THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2009

Pick ’em

Whether Bob McDonnell or Creigh Deeds earns

the voters’ trust in 12 days will, no doubt,

depend on how closely those Virginia residents align with their favorite’s views on a number of issues — jobs, the environment, education. But it is not going too far out on a limb to suggest that the candidate who takes the northern Piedmont vote will have struck the most resonant chord when it comes to transportation.

We commute. We sit in traffic and stew. Driving in the general direction of the District is our own daily form of urban warfare. We need help.

More’s the shame, it is easier to take potshots at both candidates' plans than it is to rally behind them.

Republican McDonnell has proposed a number of options he says will create more transportation dollars, including using royalties from offshore oil drilling, selling about 330 state-run liquor stores, adding tolls on Interstates 85 and 95, setting aside a portion of sales tax collections in Northern Virginia, and using some general fund dollars.

The overwhelming complaint about the plan is that it doesn’t come up with any new money to satisfy the insatiable and growing appetites for dollars that characterizes both Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

Beyond that, the sale of ABC stores, critics contend, is particularly short-sighted, since they would fetch about $500 million if sold, a sale that would result in a $100 million annual revenue loss.

Deeds’ critics say he has no plan. All he has is a plan to come up with a plan. They have a point.

He wants to put a bipartisan commission under lock and key, paroled only when they come up with a proposal that could pass the General Assembly. Some wags suggest that that amounts to a life sentence.

The Democrat says that nothing is off the table when it comes to transportation funding, though robbing from the general fund has apparently been swept aside.

What is squarely on the table, what takes up most of thejable, in fact, is a tax increase, likely a gas tax, to provide the $1 billion or so in new money that Virginia roads minimally require.

In this economy, no one — no one who wants to be elected, at any rate — wants to raise taxes, not even a candidate whose opponent accuses him of being in the mold of the classic tax-and-spend Democrat.

Deeds has variously suggested that a viable transportation plan might include business tax credits for telecommuting employees and flextime scheduling.

We re not sure anyone ought to really be advocating for tax cuts such as this in this economic climate, either.