Transportation

One of the founding concepts of this country is that governmental decisions should be kept as close to the people as possible. I am a firm believer that most transportation issues should be addressed by local (i.e., metropolitan-level) government. It is at this level that the government can best respond to the various affected stakeholders without being unduly bothered by outside interests. The local government should have the authority to tax and spend transportation dollars as they deem appropriate while also also being held accountable for their actions through an election process.

Unfortunately, many of our region's transportation problems can be traced back to giving too much control to those that do not represent this region and/or to those that are not directly accountable to the people.

Dulles Rail - The Dulles Road/Rail corridor is controlled by the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) - yes, an airports authority is in charge of managing this major surface transportation link. The MWAA Board of Directors are not elected and do not represent the residents of the Dulles corridor; instead, they only represent the limited interests of Dulles Airport. As a result, they are proposing a course of action that would raise the tolls on a daily commuter from $375/year to $10,000/year! Our current politicians are now condemning this decision, but are only proposing to negotiate a solution. This does not solve the real problem. The only real solution to this problem is to have the federal government return the land along the toll road and to give ownership to the State of Virginia. The state would then have the authority to decide what to do. The interests of MWAA would then be put into proper balance with the broader needs and desires of the local residents.

BRAC - In 2005, the military announced its plans for Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) which called for an expansion of Fort Belvoir and additional office space near the Pentagon. By 2008, the DoD had selected the specific site of the Mark Center for its additional office space. The addition of jobs to our regional economy should be a good thing that our local leaders would welcome and plan for. Unfortunately, our locally elected leaders, including Gerry Connolly at the time, failed to plan for adequate transportation facilities to meet these new demands. As a result, we are now struggling to find solutions while the final move of many of these DoD employees is being delayed. It is time that our leaders are held accountable for their poor planning.

Signal Timing and Other Issues - I often hear complaints about signal timing, roadway lane configurations, and other local problems. Once again, many of these problems can be attributed to giving management authority to an organization that is not sufficiently accountable to the main stakeholder. Most operations in Northern Virginia are managed by the Virginia DOT. While they must be somewhat accountable to local residents, they are generally focused on regional or statewide operations rather than being directly responsive to the local citizen. The last thing that we need is to have the federal government force its one-size-fits-all solutions on our local region; the solution is in asking our state representatives to give greater responsibility and authority to the regional governments (e.g., counties and/or regional transportation board). Once the local government has the decision making powers and taxation powers, they can more properly be held directly accountable for the performance of the transportation system.

In summary, many of our transportation problems are due to giving responsibility and authority to groups who do not reflect the stakeholders of the traveling public. I will work to solve this problem in those areas where the federal government oversteps its role. Specifically, I will strive to give the state and local governments as much authority as possible over the Dulles Toll and Access Roads. I will also work to minimize the federal overhead in our nation's transportation system so that a greater percentage of our transportation dollars can be spent on solving real problems rather than creating bureaucratic reports.