Creigh Deeds does not mention either transportation or planning on his website.
Brian Moran's site says he favors forward-looking solutions and a transportation system that is statewide, sufficient, and sustainable. It says that Moran favors expanding mass transit.
Terry McAuliffe's site provides a lot of words about transportation and some about planning. McAuliffe says he favors a long-term approach. He acknowledges that Virginia needs an honest discussion of funding. He's against raising taxes while times are bad, but hints that he might consider higher taxes in the future. He also hints that the Federal government ought to contribute more to solve Virginia's transportation problems. He says that we need to improve land use planning. He would finish Dulles rail and consider what other communities should be linked to Metro. (Does he mean extending Metro down I-66 or I-95?) He favors public-private partnerships and mentions using the latest technology for our roads and transit.
Based on the candidates' websites, you have to favor McAuliffe.
In reality, the three sites taken together demonstrate how far we are from confronting Northern Virginia's transportation, planning, and environmental issues.
Providing enough public transportation to create an alternative to using private cars will cost sums unthinkable to today's elected officials. If Dulles Rail costs $4-6 billion, the capital cost of a real public transportation network (one that gets people out of their cars) will cost $40-60 billion at least. That means higher state and local taxes and probably financial disincentives to using cars (more toll roads, car taxes, user fees and so on). Perhaps the Federals will pick up some of the capital costs, but they are unlikely to take on the operating costs. Since a credible transit network in Northern Virginia will rely heavily on buses (the densities won't sustain either heavy or light rail in most areas), the operating costs will be considerable.
"Public-private partnerships" and "new technology" sound modern and forward-thinking, but neither offers much in the way of real solutions.
What does the private sector in the US know about public transportation that governments don't know or can't learn? Virginia's public-private partnerships amount to paying private companies a premium to take large expenditures off the books. If "hot lanes" made sense (which they don't) there's no reason that Virginia could not build and operate them -- other than elected officials don't want to admit how much they cost over the long run.
What new technology is going to appear that's better than the existing Metro cars, light rail vehicles or buses? Considering that the basic technology for mass transit has not changed in nearly a hundred years, a technological solution is very unlikely.
All this sounds intimidating and it is. Nevertheless, we won't solve our transportation problems, reduce pollution, and protect our quality of life as soon as we remain in denial.
