Transportation plan goes to Kaine
But does the big veto stamp await?
It’s an election year for every single member of the General Assembly, and the Republican majority knew coming into this session that it was now or never to make a play on transportation. But their team chemistry is rather like the 2003 Lakers, with the House Republicans as Kobe Bryant and the Senate Republicans as Shaquille O’Neal.
After bickering ended with no plan even after a 2006 special session, it took weeks to draw up a game plan agreeable enough that the two could so much as take the court together in January. But with the shot clock winding down, Kobe did the unthinkable—he passed to Shaq and the Republicans actually scored a transportation plan on the last day of the legislative session.
The score was hardly a slam dunk, however, and there are several more plays to be made before everybody goes into the offseason to try to convince the owners (that is, the voters) that they should come back for another season. But by getting out any kind of plan at all, pressure is now on the Democrats—particularly Governor Timothy Kaine, who can now recommend amendments that the General Assembly can then accept or reject.
 The new transportation plan is supposed to relieve NoVa of gridlock, but is it merely a political basketball? |
The 105-page plan, which no one seems to love, proposes $1.5 billion per year in transportation spending. The money comes from a $10 statewide increase in vehicle registrations, regional taxes in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads and massive borrowing. Democrats and many Senate Republicans don’t like the fact that much of the borrowed money will be repaid through the general fund ($172 million to $200 million per year, depending on whom you ask), which pays for everything from education to police. And several boards in Northern Virginia have said they don’t like the tax options the plan allows.
“The transportation plan gave a bunch of people the opportunity to go home and say, ‘We did something’ without having really done anything. It’s a hoax,” says local Senator Creigh Deeds. “The bill in my view is just a very cynical ploy that some folks believe will buy them one more election. Even if all the money is there [from local taxes and user fees], it only gets us to 2011 before we’re going to have to deal with another transportation crisis.”
Independent Delegate Watkins Abbitt, who represents much of southern Albemarle, also voted against the plan. “I thought we could get a much better deal for rural Virginia than that,” Abbitt says.
But Delegate Steven Landes, who represents western Albemarle, says it’s a good compromise plan. “I think at least it puts us moving forward, and I think that was what the public was looking for,” Landes says. “It was disappointing that the governor was not more engaged in the process as we were going along.”
“You could go into the fall elections with the Republicans saying, ‘The Governor killed your chances to fix transportation,’” says Sean O’Brien, executive director of UVA’s Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership, “and the Democrats saying, ‘Aren’t we lucky the Governor killed this terrible plan’ and they’ll have these two diametrically opposed messages about the exact same event.”—Will Goldsmith
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