Tunnel Vision: Transportation Reality is Depressing

By Brendan O'Hallarn Wednesday, July 21, 2010

I sailed to work early on Monday morning. I went in to work early to run, and didn’t have to tap my brakes the entire trip to Old Dominion University. Great start to the week.

My day wasn’t ruined until I sat down at the office and read Sunday’s Virginian-Pilot.

The paper had a report from the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization. I’ll give you a hint about how rosy the outlook is for traffic in the 13 Hampton Roads jurisdictions represented by the HRTPO – the headline of the article was “Get Ready to Wait.”

According to the organization, the projected population growth in the region will render the region’s long-range transportation plan useless.
Even if the projects that are on the drawing board are completed – including light rail in Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and a second Midtown Tunnel into downtown Norfolk – the HRTPO projects congestion on our roads will double in the next 20 years.

Believe it or not, only 12 percent of the primary roads in the region are “severely” jammed during afternoon rush hour, the group reports. But by 2030, that figure is estimated to be 29 percent, taking into account regional projections for population growth and employment trends.

“Today’s problems are only going to get worse. And we’ll have areas that are not so much a problem today become a problem,” Rob Case, principal transportation engineer for the organization, told the Pilot.

Who are these guys to ruin my Monday?

I looked the HRTPO up online, and found out that federal regulations require urbanized areas throughout the United States to have a metropolitan planning organization to conduct an ongoing, comprehensive transportation planning process.

I didn’t know it was also their job to scare the crap out of us.

Serving as a local umbrella organization for groups like the Williamsburg Area Transit Authority, the Virginia Department of Transportation, the Virginia Port Authority and the Federal Highway Administration, the HRTPO also acts as a booster for our interests when it comes to divvying up construction dollars statewide.

For every dollar of infrastructure money that’s available, there are approximately 375 ways to spend it. And you know that Richmond will have its voice heard in these discussions, and the DC suburbs will do a fair job bending ears in Washington, as many of the decision-makers for transportation dollars have to endure those roads every weekday.

So perhaps it’s the HRTPO’s job to say alarmist things like: “In Hampton Roads, we have $19 billion in needs … and just $2.3 billion to spend” in the next 30 years (Aubrey Lane, Commonwealth Transportation Board member from Virginia Beach).

And: “We have a huge need for more funding for transportation, and it’s only going to be worse in the future” (Camelia Ravanbakht, HRTPO deputy executive director).

The HRTPO warns that a “major catastrophe” on area roads could result in transportation gridlock that goes on for days with no relief, choking businesses that rely on road traffic, increasing air pollution and reducing the region’s entire quality of life.

And most depressingly, other than coming up with a bunch more money, either by raising taxes or invading North Carolina, the HRTPO doesn’t offer any solutions for us out of this mess.

Has your week been ruined, too? Good, join the club.

Brendan O’Hallarn writes Tunnel Vision for WYDaily, chronicling his 41.2-mile (each way) commute from Williamsburg to Old Dominion University in Norfolk. Most weeks, the column isn’t this depressing. If you’re a fellow traveler, write Brendan at brendan@wydaily.com.