DATE: Monday, September 8, 1997             TAG: 9709070011

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B12  EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: BY JOHN GOOLRICK 

                                            LENGTH:   68 lines

MORE ROADS DOESN'T MEAN LESS TRAFFIC

After his election as governor in 1985, Gerald Baliles unveiled a massive transportation plan that was powered by new taxes.

More than a decade later Virginia's transportation problems are worse than ever. Interstate 95 is a nightmare and there are crucial transportation needs in practically all regions of the state despite all the spending that resulted from the Baliles iniative.

Now the same groups of developers and land speculators who were the prime backers of the Baliles plan are attacking both Republican gubernatorial nominee Jim Gilmore and Democrat Don Beyer for promoting relief from the personal property tax on vehicles.

Instead, they suggest that taxes should be raised in order presumably to pay, at least in part, for new roads. There may well be a need for such new roads in many parts of the Commonwealth, but curing the state's transportation problems is not that simple.

The fact is that new development almost inevitably follows new roads or even improved old roads. I live in the Fredericksburg area. When I-95 was opened in the mid-1960s there was no doubt that shopping centers, hotels, motels, restaurants and gas stations were going to spring up at practically every interchange in the area. The roads along which I used to drive were lined with dairy barns and farm fields. They are now lined with McDonalds, Wal-Marts and self-service filling stations. Traffic lights are also frequent on such heavily traveled routes.

Not by any stretch of the imagination could anyone call me a no-growth proponent. Growth has created in my area jobs, prosperity and much improved shopping facilities. But it has also created long lines of traffic coupled with short nerves of vehicle drivers. Hardly a day passes when I don't see some example of dangerously aggressive driving on my 10-mile round-trip commute to work.

There is much talk in Northern Virginia, particularly by developers, of a western bypass around Washington. This would undoubtedly alleviate some of the congestion on I-95 north of the Rappahannock River. But unless the Bypass were built without interchanges, we would probably see a rapid spread of new growth. Thus, new roads designed to reduce traffic jams end up as magnets for additional traffic in areas where it is still possible to see some farm fields along backwater roads.

Certainly neither Gilmore nor Beyer has said anything to indicate he doesn't favor new roads. Both have gotten substantial financial contributions from developers. And because Virginia is a great place to live, work and do business, growth will continue.

But the need for new roads that will spur new developments from which will spring new profits is no reason not to reduce the personal-property tax on vehicles and no reason to raise taxes.

Instead, the gubernatorial candidates should talk about the responsibility of local governments to institute and enforce land-management practices that will make it possible to build new roads without creating mammoth commercial enterprises that add to existing congestion.

Lessons can be learned from the Baliles years when those promoting his transportation plan assured everyone that by raising taxes to finance new roads we would be able in time to escape the traffic congestion that often made it an ordeal to get behind the wheel of a car. Those promises, however sincerely offered, were false. Today along a 20-mile strip of I-95 from Fredericksburg to Dale City some 109,000 vehicles flow a day compared to only 63,000 in 1986 when Gerald Baliles touted his iniative. We do need roads, but if they are built the same way as in the past, do not expect our transportation problems to be solved or even eased. MEMO: John Goolrick, a former political reporter, is now an aide to 1st

District Rep. Herbert Bateman. Opinions expressed are his own.

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