Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 28, 1990 TAG: 9007280080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MARGIE FISHER RICHMOND BUREAU
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Joe Elton, the party's executive director, said Friday that he does not know if the committee - the party's governing body - will be asked to adopt the paper as the official position of the state GOP. The main purpose of the report, Elton said, is to encourage elected officials to take a hard look at what he called the state's penchant for road-building.
Though one of the report's recommendations is that the state "reject major tax increases or bond issues as a solution" to transportation problems, Elton said that does not mean that Republicans oppose a proposed constitutional amendment to allow the state to issue pledge bonds for transportation projects.
The amendment must be approved by voters in a November referendum and Elton said it can be argued that the state ought to have the bonding flexibility that the constitutional change will provide.
But before pledge bonds are actually issued, there ought to more effort made to find alternatives to costly highway construction, he said. And the public debate ought to begin now, said Elton, "because once the [pledge bond funding] vehicle is there, I think it's Katie-bar-the-door."
The report, titled "Solving Traffic Congestion in Virginia's Metropolitan Areas," was prepared by Pat McSweeney, a Richmond lawyer who heads the state GOP's policy committee. A summarized version is being circulated in a new party-produced newsletter called "Policy Dialogue."
"Virginia is sliding deeper and deeper into a transportation quagmire" despite the massive infusion of highway tax revenues approved by the General Assembly in 1986 at the urging of former Gov. Gerald Baliles, the McSweeney report says.
It cites a report given to Gov. Douglas Wilder in January putting the current level of unmet highway needs at about $5 billion and estimating that that figure would reach $37 billion by 2010.
"The more the state spends on roads, the worse the situation seems to get. The gap between needed roads and available revenues is constantly widening. . . . Just three years after the Baliles road taxes were imposed, Virginia is running out of construction funds. Once again the state is searching for billions of dollars of revenue to fund new road projects," the report says.
Though a decline in federal highway funding for Virginia and increased road maintenance costs are partly to blame, the McSweeney report says traffic growth is the main culprit - a result not just of population growth, but of poor planning that's led to increased reliance on the automobile.
Among the problems that the report lays at the feet of government:
The Virginia Department of Transportation has a pro-construction, pro-highway bias and resists change.
Land-use planning and transportation planning are not properly linked. "Within large metropolitan areas, the decision-making responsibility for transportation and land use is so fragmented that coherent policy is virtually impossible."
Urging the state to break the cycle of dependence on automobiles, the report says, "The popular wisdom is that traffic congestion must be solved by building new roads and expanding existing ones. But traffic appears to expand to fill new roads as soon as they are built." The state, it says, should "focus on moving people, not simply moving vehicles."
The report calls for an integration of land-use and transportation planning; rejection of public funding for projects that encourage "suburban sprawl"; regional planning and financing for transportation; elimination of non-essential state and local regulations of taxi, bus and other private transit operations; and more reliance on private initiatives to deal with urban and suburban traffic congestion.
Elton said a copy of the report has been sent to U.S. Secretary of Transportation Samuel Skinner, who will be the speaker at a Republican banquet here tonight in honor of the late Ted Dalton.
The banquet also will serve as the party's tribute to Del. Jeff Stafford of Pearisburg, who died Tuesday.
Ironically, the highlight of the Republicans' all-day meeting may revolve around a Democrat.
Paul Goldman, the colorful chairman of the state Democratic Party, goaded the state GOP into letting him appear before them in a partisan debate over fiscal responsibility.
Goldman's opponent in the debate - which is expected to focus on issues such as the savings-and-loan scandal and the federal deficit - will be James Miller, who was national budget director in the Reagan administration.
by CNB