DATE: Friday, September 5, 1997             TAG: 9709040004

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B10  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Editorial 

                                            LENGTH:   74 lines

TRANSPORTATION NEEDS SECOND IN A SERIES ON ISSUES THE CANDIDATES HAVE NOT YET ADDRESSED.

Transportation needs in Virginia are large, growing and unmet. So far, they are also largely unaddressed by the candidates for governor, Republican James S. Gilmore III and Democrat Donald S. Beyer Jr.

The plight of Northern Virginia gives a foretaste of things to come for Hampton Roads if nothing is done. In the Washington metropolitan area, the cost of traffic congestion, in wasted fuel and time, is higher per vehicle than anywhere else in the nation, according to the Texas Transportation Institute.

So Northern Virginians are especially frustrated by both gubernatorial candidates' seeming obliviousness to the commonwealth's transportation shortcomings. Hampton Roads residents should be frustrated as well. Without increased highway construction, traffic here could slow in 20 years to the snail's pace now common in Northern Virginia.

The 1,300-member Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance has attempted to persuade the candidates for governor to address the daunting task of maintaining and building highways.

``Both candidates obviously say they are for improving transportation,'' said Bob Chase, the Alliance's executive director. ``But their answer is that somehow the economy is going to grow a solution to transportation problems.''

Both candidates are wrong. In fact, they have it backwards.

Under Virginia's highway-funding formula, economic growth increases the need for new highways a great deal while increasing the amount of money available for highway construction far less.

According to a recent report by the advisory committee of the Virginia Commission on the Future of Transportation, funds for highway construction will fall $1.74 billion short in fiscal 1999, and the annual shortfall will keep rising to $3.05 billion in fiscal 2015. Those are the dollars that have to be spent merely to keep traffic from getting worse.

Rather than propose solutions to transportation needs, however, the candidates compete to promise the more desirable tax cut.

That way may lead to election, but it ill-serves Virginia.

The cost of meeting Virginia's highway needs is astronomical, but the cost of doing nothing would be higher still.

One study by the Greater Washington Board of Trade said slow deliveries caused by traffic congestion would drive up business expenses by the year 2020, so that the average household paid between $750 and $1,350 more for goods and services. Through 2020, the board said, traffic congestion could cost the region's economy $182 billion and 133,000 jobs.

To attract and retain employers, a region must demonstrate that workers are trained, that they can get to work and that goods can be delivered.

Many employers have to be in Northern Virginia in order to pluck the fruit of the nearby federal money tree. But if congestion in Hampton Roads ever reached Northern Virginia levels, many employers might leave.

Gov. George F. Allen, a pro-development leader if ever there was one, has been strangely quiet about transportation needs, though it is a development issue.

The problem is, more roads will cost more money, so the words ``adequate new roads'' and ``tax cuts'' cannot be spoken in the same sentence. Virginia last raised its stream of revenue for roads in 1986. That stream is no longer sufficient.

A game of hot potato is under way. Cities look to the state for more transportation money. The state looks to the federal government. The feds look to cities and states to build highways. Meanwhile, traffic is getting worse. And a road delayed is a road that will cost far more when it finally is built.

The times call for leadership. A call for new roads is not a call for big government. Few Virginians want that. It is a call for investment in the infrastructure that Hampton Roads and Virginia need if they are to prosper. It is time for Gilmore and Beyer to acknowledge Virginia's transportation needs and to propose a plan for meeting them.

Funding transportation needs solely by increases in the gas tax would require an eventual hike of 50 cents a gallon or more. Future leaders should be devising new ways to fund transportation, not putting their heads in the sand.

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