Most Virginians are adamant about not wanting to raise taxes to address transportation problems, but depending on where they live, they disagree about whether fixing urban congestion is a regional or a state responsibility, according to a new poll.
Almost one of every four likely voters indicated that if the state needs to make more budget cuts, they want to start with transportation spending.
The findings are part of a new statewide poll by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University that was conducted for The Virginian-Pilot and WVEC-TV. Researchers conducted telephone interviews with 506 likely voters throughout Virginia on Oct. 8-13.
Almost 60 percent of those polled said higher taxes aren't needed and transportation improvements can be made without additional revenue. Those who identified themselves as Democrats were divided on the question, but Republicans and independents strongly opposed new taxes. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
When asked where the state budget might be trimmed if more cuts were required, transportation was the top choice for 23.5 percent of those polled. The next most popular option was to trim all areas equally - favored by 20.5 percent.
Virginia's Department of Transportation already postponed projects, closed rest stops and laid off employees to offset an estimated $4.6 billion loss of revenue for roads over the next six years. It has also shifted money from construction to maintenance, which means less state money for city and county projects.
The Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization estimates it will cost at least $10 billion to build the region's major highway needs.
"I see a lot of frustration and confusion about how transportation works, how it's funded and where the money goes," said Quentin Kidd, a CNU political scientist and the center's director. "The data suggest there's a lot of education that needs to go with transportation."
For example, only one of every eight people polled knew that the state's gasoline tax is about 18 cents a gallon - 17.5 cents to be precise. About two-thirds of those polled said they couldn't venture a guess.
When asked whether the state's gasoline tax should be increased, almost 69 percent opposed the idea and 25 percent favored it.
"There's a fundamental, almost philosophical opposition to raising taxes," Kidd said, adding it might be that many people who oppose an increase don't realize that Virginia's gas tax is among the lowest in the country.
Virginians who were polled supported some ideas for raising money for roads that are being championed by Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate for governor.
McDonnell has opposed tax hikes and supports raising money by, among other things, selling state-run liquor stores to private buyers, placing tolls on Interstates 85 and 95 at the North Carolina border, using future revenue from Virginia's ports and setting up public-private partnerships that probably would mean using tolls to pay private investors.
Most people polled supported selling the liquor stores. They were mixed on whether they wanted to increase tolls. About half said tolls were fine for major projects, but they were split over whether they wanted them on the state's southern border. Most favored using port revenue but by a smaller margin.
His Democratic opponent, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, has dismissed McDonnell's plan as a nonstarter, noting that some of his ideas have already failed in the General Assembly and others require federal approval.
Deeds has said that a new source of revenue will be needed to raise more than $1 billion a year to address transportation problems. He proposes to establish a bipartisan commission after the election that will develop a statewide transportation plan with new funding sources.
Deeds has declined to say what taxes, fees or tolls he might support, saying simply that he will work to pass the funding plan developed by the commission.
Kidd said one of the more telling findings in the survey was indications of a regional disagreement about who should be responsible for dealing with traffic gridlock in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.
Large majorities of those polled from Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia want the state to be heavily involved. Residents of western and southwestern regions were split on the question. And a majority of Richmond area residents who were polled said the two other urban areas should take care of their own problems.
"I see regional balkanization," Kidd said.
Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com
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I just rode my motorcyle
I just rode my motorcyle from Hampton to Daytona Beach and back. On the way down the majority of the trip was on US17, the trip back was on I-95. I couldn't belive how nice the roads were when we left Virgina. It seems that North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida really have their act together when it comes to roads. I will admit that we didn't experience ruch hour traffic in any of the areas but the overall condition of the roads and bridges was excellent. Gas prices were pretty consistent all the way (I got gas every 165 miles, I think I saw a pretty representative sample) so I don't think it was funded by high gas taxes and there were no tolls. Seems to me our problems stem from mismanagment rather than lack of funding.
