Virginia's Driving Fees and Fear of Taxation

Conservative Activists Target Taxes, Fees in Broad New Lawsuit August 7, 2007 - 8:45am By BOB LEWIS AP Political Writer RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Anti-tax conservatives on Monday filed the broadest legal challenge yet to the new transportation funding law, targeting not just steep fees for bad driving but the fiscal underpinning of the $1 billion-a-year initiative. (WTOP)

There has come to be, in Virginia, a dichotomy between the fantasy of No New Taxes and the reality of no new roads, resulting in no forward motion in one of the fastest growing areas of the United States.

The fees are an abomination. Let us be clear on that. There are better, more enforcible ways of curtailing reckless driving.

However, the issue of transportation funding still has yet to be addressed in a manner that is realistic and effective and leads to real solutions.

Just building roads is not enough. Just funding mass transit is not enough. Allowing unbridled development is not acceptable and expecting the funds of Northern Virginia to subsidize the operations of the rest of the state is not acceptable.

For all his good points (and if you can think of any, please let me know because I sure cannot) that Bob Marshall and his crone Jackson Miller bring to the table, the real issues are not religion and immigration, but the unadulterated fact that it takes 70-90 minutes to travel 24 miles in Northern Virginia when the schools are out and Congress is in recess. This is unacceptable.

It is time to get our heads out of the sand (or other parts of our anatomies) and start demanding that our elected leaders actually do something with their time in Richmond beyond the flag waving, moralizing and motto making they have been doing for the last 10 years. And it needs to be done before Northern Virginia becomes a gridlocked wasteland of people spending more time getting to and from work then they actually spend at work.