When Virginians elected Tim Kaine as their next governor on Nov. 8, they sent a clear message – get me home faster. Key to Kaine’s victory was gaining the support of population-heavy exurbs and suburbs, especially in Northern Virginia, that are having to wait in increasingly clogged traffic jams to get home from work each day.
The problem isn’t just limited to the Northern Virginia area, either – almost anyone who took to the roads this Thanksgiving can attest to the state of Virginia’s highways, both in terms of lack of capacity and in terms of needing repair.
The question, then, is where to find the money to fix the problem. A Washington Post editorial on Thursday illustrated the challenge facing Kaine: “Having dodged the question of new taxes for transportation as a candidate, Mr. Kaine takes office lacking a revenue-raising mandate.”
One proposed solution has been to add toll lanes to existing public highways, allowing private developers to come in and foot the bill for new projects while charging the drivers who use them. In some instances, tolls would be made higher during peak times – as high as $40 each way, according to the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments – in the name of helping reduce traffic.
Another touted benefit of these toll lanes would be to serve as an incentive for carpooling and pubic transportation, both of which would be able to use the lanes toll-free. The toll lanes would be called “High-Occupancy/Toll” (HOT), to reflect their dual use.
The problem is that existing High-Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes already serve as an incentive to carpool, especially along the I-95/395 corridor between Woodbridge, Va., and D.C., where informal carpools called “slugs” have formed around the three-person requirement for those lanes. Sluggers, who rely on drivers seeking that extra passenger to get a free ride to work, fear that the possibility of being able to pay to bypass the requirement would cause them to lose their ride.
Sluggers and other carpools reduce traffic by fitting more people into fewer cars. According to VDOT statistics, on any given day the two HOV lanes on I-395 carry about twice the number of passengers as the three regular lanes going in the same direction during rush hour.
In seeking new funds to solve transportation problems, there needs to be a balanced approach that rewards commuters for choosing transportation alternatives such as carpooling and increases capacity on highways between major cities while limiting out-of-control development into suburbs that increases the number of miles people need to commute into the city. More funding for light rail – or dare I say, more subway lines and high-speed rail – wouldn’t be such a bad idea, either.
Omar Yacoubi may be reached at yacoubioa@vcu.edu