Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993 TAG: 9312140010
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Moreover, he's offering the right reason - for now - for his opposition. He says he wants to wait until he can see whether existing transportation revenues are being used as effectively as they might be. This is not an ideologically inflexible opposition to any increase now and forevermore.
That's good, because a higher gas tax is in general a good idea. And a compelling case for a gas-tax increase to serve state transportation needs may well emerge. Those needs are prominent in the thoughts of heavy hitters in the state's business community and, not surprisingly, the road construction industry.
But until there can be strong assurance that state transportation policies, procedures and priorities are aligned with genuine transportation needs, the case for a tax increase for road-building will lack a crucial element.
What might proper alignment mean? Perhaps deferring some east-west projects in favor of north-south trade routes to North Carolina; the latter appear to hold greater potential for spurring economic growth in Virginia. Perhaps privatizing more of the state's transportation work; if road construction can be bid out to the private sector, for example, why not road maintenance?
It almost surely means taking into account new transportation technology on the horizon, and boosting the share of transportation dollars directed to mass transit in crowded Tidewater and Northern Virginia, and giving fair consideration to other energy-efficient and environmentally benign modes, such as rail and bicycle.
A compelling case for upping the gas tax, in other words, will require a thorough and dispassionate examination of how Virginia is building and should build its transportation system of the future.
Such an examination cannot be done overnight, nor can it be done adequately in the few weeks left before the 1994 General Assembly becomes too busy to give proper attention to the matter. It probably cannot be done adequately even by the time a special session could be convened later in the year.
To hasten the process is to magnify the likelihood that the job will be superficial and the decisions driven by the politics of the day rather than thoughtful consideration of long-term strategies.
Proponents of upping the gas tax offer familiar arguments. A sound transportation system is a bulwark of economic development. Virginia is a low-tax state, and would continue to be so with a modest rise in the levy on gasoline. Transportation needs are outpacing transportation revenues.
The familiarity of the arguments does not invalidate them. Still, familiarity on this issue breeds ... well, if not contempt, then at least a measure of skepticism. It was only eight years ago that a huge tax-and-spend package, including Virginia's first use of the sales tax to raise revenue for transportation, was supposed to meet the state's needs through the year 2000.
What happened? Inflation and more fuel-efficient cars, tax-increase advocates say, but the answer doesn't satisfy.
True, the gas tax, unlike most general taxes, doesn't move upward with inflation: That's because it's a flat per-gallon levy, rather than a percentage of income, retail sales, real-estate values or the like. But this characteristic of the gas tax was hardly unknown to legislators and transportation officials in '86; what's more, inflation has slowed since then. And if it's true that a more fuel-efficient fleet on Virginia roadways is cutting into transportation revenues, this too was not exactly unpredictable in 1986.
At the least, all this raises questions about the quality of the state's transportation planning.
No longer is it enough in state government to demonstrate a need, then expect appropriation of new tax dollars to address it. First it must be shown that the need cannot be met, at least in part, in other ways such as efficiencies improvements and reordered priorities. Then it must be shown that this need deserves greater priority than other pressing needs.
This is what gas-tax advocates must show, but have yet to. Until it can be shown, which will take awhile, the next governor is right to want to hold off on a gas-tax increase for raising transportation funds.
by CNB