A tax by any other name

The stoplight at the bottom of the Market Street ramp in Norfolk was red, and traffic was still. My phone rang: "The good news is they've got an appointment for you. The bad news is that it's right now."

I drove to the office, turned on my computer, ran down some coffee, turned off my computer and headed back to Suffolk.

And just like that, I raised my taxes, though politicians prefer to call them tolls.

Within an hour, I had passed through the Downtown Tunnel twice, and before lunch I would drive through it again. In all, I'd make four trips through those tubes that day.

If it were the end of 2012, in addition to the hours I spent going to and from Suffolk, I'd also spend more than $7 in one day to get back and forth (and back and forth) from home to work.

It's a bill that thousands of other drivers in Hampton Roads will face come 2012.

Right now, there are about 100,000 vehicles that travel through the Downtown Tunnel (the number is a little less than 40,000 at the Midtown). In about a year, we'll have to pay $1.84 during rush hour for that privilege, a number that could rise every year.

At the Downtown, we'll get precisely nothing for our money at first: No quicker transit, no better scheduling of lifts, no potpourri to mask the diesel exhaust. We'll be paying in anticipation of plans to spruce up the Downtown Tunnel and to add a tube to the Midtown. Anticipation is expensive.

So, of course, is the political cowardice in Richmond and Washington that has left highway funding in this nation a scandal of dwindling resources.

You know this. We all know this, as we ride across roads paved with busted asphalt and spreading seams: Our transportation system is a dangerous embarrassment and growing worse, with not a bit of political courage in sight.

And so the state has signed away two of the busiest river crossings in America to a private company that has an obligation to turn a profit. That will make investors wealthy (I will borrow and give you every penny I can if you'll promise me a 10 percent return). But it does so by taking a few bucks out of the pockets of everyone who uses the Downtown and Midtown tunnels.

Politicians love to say that tolls are "user fees," but that's a distinction relevant only when there are practical alternatives to paying. To cross the Elizabeth River from Portsmouth to Norfolk, there are no practical alternatives. And since transportation is one of the state's few clear obligations, that makes this a new state tax for 70,000 people. It's a huge one.

For a family making $50,000 in Hampton Roads, going through one of the Elizabeth River tunnels every day will amount to a new tax of more than $900 a year, or almost 2 percent of annual income. If politicians in Richmond decided to raise the state income tax rate by that much, you can be sure there would have been plenty of debate. Perhaps some screaming.

Until the last days before the state inked the deal, there wasn't a peep over the Downtown and Midtown tunnels. Mostly because the details of the deals were kept from us until the last few days, like the provision that the state has spent days protesting isn't a noncompete clause. They have a point. The deal with Elizabeth River Crossings doesn't include a noncompete clause. It includes a provision requiring the state to pay ERC if it builds a competing crossing. I'm sure you see the enormous difference.

To add insult, the state's current public-private partnership law requires a public comment period, but the old one didn't, officials argue. Guess which one was used?

I began writing this piece to talk about what these tolls mean for Hampton Roads. How I would've asked for a referral to a specialist in Norfolk rather than Suffolk, simply to keep me out of the tunnel. How restaurants in Norfolk will get a few bucks more expensive for folks from Portsmouth, at a time when we're all counting our pennies. How we'll all think twice before we go from Military Circle to Western Branch, or from Holland to Ghent.

I'll save that for another day.

In the meantime, a deal is being put together for a new U.S. 460. Consider this a warning. We know the tolls will be huge on the road itself. We know that some of the plans have included tolls on other highways.

A new highway would be nice to have, but it's not close to what Hampton Roads needs most. Even so, if the Downtown and Midtown deal is any indication, what Hampton Roads wants may not matter. As the folks in Richmond have made clear, all they want from us is to keep quiet and pay up.

Donald Luzzatto is The Pilot's editorial page editor. Email: donald.luzzatto@pilotonline.com.