Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 24, 1993 TAG: 9307260279
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL HOWES STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For an odd lesson in multiculturalism, talk to Virginia lawmakers about their transportation woes.
Rural legislators, most often a code phrase for folks representing Southside and Southwest Virginia, fret for their comparatively isolated constituents who traverse dirt and gravel roads just to reach a doctor or the supermarket.
Unpaved roads carry only 0.5 percent of the state's traffic. But reducing the state's Unpaved Road Fund would be devastating, rural legislators say, tantamount to sentencing those taxpayers to economic oblivion.
A small clique from Roanoke and Virginia Tech - supported by key legislators - wants additional funding to build the "smart road" linking the university with Interstate 81. Tech engineers would work with private industry in using the road to test new technologies, such as pavement sensors and electronic road signs, aimed at speeding traffic and improving safety.
In the Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater suburbs, the buzzwords are "traffic count" and "congestion." Legislators talk about commuting patterns to and from workplaces in Washington and huge naval installations around Hampton Roads.
Urban areas want increased state support for their road networks, not the proposed funding reductions.
The needs seem monumental and, to be sure, diverse. Worse, projections suggest that 50 percent of Virginia's transportation needs - some $25 billion in projects - will be unmet by 2010.
Some folks are getting nervous.
Earlier this week, a special committee of state legislators charged with reviewing Virginia Department of Transportation recommendations on highway funding learned more of the problems. Four public hearings were held across the state, including one in Roanoke County.
The common denominator: Money.
The variable: Regional power.
State Secretary of Transportation John Milliken hears the fears of rural lawmakers - he attended the Roanoke hearing. And, as a former Arlington County supervisor, he knows the demands of urban and suburban interests.
But his conclusion, in an era of tightening revenues, increasing traffic and skyrocketing construction costs: "Put the money where the cars are," he said in an interview.
That's why the VDOT recommendations call for reducing the Unpaved Roads Fund in the state gasoline tax-funded Transportation Trust Fund and increasing the traffic count requirement that determines which roads get paved. It's also why the primary and secondary road funds would be increased.
For House Majority Leader Richard Cranwell and other Western Virginia lawmakers, the proposed changes in the way Virginia pays for road building are another example of the so-called Urban Crescent's tightening stranglehold on political power.
Friday, Cranwell referred to an article in The Washington Post headlined, "N. Va. Lawmakers Prepare to Rewrite Road Funding." The story noted that urban and suburban legislators control the committee chosen to review highway funding recommendations, bolstering Cranwell's case.
Indeed, of 15 members on the ad hoc committee appointed by Speaker Thomas Moss of Norfolk, none hailed from Southwest Virginia. Only one - Del. Whitt Clement, D-Danville - came from Southside, and one - Sen. Kevin Miller, R-Harrisonburg - came from the Shenandoah Valley.
When regional leaders, some from as far away as Scott County, arrived for the Roanoke County hearing, they found only Clement and Miller, who were assigned to the hearing by committee chairman Sen. Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton. No legislator from Northern Virginia, Richmond or Tidewater made the trip.
"I kind of think it was too bad I wasn't asked to go to the Roanoke hearing and [Clement] - who's more familiar with problems in that part of the state - wasn't asked to come here," said Del. Linda T. Puller, D-Mount Vernon. Puller attended hearings in Herndon and Richmond.
The way Cranwell sees it, there are two state funding formulas "out of kilter" - education and transportation. Efforts to correct educational disparity, a key issue for most Western legislators, have failed, even as some Eastern efforts to increase state spending for transportation have succeeded.
"If they want me to help with transportation, they've got to be willing to help me with education," Cranwell said, calling the issues "soul mates."
Sen. Joseph Gartlan, D-Fairfax County, couldn't disagree more.
"It's just wrong to talk about trading road dollars for the education of our children. It's a mistake to equate them; it's a totally wrong approach, in my view.
"It's true," Gartlan continued, "the census has changed the demographics and the balance of voting power has shifted to areas of the state - not just Northern Virginia - that have problems in common with us."
Take Del. Bob Purkey's Virginia Beach district. With thousands of commuters making their way into Norfolk each day, Purkey's constituents are worried about "the overwhelming highway needs" of Hampton Roads.
Folks who attended a road funding hearing in Hampton earlier this week called upon legislators to find some way to pay for the improvements and expansions they hope would make their lives less hectic. They talked of raising the state gas tax, the mother lode for state highway construction.
Efforts to raise the gas tax won't succeed, Purkey predicted, "particularly as the public realizes they are going to get hit with more taxes on the federal level as well."
Still, there may be some common ground. Tech's campaign to build a smart road in Montgomery County - probably with the help of a huge road-building bond issue - could enjoy support from urban-suburban lawmakers desperate to break traffic gridlock.
"Anything that offers any relief - or potential relief - is going to be given every chance to prove itself," Purkey said. "We simply cannot afford to pay the prices it costs to slap concrete down on the ground."
\ PROPOSED CHANGES IN TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND FORMULAS\ \ Allocations for primary and secondary highways would be increased, while allocations for unpaved roads and urban roads would be decreased, a change thought to favor growing suburban areas of Northern Virginia, Richmond and Tidewater.\ \ Number of vehicles traveled per mile on a given road or highway would be given considerably more weight under new formula for primary roads, favoring more-congested areas.\ \ Population would be given increased weight when allocating money for improvements to secondary roads, again favoring more-congested areas.\ \ Funding for urban roads inside independent cities would be trimmed from 30 percent of highway construction fund to 25 percent.\ \ Funding for the Unpaved Road Fund, accounting for 5.67 percent of current construction funds but only 0.5 percent of the state's traffic, would be reduced to 1.5 percent of construction funds. At the same time, the criteria for paving unpaved roads would be increased - from 50 vehicles per day to 100 vehicles per day.\ \ Source: Senate Document No. 39, A Study of Transportation Trust Fund Allocation Formulae
by CNB