The Shucet Solution: Complete Our Highway Network

The fifth of Philip Shucet's written recommendations to the state senate task force studying transportation policy is to complete the state's highway network, including a number of mega-projects:

• Another Potomac River crossing and north-south alternative for Interstate 95 in Northern Virginia
• A third crossing in Hampton Roads
• The Coalfields Expressway
• Four-laning of U.S. 58 to Interstate 77
• A U.S. 29 bypass around Charlottesville
• Improvements to Interstate 81 such as truck-climbing lanes
• Improvements to Interstate 64 between Richmond and Hampton Roads
• Repair of all structurally deficient bridges across the Commonwealth

"I understand the sentiment that we cannot pave our way out of congestion," Shucet writes by way of preface. "But a few facts are still inescapable." Nearly all goods reach their final destination by truck; 91 percent of all workers go to work in a car. "Virginia needs to complete and improve its most essential roadways."

And how would he pay for all of this? "I believe Governor Baliles' plan to use Virginia's Interstate system as a statewide source of revenue dedicated to specific projects merits strong consideration as a means of funding and building priority corridor projects across the Commonwealth."

It's important to understand what Shucet is saying here: Yes, he is advocating raising $1 billion a year in new toll revenues for major new road projects. But all of these projects would improve mobility between metropolitan areas, not within them. Their function is economic development, not congestion mitigation.