roads.

roads.

The Commission on the Future of Transportation in Virginia concluded its report saying, “Congestion increases as people move outward from urban centers, and additional lane miles of roads to accommodate the people lead to more development, and more people, and more congestion, and more lane miles, and around it goes ... it is a futile exercise to attempt to build your way out of congestion problems by adding more highways.”

VDOT’s record budget for 2000-2001 was over $3.25 billion; only about six percent of that budget went to alternatives to road building like transit. Taxpayer dollars have been spent on road building programs which according to this report have encouraged sprawling development and have left few alternatives to driving. Even walking is not an alternative in many places. Some of the impacts

As with most everywhere else Rappahannock does care about its tax dollars. A national study, Road to Ruin: The 50 Worst Road Projects in America, ranked Virginia as having more wasteful and destructive road projects than any other state, except for Michigan. Rappahannock taxes helped pay for those roads.

Farmland lost to development is proving a loss to localities as well. The tremendous growth pressures Loudoun County has been feeling has taught them some hard lessons: “most residential development requires more in service costs than it supplies in revenues.” On the other hand, the reason that farmland and open space often provide positive fiscal impact to a locality is that “cows don’t go to school.”

Environmental impacts are great and here Rappahannock is more closely touched. “Land use and transportation patterns are causing substantial environmental damage, and are a primary cause of virtually every pressing environmental problem in the state.”

We have a serious problem with air pollution. Not only does all of Northern Virginia and the Washington