Ree-juh-nl-iz-uhm
Sometimes, the fates click into alignment so perfectly that it takes your breath away, especially when you remember that they are, after all, the fates, and thus cannot be predicted or directly controlled.
Thus it is with transportation and fossil fuels in this country and, more specifically, with the needs of people in the Richmond area. A failed special session of the Virginia legislature, a crisis of oil prices and availability, a decaying public-works infrastructure, a weak economy and a shaky but strengthening effort to forge regional accords in Central Virginia may just combine to create a rare win for common sense and the public interest.
Victory would take the shape of a state-approved Richmond Regional Transportation Authority that is home-funded with a 1-cent regional sales tax. If you can find a better revenue source, be my guest, but the money needs to come from the region and it needs to be a dedicated stream of funds that will be there year after year, permitting the region to plan and develop the kinds of projects that take time.
A Richmond RTA makes more sense with each passing day. Regional growth requires it. We simply must use less oil and we must augment highway taxes with other transportation funding sources. Even if we opened up all offshore areas to drilling, it would be years before they produced meaningful amounts of oil and gas. In the meantime, greenhouse gases aren't going away, and we're getting hammered by record-high oil prices to boot. Watching our funds flow overseas to people who pretty much spit on our way of life is not an enjoyable spectator sport.
We already have regional transportation entities. The GRTC Transit System is owned by the City of Richmond and Chesterfield County (although Chesterfield does not have GRTC bus routes). The Richmond Metropolitan Authority (RMA) was created more than 40 years ago and is controlled by Richmond, Chesterfield and Henrico County. It operates the Powhite Parkway , Downtown Expressway , the Boulevard Bridge , parking facilities and Main Street Station . It also owns The Diamond and thus has had a role in the Braves soap opera. There also is the Capital Regional Airport Commission and the Port of Richmond Commission .
Creating regional approaches to the area's future is also essential if we are to harness and blend the sharply varying strengths and weaknesses of Richmond and its neighboring counties. Last winter's take on the area's outlook, " Putting The Future Together ," by urban consultant Jim Crupi , described the contrasts literally in Jekyll and Hyde terms. The City of Richmond is the cultural and, to a lesser extent, the employment center of the region. But it also is a black hole that sucks in resources to fund an aging and, arguably, inefficiently run urban infrastructure, as well as a concentrated underclass.
"Surrounding counties show little interest in the city of Richmond because they can't see the real benefits and shared rewards," the report says. "They intellectually understand that if the core rots, the rest of the apple will as well, but given the choice, they would rather build their strength than pour money into what they believe is a bucket with holes."
The report recommended a Richmond RTA but local political and business leaders did not make a compelling case for its creation in the waning days of the state legislature. Time was short and we couldn't or didn't want to get our act together. The region's main transportation initiative was Chesterfield and Henrico's unsuccessful (for now) effort to get more voting clout at the Richmond-controlled RMA. Such "teamwork" helps explain why state lawmakers don't think much of Richmond's regional cooperation efforts.
Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, as you may recall, banded together some time ago to advance their own serious regional transportation needs, and were granted the right to raise funds locally. Having taxpayers across Virginia pay for such local improvements has become a non-starter, particularly on the Republican side of the aisle. But Virginia courts found the regional transit fix unconstitutional because it would have allowed appointed and not elected bodies to levy taxes.
So, we had a special session of the legislature to provide new funding solutions. And it was a political quagmire from day one, with a lifetime of finger pointing in only a few weeks. This failure may, ironically, have had a silver lining for Richmond. Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads will not stop pressing their local needs, and now the Richmond area has a chance to join with them. If we get our act together this time around, the discussion will be occurring in a much different setting. We could speak with more impact. And more people will be listening.
High gasoline prices have caused declines in driving and corresponding reductions in the fuel taxes traditionally relied upon as the funding work horse of our transportation system. That's got to change.
Likewise, we have collapsing bridges and a national transportation infrastructure that literally is rusting away. Facing these growing needs, coupled with a weak economy, Congress will be under pressure next year to respond with a public-works program.
Further, the weak economy is causing rising deficits throughout state and local government. Such a crisis may make for strange political bedfellows. It certainly will cause city and county leaders to listen more openly to regional approaches than they have in the past, particularly if those approaches can reduce redundant staffing and unnecessary spending.
Don't get me wrong. Bringing back trolleys to Richmond's Broad Street would be so cool. And quality-of-life considerations are very important. But saving taxpayers money is the key to regional concord, and these savings must be an entry-level requirement for any serious program of work by a Richmond RTA.
Creating an RTA in the next session of the legislature just may spare the area some brutal financial and transit realities. As John M. Lewis, CEO of the GRTC Transit Company, puts it, without some type of significant action to shore up public transportation, "It could get ugly fast."
Next week: The promise and perils of the GRTC.
About the author -- Phil Moeller , a recovering newspaper journalist, is a communications consultant and writer in Richmond.
Want to know more about the future of Richmond, then check out the "Our Time" archives .
Please sign in to respond | | Register