Held Prisoner in Hampton Roads

Hampton Roads Traffic Authority

Hampton Roads (the Tidewater area of Virginia) is the state's largest population center. Actually, it's not a state, but rather a Commonwealth. I'm not sure why that's the case. The state is neither common nor wealthy - except for the politicians, of course. Listen up, Virginians . . . you were the 10th state in the union. STATE, not commonwealth. Not only that, you tried to get out once. How did that work for you?

Anyhow, they highway system here sucks. A few years ago, the state started transferring money from the highway construction fund to the maintenance fund, so no new roads were built. Now, rush hour is a nightmare, the interstates are obsolete, and everything is falling apart.

Since most of the state is rural, the politicians from West Nowhere, VA will not raise the gas tax to pay for the roads. Why should they? They only have six streets, one rural highway and possibly a traffic signal to worry about.

Not only that, but the legislature is violently anti-tax. Except for property taxes, that is. The cities eat those like candy. Mine went up 50% last year. Sorry for the digression.

In order to avoid taxes, they decided to use fees and set up local Road Authorities (read more gummint.) Among the "solutions" the legislature and authorities pulled from their collective arses are:

Abusive driver fees. $3,000 fines for certain nasty traffic offenses. The only problem is that a guy on a bicycle received a $1,000 fine for crossing a street on his bicycle at night without proper lights/reflectors. Oh - and out of state drivers don't have to pay them. This one was solidly defended by the legislature . . . until this year. Now it's on the immediate repeal list, and no one can figure out why it passed. You dolts! We warned you!

Tolls. Now bear in mind that the state has spent years removing tolls because they slow down traffic and cause accidents. Now, since the highways are totally jammed, tolls make sense?

The irony here is that they avoided raising taxes by . . . adding fees? How is a fee raised by a gummint body not a tax?

Tax: A charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.

My solution: move back to Kansas where the state is a state, the legislature has a modicum of sense, and the roads are usable