Deeds: Toll fix to road woes?

Peering at R. Creigh Deeds’ thinking on how to crack Virginia’s knotty transportation conundrum might require looking back 20 years, or at least four.

While Republican Robert F. McDonnell touts a 12-point transportation plan, Deeds has been far murkier, saying he would rely on a commission of Democrats, Republicans, transportation experts and private-sector leaders to offer recommendations on how to bridge an almost $1-billon funding gap. Tax increases are a possibility.

To some people, especially those with strong memories, Deeds’ idea of a commission might sound familiar: He is borrowing the approach from fellow Democrat Gerald Baliles, Virginia’s governor from 1986 to 1990.

Baliles’ ideas beyond a commission would exact a toll.

Known as the “transportation governor,” Baliles shepherded a $422-million annual transportation plan through the General Assembly in his first year in office. The Fishburne Military School graduate has retained a deep interest in the subject, evidenced by a 2005 letter penned to Republican John Chichester, the since-retired Senate President Pro Tempore

Baliles suggested a statewide network of 38 interstate toll locations that would charge users 85 cents per toll. He wrote then that the move could generate more than $1 billion in new annual revenues. An aide to the former governor said Baliles still believes in those concepts, though the numbers might have changed in the last four years.

Where Deeds stands on ideas such as those isn’t known, but his appreciation of Baliles is keen. Deeds Press Secretary Jared Leopold said Baliles’ approach on transportation is the only one that has worked in the last 20 years.

On this all agree: Figuring out answers to the state’s road riddles will be high on the agenda of the state’s next governor.

Virginia is spending $800 million a year less than is needed to maintain bridges, pavements, street lights and transit vehicles, according to state officials.

McDonnell’s plan includes privatizing Virginia’s state-run liquor stores, taking out bonds and tolling on interstates at the North Carolina border.

Deeds has said McDonnell, the former attorney general from Virginia Beach, would take $5.4 billion from Virginia’s general fund over a decade that would steal money from education and other needs.

McDonnell has denied this, saying he’d lean heavily on growth in revenues rather than pulling from existing money.

The fact that McDonnell has a plan he is willing to tweak has resonated better publicly than Deeds’ idea of a commission, analysts said.

“My sense is that McDonnell’s plan is poll-tested,’’ said Quentin Kidd, a political scientist from Christopher Newport University. “The public perception favors McDonnell.”

And Deeds’ approach could take a couple of years to bear fruit while McDonnell’s could yield quicker results, state House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said.

“Within a couple of weeks with Bob, he would get the legislative leadership together,’’ Griffith said. “He’s not a my-way-or-the-highway type. He’ll push us because he wants to get something done. If it won’t fly, he’ll say, ‘Let’s figure it out.’’’

Deeds’ goal is to get transportation passed in his first year, Leopold said. All funding options will be open so long as they don’t include cutting core services, Leopold said.

Baliles wrote in his letter to Chichester that tolling could help the commonwealth pay for transportation projects over a 12- to 15-year period. Tying tolls to bonds could allow highway projects to move swiftly ahead, he said.

Balilies said there could be other strategies such as price breaks for the heaviest users. He left open the possibility of halting the tolls after all the payments for the work are made.

“That is a public policy question for the legislature, but the answer should be ‘until the bills have been paid.’ The ‘size of the bill,’ of course, would be contingent upon the list and costs of the projects selected,’’ Baliles wrote.

Tolls on existing interstates would require approval of the Federal Highway Administration.

That agency has a number of programs for tolls but those programs include improvements to interstates and for HOV and HOT lanes. HOV, or high-occupancy vehicle lanes, primarily are reserved for people riding in carpools or using mass transit. HOT, or high-occupancy toll lanes, allow a single driver to use the HOV lane for a toll.

There was conditional Federal Highway Administration approval granted for tolling on Interstate 81, but that was when there was consideration of widening the interstate in Virginia.

Pierce Homer, Virginia’s secretary of transportation, said tolls to fund highway projects must be looked at on a case-by-case basis.

He cites Virginia projects that will be substantially funded by tolls such as the Capital Beltway HOT lanes project in Northern Virginia and the Midtown Tunnel connecting Portsmouth and Norfolk.

Del. David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, a strong Deeds supporter, said he likes the idea of bringing a bipartisan panel together to fix transportation.

The key, he said, is to find Democratic and Republican leaders who are not wed to ideological positions.

“We can’t have people at the table who want to pass taxes all the time and we can’t have no-tax pledges,’’ he said.

And while a variety of sources can be used to help with transportation, Toscano said that ultimately, it will take a dedicated revenue source to solve the problem.

“There are a whole host of things that will help,’’ he said. “If we are going to be serious, we need additional revenue.”

Both campaigns argue that the positions of the candidates are working.

“We hear from people everyday that the fact that Bob McDonnell put together a real transportation plan for voters to consider before they vote, while Creigh Deeds decided to hide behind a lame pledge to form a committee to tell him what to do after he got elected, really defines the candidates,’’ McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said.

“I’ve spoken with people on the opposite end of last fall’s election who are voting for Bob McDonnell because he has a detailed, concise plan,’’ said Waynesboro Republican Committee Chairman Chris Darden.

Former Virginia Gov. and U.S. Sen. George Allen said he likes McDonnell’s plan, particularly the component calling for state liquor stores to be privatized.

“I don’t believe Virginia ought to be in the liquor business,’’ Allen said.

Deeds would bring together people “with a wide spectrum of experience’’ from all parts of Virginia to tackle the state’s transportation woes, Leopold said.

“Creigh Deeds,” he said, “is the only candidate with a realistic and honest approach to solving our transportation crisis.”