Transit, North and South
How to balance money, politics and transportation planning to benefit commuters

Friday, March 28, 2008

NORTHERN VIRGINIA'S long-standing distrust of Richmond has been fed partly by the capital's habit of helping itself to the region's abundant tax revenue -- then redistributing it to benefit other areas of the state. Little wonder that some elected officials in Northern Virginia are reacting angrily to a new proposal that seems to fit that insidious pattern. In this case, though, the problem is not so simple, and it merits careful thought.

The proposal from a state transit agency task force concerns the use of a large pool of money that would be generated once the carpool lanes on Interstates 95 and 395 are transformed into express toll lanes a few years from now. (Express toll lanes, colloquially called Lexus lanes, accommodate motorists who pay a variable toll that climbs as congestion increases in the regular lanes.) The tolls would raise $195 million for transit, a sum bound to be noticed by cash-starved local politicians and transit officials.

The original idea was to use much of the money for scores of clean-fuel buses to improve service for Northern Virginia commuters. Not only would that take cars off the highways and speed workers to jobs in the District and at the Pentagon, it would also spend most of the toll money in the places where it would be generated: in Arlington and Fairfax counties and Alexandria.

But the state task force has come up with an idea that would divert tens of millions of dollars of the toll revenue to transit projects well to the south, not only in Prince William and Stafford counties but in Spotsylvania County, Fredericksburg and points beyond. The task force, operating under the assumption that the express toll lanes will eventually be extended south by 20 miles from their current terminus near Dumfries, recommended that a major chunk of the toll money be spent on expanded rail, shuttle and bus service along the entire corridor, suburban and exurban areas included.

This might make good transit sense in the long term, particularly if and when the extended toll lanes get built -- midway through the next decade by optimistic estimates. After all, the idea is to take cars off the road along the entire corridor. In the short term, though, it is politically tone-deaf to suggest that toll revenue paid by inner suburban commuters be spent far to the south, before toll revenue is generated from there.

Task force members -- transit officials from the length of the corridor -- have produced serious recommendations. Now politicians and state officials have to mold and edit them to fit the real world.