There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, free parking, or a free highway:

whether up front or at the check-out counter, you’ve gotta pay.

Photo|USDOT

When it comes to Virginia’s rest areas, it is our cyclists who end of holding the check.

Governor McDonnell is fulfilling his campaign pledge to keep our rest areas open and taxes low by cutting funding for “transportation enhancements.” Sidewalks, bike lanes and shared-use recreational paths all fall under the moniker of “transportation enhancements” in Virginia, along with more dubious projects, such as highway beautification, an iPhone app, and debt reduction for the Schooner Virginia.

To the creative class, however, bike lanes and sidewalks are not “enhancements” to our transportation network, but rather an integral part of a “complete street.” And now our governor wants to cut the funding for them in order to keep rest areas open. The full text, including Section 3, “Regional Tourism and Welcome Center Partnership,” can be found on the Governor’s webpage.

We need “complete streets,” safe, attractive and accessible for pedestrians, cyclists, motorists and public transport.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m in favor of open rest areas on our interstate highways as much as the next guy (or girl). But I’m also in favor of bike lanes, taxes and user fees. All too often we have a culture that expects something for nothing: we want government to pave our roads and clean our potties, but we don’t want to pay taxes. Roads, tunnels, bridges and rest areas have become entitlements, as evidenced by the uproar anytime a Virginia politician dares use that 4-letter word; “tolls.” (Alright, yes, the plural is 5 letters, not 4.) The reactionary attitude often seems to be, “We’re entitled to wide, paved roads, but we’d darn well better not be asked to pay for them up front, out of our own pockets!”

All good things come at a price. That’s something we just need to accept.

I’m disappointed in Governor McDonnell. For all that he talked in his campaign about changing government, seeking new solutions to old problems, and trimming waste, his plan to pay for rest areas by cutting funding for bike lanes suggests that he’s really only interested in maintaining a costly status quo: cars first, everything else second. And if we run low on oil to pave those roads (where did you think asphalt came from?), let alone gasoline to drive those cars, well, “Drill Baby, Drill.” Drill here, drill now…and Governor McDonnell’s big business friends/campaign contributors will make a tidy profit in the process… Sometimes fiscal conservatism smells more like private profiteering at the public expense: the public will foot the bill for paving roads, but private individuals will profit. The public will fund a highway network biased towards a single, expensive, polluting form of transportation: the private car.

And, at the same time that Governor McDonnell is cutting funding for complete streets, he is also “greening” the State Capitol in Richmond. While porous paving and rain gardens are laudable, how much better would it be if the bicycle infrastructure was such that the governor could ride from meeting to meeting across town?

Snr. Crapper.

Twenty bikes can fit in the parking space for a single automobile. Give or take, it takes a couple hundred bicycles to put the same wear and tear on a road as a single SUV. And yet instead of investing in an infrastructure that will require less maintenance, has a greater potential user-density, cost less per user, result in less emissions that contribute to both global warming and the increase in respiratory ailments, decrease health care costs by promoting fitness, and create more livable neighborhoods, Governor McDonnell wants to keep the crappers open.

Virginia could learn much from other states along I-95 when it comes to maintaining (and paying for) a transportation corridor: as much as it is berated, the New Jersey Turnpike is one of the busiest highways in North America, and yet it has frequent, clean and perpetually-open rest areas. It also charges user fees (tolls) and contracts rest area maintenance to private, for-profit vendors. And it works. As much as I hate driving, I’d rather drive I-95 in New Jersey (the Turnpike), than in Virginia. Tolls are an effective, up-front device to finance our transportation network: if you use it, you pay for it. If your vehicle is extra-heavy, with extra axles, then you pay an extra toll to compensate for the extra wear and tear to the road surface. With our current system, transportation is funded primarily through an excise tax on gasoline: even if you never drive I-64, I-264 or I-664, you still pay for them at the pump.

Fortunately there is legislation being advanced at the national level to diversify our transportation portfolio: in the U.S. Senate the Livable Communities Act, S. 1619, has made it out of committee, and may soon be voted upon by the full Senate. In the House of Representatives a bill of the same name, H.R. 4690, is still in committee. Call Senators Mark Warner and Jim Webb at 202-224-6295 and 202-224-4024, respectively. Senator Webb has his own Facebook page, while Senator Warner is on Twitter: @MarkWarner. Tell them that you are a Virginian, and you want them to vote in favor of S. 1619.

So if you’re tired of our car-first culture, and want your tax dollars invested in an alternative to automobiles, then get involved. Call your senators. Email your representatives. Let them know how you want them to vote. A single phone call or email might seem like a drop in the bucket, but the bucket overflows in time.

After you’ve lobbied your federal representatives, drop a note and give a call to your Commonwealth Transportation Board members. These are the folks that oversee how both federal and state transportation funds are disbursed:

Aubrey Layne Jr.

http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/images/Laynesmall.jpg

Hampton Roads District

(Term expires

June 30, 2013)

Great Atlantic Management, LLC

293 Independence Blvd.

Suite 400

Virginia Beach, VA 23462

757-217-3428

Cord A. Sterling

http://www.ctb.virginia.gov/images/sterling.jpg

At-Large Urban

(Term expires

June 30, 2010)

32 Muster Drive

Stafford, VA 22554

540-604-1610