This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to a dialogue about our transportation challenges and how we can work together to fix them without undue partisanship and a strident tone. – J.R. Hoeft
Guest post by Mike Barrett, member of the Board of Directors, Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and SPSA and CEO of the Runnymede Corporation
Even non-bloggers are beginning to show up commenting on the deplorable conditions of our highways, bridges, and roadways.
Of course, some conditions, like pot holes, abandoned bridges, closed rest stops, shuttered maintenance facilities, tall grass on interstate medians, faded pavement markings, missing signage, damaged railings, are easy to see. But pavement degradation, structural bridge deterioration, and deferred maintenance are not as easy to see, but the Commonwealth just got a D- from the civil engineers who know what they are talking about.
The congestion indicators also can’t be missed; six mile backups at the HRBT, four mile backups at the mid town tunnel, lines back to Bowers Hill crawling toward the high rise bridge, and these are just normal conditions. Who can forget the chaos when we have a real problem like flooding or a leak in the tunnel!
We have grown weary of uncertainty; how long should I plan for a trip to Williamsburg? Church starts at 11:00 AM, must we really leave at 9:30 AM to be on time? How do I get out of Hampton Roads on a Friday afternoon? Who can justify the estimated $1,000 we all spend on lost productivity and car repair? And for those in business who expanded to the Peninsula, or to the Southside when the tunnels were expanded, can you still justify doing business on the other side given the extra cost of delay and confusion about on arrival times?
These are the everyday manifestations of a transportation system that is nearing collapse. Of course, none of this happened all at once; it has been a slow and steady degradation as the value of the funds we commit to transportation have lost their buying power. The effect statewide, over time, is profound, and our failure to conserve this important and vital asset, that is, our transportation infrastructure, will increasingly lead to lost productivity, lost opportunity, loss of more and more family time, the re-balkanization of Hampton Roads, and more isolation from the transportation networks around the country.
No one in political office can deny these conditions, nor their effects on the lives of their constituents. Yet attempts in the past, like the “Yes” Campaign, the legislative process that culminated in HB 3202, and even special sessions devoted to finding a solution to this funding problem, have failed. Now, despite the prominence of transportation funding issues in the last race for Governor, the issue has once again been shunted aside to deal with other pressing matters.
Yet who would wish to leave executive or legislative office with the reputation of having presided over the steady destruction of our transportation system. Is not conservation, sustainment, and improvement of transportation infrastructure one of the most important functions of government?
Yes, it is, and in my next installment, I will opine what we should do.