The facts
Well John, that is the greatest irony. In NC, the state gas tax is $0.266 per gallon; in Virginia, we pay $0.17. So they pay just about $0.10 more than we do. That may or may not be reflected in the price you pay at the pump because multiple factors go into the price the retailer sets for gas. So all this fuss the anti tax republicans have made over "don't raise taxes" has been shown, by your little trip, to be so absolutely absurd that most people will not even believe it. Because if it is true, and it is, we could have paid 10 cents more in gas tax, prevented all the ill effects we see everyday in our transportation system, but instead, we are still talking about it, our elected officials are doing nothing, we are spending more on ads attacking any candidate with the gall to point this out, and our system keeps deteriorating. We are not just stupid, we are dumb as well.
Speak for yourself Mike
Perhaps John is right that it is a mismanagement problem vice a money problem. Again Mike, no one cares what the gas taxes are in NC because we have no control over them, we don't live there, and their legislature is elected by North Carolinians. You keep beating the same dead horse that just because other states pay more in taxes and fees than we do, then the citizens are stupid and dumb for not following along. If you decided to bungee jump off of the High Rise Bridge, doesn't mean that the rest of us have too.
How tall is the grass NOW
How tall is the grass NOW Mike? Do we need to ride in the back of a bucket truck to see the exit signs yet?
No Keith, they finally cut
No Keith, they finally cut it the other day. Must be election time.
Well how about that!
Well how about that!
Once again Greenmun gets it
Once again Greenmun gets it wrong. Governor Jim Gilmore proposed the use of revenue anticipation bonds which were simply a way to borrow more to put into the transportation so he could hide the fact the the taxes imposed were not sufficient to cover the cost of all the projects he said could be accomplished. But this was all within the Transportation Trust Fund and did not involve general funds. Greenmun has egg all over his face due to the fact that he was an opponent of the Yes Campaign, which if it had been approved, all the projects would have been built or would be in progress, and the small increase in the sales tax would have been noticed by no one. Instead, we now have a $4,700,000,000 backlog of deferred maintenance, and Greenmun and his anti tax cohorts are left trying to explain why we ahould not have move ahead, avoided congestion and the rebalkanization of Hampton Roads.
Robbing the TTF to "balance the budget" (General Fund)
Some special interests like to pretend that hundreds of millions of transportation tax dollars were not raided from the TTF (Transportation Trust Fund) and used to "baance the budget", thus ending up in the General Fund and resulting in transportation funds being used for social spending. Some less than honest elected members of the General Assembly liked to play games and claim the hundreds of millions raided from the TTF were "paid back" by I.O.U.s called FRANS. FRANS are federal funds that were expected in the future to be provided and were supposed to be used for new construction, not maintenance. This deceptive scam has gone on for decades and is practiced by Democrats and Republicans alike.
Building a myth about VDOT "On time, on budget"
Some special iterests work hard to construct a myth that somehow VDOT was "fixed" when Phil Shucet took over. Some folks in the business community like to poit out a bunch of self serving metrics that give the impression that VDOT improved their performance. However, closer inspection of the magic used to make this happen reveals that by reducing the number of projects VDOT had on it's plate (6 year plan) and by shedding many projects where adequate funding was never identified, nor existed, suddenly the performance metrics appear vastly improved. It is not that VDOT was actually performing the work load they had before - faster, but it is that they simply removed projects that were not funded or that they were too far behind on. In one regard this is good in that listing projects that are not funded in the 6 year plan is more realistic, but to attempt to claim that somehow VDOT is performing better is constructing a myth.
I would say the reason most
I would say the reason most say not to raise taxes for the roads is they don't think that the funds would really go to road building. The gas tax would get raised and a statue would be commissioned a park built anything but fix the roads and build the needed bridges. If they would "lock" the funds to road building in the area the taxes are collected I would say increase the gas tax. We all know that won't happen because then they could not spend the money for other projects.
