| The budget deal didn’t solve Virginia’s real problems
Related
link:
- The case for chartered universities
and colleges
by W. Rodger Provo
For Virginia Business
June 2004
The
recently concluded budget fight in the General Assembly
on how to provide state and local government services
was a small step towards addressing Virginia’s
complex problems. But Virginia’s 7.4 million residents
need business, government and other leaders to continue
demanding more reform in state government, or we will
find life in our state less attractive and business
harder to conduct.
Virginia will continue growing in population and in
the number of jobs. By 2025, the state is expected to
have another 2 million residents. Many of those people
will live in the sprawling suburbs of the state’s
urban regions, which will drive up pressure on the state’s
road network. Because of this growth pattern, state
planners predict a 68 percent increase in the number
of vehicle miles traveled by 2025.
With Virginia’s unemployment rate among the lowest
in the country, we need new residents to meet our expanding
demand for workers. Our state’s per capita income,
ranked 14th in the nation as of the 2000 census, will
also attract newcomers.
Virginia government, however, is not equipped to meet
the needs of a growing state in the 21st century. Our
governor needs to be able to serve two terms, and the
office powers should be restructured to share power
with the General Assembly to facilitate this change.
The state’s problems are too complex and
large to be addressed by a one-term governor.
In addition, some of the state’s budget problems
have their roots in our unmanaged growth. We need
to expand the planning function at the state level,
as envisioned during former Gov. Mills Godwin’s
first term, and create a statewide growth management
plan. The projected growth needs to be channeled into
the rebuilding of our cities, as Norfolk has done, and
our older suburbs, as has been done in Arlington County.
Some of the country’s fastest-growing counties
are in the outlying suburbs in Northern Virginia in
Loudoun and Stafford. The demand for new schools and
other public services there is relentless. Even
the new budget and tax package will not provide enough
revenue to help those communities meet their needs.
And, we need to rethink transportation. State officials
estimate that since 1990 we have increased our spending
on road construction and maintenance by 42 percent or
a whopping $1.6 billion in 2003, excluding city and
county road payments. All of this money, though, has
not produced relief from the gridlock or reversed the
decline in our air quality. We have the third-largest
state-maintained highway system in the country, behind
Texas and North Carolina.
The state needs to move away from building just new
roads. Container traffic out of Hampton Roads needs
to be moved to rail lines and rail lines could get trucks
off of crowded interstates. By 2025 freight movement
into and out of Hampton Roads alone is expected to double.
Virginia needs to invest in upgrading our relationship
with AMTRAK to provide some of the needed additional
passenger service in the state. Light rail systems are
needed in Northern Virginia, Hampton Roads and the Richmond
area. Metro needs to be expanded further into portions
of Northern Virginia, such as the line to the Dulles
International Airport. We never will be able to build
enough lane miles to service the needs of the 1 million
residents of Fairfax County and such business centers
as Tysons Corner, which has more than 30 million square
feet of commercial development.
Trolley systems need to be considered for Charlottesville,
Richmond and the Roanoke Valley. Portland, Ore., has
a new trolley system, and it has helped spark the revival
of an old warehouse district known as The Pearl District.
It has wonderful galleries, parks and restaurants. Portland’s
light rail system also links to a new Reston-like surburban
community, Orenco Village, giving residents there quick
access to downtown without having to drive. Virginia
could use trolley systems and light rail lines to redirect
development patterns and encourage people to live in
areas that are not car-dependent. This approach has
worked in Arlington County along its Metrorail corridor.
High on the reform list should be a law requiring state
and local governments to produce a strategic plan relative
to government services. We need an annual report
by the state about the status of public services in
our state.
We have a great deal of work ahead of us. The challenges
will not be less, but more.
W. Rodger Provo is a Fredericksburg-based commercial
real estate broker, who served as an assistant to former
Gov. A. Linwood Holton from 1969 until 1971.
|
