Gas tax is still best bet

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: May 13, 2008

As Virginians await the convening of the General Assembly in a June special session to consider road construction funding, we have a prima facie example of the problem right here in Charlottesville.

For years, planners have advocated the construction and development of roads and corridors parallel to U.S. 29 as a tonic for heavy traffic on eight lanes there. Improvements over the years to roads such as Berkmar Drive and Rio Road constitute Exhibit A evidence such corridors help ease the burden on the region’s main thoroughfare.

Another project that has advanced with support from developers, landowners, the City of Charlottesville, Albemarle County and the state Department of Transportation has been the Hillsdale Drive connector. Here we have a proposal that has won near-unanimous local support from all sectors. It would run from north of Greenbrier Drive through the Seminole Square shopping center to Hydraulic Road. It would serve to siphon more traffic from U.S. 29 along a critical stretch of that highway. It would also assist bikers with lanes for bicycles, and pedestrian traffic, with its sidewalks and series of elevated crosswalks.

The Hillsdale Drive connector, then, is a project that meets a variety of public needs. And yet, it will likely remain on the drawing board, despite the fact that the state has already given the city more than $3 million for the engineering and design of the road.

That’s because of the diminishing amount of dough available for road construction in Virginia. Estimates are now that state money for construction on the road might begin to flow in 2014.

This is but one example of numerous needs that could be met with a meaningful increase in the gasoline tax in Virginia. Gov. Tim Kaine’s call for a special session is an admission that neither he nor the legislature got it right the last time with the ill-fated abusive driver fee measure.

Here’s hoping that with enough evidence of needed projects throughout the Commonwealth, the General Assembly will address the problem in a forthright manner, unlike Gov. Kaine. Unfortunately, the governor’s proposal is a Whitman’s Sampler of tax bon-bons featuring a variety of revenue confections from higher sales taxes on vehicles to taxes on real estate sales. We hope wiser heads prevail this time in Richmond, and that the legislature passes a simple gas tax increase that locks in revenues to go toward projects such as the Hillsdale connector.