Coalition for Smarter Growth
Piedmont Environmental Council

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: For More Information, Contact:
March 8, 2006 Stewart Schwartz, 703-599-6437 (cell)
Chris Miller, PEC, 540-347-2334

Funding Proposals Flawed
Transportation and Land Use Reforms Fall Short

VDOT Priorities and Many Legislative Earmarks Will Not Reduce Congestion

“We credit the Governor and General Assembly for recognizing that we need to change how we plan land use and transportation -- that we can’t simply build our way out of our traffic congestion. Yet, the budgets lack strong reforms and would not really change how the state is spending our money,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

The Virginia General Assembly and Governor are proposing large funding increases for transportation that would tap current or new taxes to add $700 million to $1 billion per year to the $4.1 billion currently being spent on transportation.

The current proposals fail to achieve the real reforms needed:
• For all of the debate about relieving congestion, much of the money is going to projects that won’t relieve congestion, projects which are highlighted below.
• For all of the talk about better growth management, the planning changes have been incremental and the one voters care most about -- clarifying the ability of their communities to say no to development that would overwhelm their roads – lack the full support of their representatives.
• Despite the need to use transit to relieve growing urban congestion and to satisfy growing rural transit needs, transit would receive a smaller percentage of the new money than it currently does.
• Based upon current VDOT priorities and studies, VDOT is expected to use a doubling of their highway money to build projects that will further scatter development and clog our roads, instead of providing people with traffic relief and more transportation choices.

“Far too much emphasis has been placed on increasing transportation funding and far too little on better growth management or transportation planning reform at VDOT,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth.

“Virginians are being asked to fund a number of projects which will not relieve congestion and will make sprawl and traffic worse,” added Chris Miller, President of the Piedmont Environmental Council.

Current Growth Management Legislation
With the exception of the proposed Transfer of Development Rights authority, the land use legislation this session has mainly focused on collecting basic common sense information that local governments and VDOT should already be collecting. But, the bill that citizens really care about -- clarifying the authority of communities to deny proposals for more development than existing zoning allows (rezonings) when the additional traffic would overwhelm roads – has been blocked at every turn by the development industry.

“If local communities cannot confidently review, modify or deny rezonings, which add many additional car trips to their roads, citizens will be right to wonder why they should support additional transportation funding,” said Miller.

Performance Measures for New Transportation Funds
What is missing is an explicit tie between new transportation funding and performance standards for both local governments and the state. Those standards should require comprehensive plans, community designs and project priorities that reduce the amount that people have to drive and provide more transportation choices to reduce congestion.

“The transportation funding plans have been developed without an evaluation of state and regional project wish-lists, setting affordable priorities, or new land use and transportation solutions,” said Schwartz.

Proposed earmarks in the budget (the largest of which are listed below) often appear unconnected to the areas with the greatest need for congestion relief and many would make uncontrolled growth and traffic worse. For example, VDOT’s focus on building a new bypass (Tri-County/Western Bypass) twenty-five miles outside Washington is far removed from the region’s worst congestion bottlenecks, as indicated in a recent Council of Governments report.

Miller said, “We should not be doubling VDOT’s highway construction funds without reevaluating the projects in their 20-year transportation plan, VTRANS 2025. Otherwise, the state would be making irreversible commitments to projects it cannot afford.”

The VTRANS wish-list would require $5.4 billion per year more than the $4.1 billion we are spending today.

“Virginia should not write blank checks without evaluating the affordability or effectiveness of the state and regional transportation plans,” said Schwartz.

The Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia plans propose large bypass projects which will not relieve congestion, do not invest enough in fixing local road bottlenecks, and fail to link investments to land use changes.

Many earmarks in both the House and Senate budget, and many VDOT priorities fail to target the most significant congestion problems or would make uncontrolled development worse. Combined, these projects represent at least $12 billion in highway spending (not including the completed Route 288 or full $13 billion proposals for I-81) and nearly $4 billion for the Dulles Rail project. Not all are earmarked in the budget, but additional road money would be used by VDOT on many of them.

“Voters want their local government to be able to better manage growth and to know that transportation funding will make a difference. If the General Assembly and Governor are going to spend more money on transportation, now is the opportunity to provide taxpayers with guarantees that transportation investments will be tied to land use decisions,” said Schwartz.

Examples of Expensive Projects that do not address traffic problems and/or fuel uncontrolled development:
• Route 288 – A Cautionary Tale about Spending Priorities and Decisions (Richmond Area)
• I-66 – Widening Inside the Beltway (Northern Virginia)
• I-95 – HOT Lanes (Northern Virginia)
• Tri-County Parkway/Battlefield Bypass/234 Bypass = Western Bypass (Northern Virginia)
• I-81 Truck Lanes (Shenandoah Valley & Southwest Virginia)
• Harrisonburg Bypass (Shenandoah Valley)
• “Interstate 460” (Richmond Area & Hampton Roads)
• Southeastern Expressway (Hampton Roads)
• Coalfields Expressway (Southwest Virginia)
• Route 58 (Southern Virginia)
• I-99 (Eastern Shore)

Example of a Project in Which Land Use and Transit are still not adequately connected:
• Dulles Rail (Northern Virginia)

For more information on these projects, click here.

NOTES:

1. In November 2005, despite lack of funding; VDOT and the CTB voted to approve three of the sprawl-inducing roads listed here, the Southeastern Expressway, Route 460 and the Tri-County Parkway. (Op-Ed, A New Generation of Boondoggles)
2. Dulles Rail is included because of the continued disconnect between project engineering and the (much delayed) redesign of Tysons Corner, as well as the unresolved challenge of making the system work effectively when located in the middle of the Dulles Toll Road.
3. “Fortunately, There’s Time to Craft a Compromise”, Op-ed by Trip Pollard in Richmond Times Dispatch