charge gasoline taxes well below the national average.
“It’s been a long time since those gas taxes have been increased, and they’re a flat amount per gallon, so they don’t increase with inflation, and they decline with lower fuel consumption,” Kirby said.
Chris Zimmerman, a Metro board and Transportation Planning Board member, also mentioned the federal gasoline tax, which has remained stagnant at 18.4 cents per gallon since 1993, as a factor contributing to the slow decline in available transportation funds nationwide.
“The whole country has been defunding transportation for the last 15-plus years. You’re trying to handle today’s traffic with 1986 dollars,” Zimmerman said.
Kirby said he understood that raising taxes would always be an unpopular political move, but he stressed that Washington-area residents would feel the pinch one way or another.
“If you don’t want to pay for more capacity or improved service, you’re going to pay in terms of delays and not getting home in time for dinner,” Kirby said.
