Virginia Commuters: RIP

Faced with a transit funding crisis, lawmakers punt. Again.

VIRGINIA lawmakers begin a special session today to seek new money for the state's jampacked roads and pitifully inadequate mass transit. Sadly, the effort seems dead on arrival.

In a lopsided and irresponsible pre-session committee vote yesterday, conservative Republicans who control the House of Delegates killed a level-headed bill that would have yielded more than $400 million a year, much of it in new revenue, for transportation in Northern Virginia. The GOP's anti-tax fundamentalists weren't much impressed that Northern Virginia itself would finance the effort, at no cost to the rest of the state. They simply rejected the idea that any permanent new funding should be devoted to the region's transportation mess.

The special session is scheduled to last the rest of this week, but the chance of success -- that is, for significant new money earmarked for roads and rail and protected from raids for other uses -- is all but nil. So as a requiem for the region's commuters, let's examine what won't get done anytime soon as a result of the General Assembly's pigheaded inaction.

Widening Interstate 66 inside the Beltway? Don't hold your breath. Widening Interstate 95 from the Beltway south into Prince William County? Not likely. Widening Route 7 from Tysons Corner out to Loudoun County? Don't bet on it. Widening Route 50 in western Fairfax County near Dulles International Airport? No dice. Improving the gridlocked intersection at Gallows Road and Route 29 in Merrifield? Nope. Finding a protected, raid-proof source of dedicated funding to keep Metro from falling further into disrepair? Increasingly unlikely.

A handful of moderate Republicans from Northern Virginia, including Dels. David B. Albo (Fairfax) and Thomas Davis Rust (Fairfax) and Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis (Fairfax), tried their best in the House Finance Committee yesterday. Their efforts were swatted down by the likes of House Speaker William J. Howell (Stafford) and Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter (Prince William), Republicans whose own constituents will suffer because of the lack of new road revenue. Mr. Lingamfelter called new taxes a "one-trick pony." Thanks to the intransigence of Mr. Lingamfelter and his GOP colleagues, that might be the only form of transportation on which Northern Virginians can rely in coming years.