Republican playbook
Yes, that is another one of the myths from the republican playbook. Confuse voters so they think the money from the Transportation Trust Fund is used for human services or some other function. That was one of Gilmore's tricks. But, like just about everything else in the playbook, it is simply false. Remember, these anti tax, anti government republicans are following the Grover Norquist philosophy; that is, the goal of elected officials should be to cut off the arms and legs of government so the body can be drowned in the bathtub. Frankly, that is exactly what they have done to transportation, and they will stay in office and continue to preside over the dismantling of our trasportation system until we voters see clearly that they care about their chairmanships and their perks much more than they care about us, the citizens of Virginia.
Well Mike, sooner or later
Well Mike, sooner or later you and your George Soros democrats will one day wake up and realize that the republicans in the legislature were elected by their constituents instead of developers. When their constituents decide their elected officials aren't acting in THEIR interests, then they will be fired. I can't figure out why you don't understand that.
excellent
Excellent comment
Believe it
Notice how many herein simply quote from the decade old republican playbook and blame everything on VDOT (even though they were the ones to decimate the workforce). Actually VDOT is highly efficient, and has documented the improvements as follows: on time performance, 30% in 2002, 86% today; on budget performance, 61% in 2002, 93% today; employees, 10,192 in 2002, today, 7,830. The problem is not VDOT, it is the General Assembly; in 2002, there were $10.5 Billion of projects approved in the six year plan; now less than half, $4.6 B (more cuts on the way); in 2002, only $3.9 M was transferred from construction to maintenance, today that number has risen to $712.6 M. Fact is, soon we will not have enough for the federal match, and our share of our own federal gas tax money will go to other states so they can take away our businesses. Don't believe it? Of course you don't; no one thinks a republican delegate would ever mislead us. Right.
Who evaluated the performance...
of VDOT in arriving at those figures? Was it VDOT itself?
What is needed in this state
Other states have locked funds, which means funds derived from certain sources can only be spent on what those funds are supposed to be generated for - and nothing else. Virginia needs to do this.
With Virginia's roads getting worse and worse we can count on businesses locating to other states. Either we fix our infrastructure and do more to improve it, or else we can expect to have more job losses and fewer opportunties for our residences. Even the tourist trade will evaporate if they can't get to where they want to go to without destroying their vehicles in the process.
As much as I hate taxes, I do think a raise in the gasoline tax is the best way to fund maintenance and improvements to our highways, so long as that money can be locked to going only to our highways and bridges.
Washingtonpost.com
Washingtonpost.com endorsement of Deeds is must read for Virginia voters!
Many things can be done at NO additional cost!!
It costs this government NO additional dollars to get at least 5-7 Million of our unemployed back into jobs and lower health care and other costs. This leaves the money saved by us and the states to be put towards infrastructure and other needs.
We don't need higher taxes or additional government spending to accomplish many of the things this country needs!!!
This administration and Congress is not doing the one thing that:
1-Costs the government no additional dollars!
2-Offers two layers of protection from identity theft via the SSA and Homeland Security!
3-Reduces document fraud!
4-Protects our unemployed by giving back at least 5-6 Million jobs that are in the hands of illegals, at an average cost of 1 Billion dollars per state!!
5-Reduces the costs that states incur having to deal with illegals and their dependents!
6-Protects our sovereignty by stimulating jobs and growth which prevents our nation from having to borrow more money!
7-It's free, easy and fast to use, workers cannot be fired while they correct errors, if they choose to challenge a rejection!
8-Reduces the cost to states and employers paying unemployment benefits and greatly reduces the need for
marysteeleyorktownva - you
marysteeleyorktownva - you hate illegal aliens - we understand that.
But, if Americans wanted the Jobs the Illegals currently have, then Americans would be working at them.
Illegal Aliens come here in response to supply and demand - if there were no Jobs, they would go else where.
And many Americans could not live on what these folks make.
You want to see Illegal aliens leave?
Support a living wage. Support Unions.
Because employers will always hire the cheapest individual to do the Job.
A living wage puts the jobs in the range of naturalized Americans because both the illegal and the Naturalized would get the same pay.
Unions force employers to pay illegals at the same rate as naturalized thereby removing the incentive for employers to hire illegals over naturalized.
If not new taxes what?
I guess 60% of those surveyed believe that God, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are going to fix our roads.