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TRAFFIC reports are provided every few minutes for sever- al hours each weekday morning and evening on many radio and TV stations in Northern Virginia.
Weather reports often take a back seat to traffic-copter updates in a region where hundreds of thousands of people commute long distances to and from work.
Sometimes weather and traffic converge, of course. A light snow can send the region into a tailspin. Workers don't get home for hours.
How did the region get into such a mess?
By building roads.
Highways and secondary roads are absolutely necessary in a society that became increasingly dependent upon cars over the past 100 years. But we've ignored the effects our single-minded fixation with transportation has on open land, communities and the quality of life of the individuals who spend several hours a day commuting.
The Washington suburbs--which now include the Fredericksburg region--have been radically changed over four decades by road-builders, developers and the real-estate industry. All have thrived as sprawling development followed new interstates and highways into the countryside and away from places of work.
A 50-mile, one-way commute is common for suburbanites who live in Spotsylvania County or southern Stafford County. Along their way to work they listen to traffic reports and hope no one up ahead has a fender-bender or flat tire, let alone a serious accident.
Is that any way to live?
Is that any way to build a community?
No.
It's time to figure out how to handle growth and development in the far-flung region. Transportation must remain an important aspect of planning, but not the primary force. We cannot get ourselves out of this mess by laying more asphalt.
And yet on Tuesday, voters in nine Northern Virginia localities--from Prince William County north--will decide whether to fund road projects and mass transit by raising the state sales tax from 4.5 cents per dollar to 5 cents per dollar.
Supporters say $5 billion would be generated over the next 20 years.
A similar referendum is on the ballot in the Hampton Roads area.
Both merit rejection by voters.
A more-of-the-same approach would fail to acknowledge that the region's transportation problems result from a failure by state and local government officials to engage in meaningful land-use planning.
Amazingly, planning on the local and regional levels in Virginia is not done in tandem with highway planning by the Virginia Department of Transportation.
State Sen. Edd Houck, a Democrat from Spotsylvania County, called attention to that problem last Thursday when the state's top transportation officials visited Fredericksburg and Culpeper to hear suggestions on what to do about the beleaguered agency.
"Financially, practically, politically, we can't continue to work this way," Houck said.
Houck apparently does not anticipate change any time soon, however; he supports the sales tax increase in Northern Virginia.
The $5 billion infusion sought by the Northern Virginia business and development community would do little to change the revenue picture, in any case.
A study done four years ago estimated that over the next 15 years the state will have $40 billion less than it will cost to build the new roads that will be demanded.
That's why proponents of a sales tax increase say the region needs to raise money on its own.
Rather than throw money at the problem, however, it would be better to design--and redesign--communities so people can live closer to their jobs.
Stewart Schwartz, an opponent of the tax hike who heads the Coalition for Smarter Growth, suggests an example: Use existing parking lots for high-density housing so people who work in the high-tech Dulles Airport corridor can live there, too.
Companies could also explore the possibility of moving south to the Fredericksburg area, where there is a huge pool of high-caliber workers who are literally and figuratively tired of listening to 6 a.m. traffic reports.
Political leadership is necessary, however, if change is going to come about.
The calcified Virginia General Assembly--which looks upon any change as a radical idea--must find ways to balance preservation of open space and communities with population growth and development.
The General Assembly also must overhaul the state's tax system.
Under the existing system, local governments must rely primarily on local real-estate taxes to cover the cost of providing schools, law enforcement and other services.
The sprawling, inefficient and often ugly pattern of growth that has devolved in recent years is in large part a consequence of bad tax policy. Rampant development has resulted as local officials have frenetically chased new real-estate tax dollars in order to balance their annual budgets.
The myth that more development will always lead to prosperity has caused local governments to approve hundreds of housing developments and strip shopping centers.
And yet real-estate tax rates keep rising because more and more new development never seems to be enough.
Which brings us back around to highways.
The Virginia Department of Transportation must always play catch-up ball. There is never enough money to build all the roads local governments say they need to serve the new developments they have approved. That's why local roads are congested, too.
The dearth of state money prompted elected officials from Fredericksburg and the counties of Stafford, Spotsylvania, King George and Caroline to met Tuesday night to discuss whether to seek General Assembly approval to form a Rappahannock Regional Transportation District, which could raise road-building money by increasing the sales tax or gasoline tax.
There again is an example of how transportation planning is done without looking at larger planning issues. What those five localities should be discussing, instead, is regional planning that includes land-use issues, water supply, public safety and quality of life as well as transportation.
Next Tuesday, chances are that the frustration of many individual voters in Northern Virginia will lead to the approval of the sales tax hike. Most people assume that more asphalt will make things better, although that approach has not worked in Atlanta, Los Angeles and other sprawling areas of the country.
Perpetuating the myth that more asphalt will bring relief to frazzled motorists are developers, road-builders and the real-estate industry. That coalition of special interests is bankrolling the campaign for a "yes" vote on Tuesday.
A close vote is expected because there are many people who no longer accept the conventional wisdom that the region can build its way out of traffic congestion.
Many opponents of increasing the sales tax believe a simplistic, Band-Aid approach will only delay the surgery needed now.
LARRY EVANS can be reached at The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401; by fax at 373-8455; by phone at 374-5409; or by e-mail at levans@freelancestar.com.