RALEIGH – I’ve been saying for years that traffic congestion and transportation problems constituted a sleeper issue in North Carolina politics. Of course, sleeper issues are supposed to wake up at some point. So far, it seems that voters keep hitting the snooze button.
At the risk of being the stopped clock that is never right on this, I will restate my view that the local or state politician who makes traffic a key issue, and finds an effective message that promises realistic solutions, will gain significant traction among voters in most of North Carolina.
The political geography of our state is changing. Truly rural areas are shrinking in relative importance. The major urban centers – not just along the I-85 corridor but also in growing areas such as Wilmington, Greenville, Fayetteville, and certain mountain counties – are surging in relative importance. More to the point, the suburbs of Mecklenburg, Wake, Guilford, Forsyth, and other populous counties have become pivotal electoral battlegrounds. They are now being joined in this category by exurban communities in counties such as Alamance, Johnston, Harnett, Franklin, Davidson, Davie, Gaston, Brunswick, and Henderson. Voters in many of these communities are simultaneously more Republican than the average North Carolinian and more moderate than the average North Carolina Republican. They lean towards GOP candidates on national security, taxes, and cultural concerns, but they often trust Democrats more on issues such as education and health care. Depending on which issues are foremost in their minds, many of these voters will swing back and forth.
On transportation issues, I believe, a large number of suburban and exurban voters are both frustrated and confused. The frustration comes from rising congestion on major arteries and secondary roads. It costs them time and money. Right now, the frustration is tinged with concerns about immigration (the irony being that many of these commuter/ voters are themselves newcomers, albeit of a legal variety) as well as the run-up in gas prices over the past couple of years, which has elevated public concern about the portion of that price attributable to gas taxes and how it isn’t being effectively spent on building and maintaining highways (though it should be remembered that the tax component has not been the major factor driving gas-price swings).
In polls I’ve seen of American voters generally and North Carolinians specifically, transportation rarely makes it to the top tier of voting issues. Terrorism, gas prices, the economy, the war in Iraq, and public corruption rank high. But here is where I think the confusion sets in. Who is responsible for traffic woes? Many voters associate the issue with their city or county leaders, but in reality local government, particularly in states such as North Carolina, play a modest role at best in making the pivotal decisions. State government sets most of the priorities and raises most of the revenue, from gas taxes, car taxes, and perhaps increasingly from tolls. The federal government’s role is largely destructive – its congressional earmarks unraveling whatever useful priorities states are setting, and its transit formulas rewarding not a serious effort to move people and freight efficiently but instead the communities that build the most costly, grandiose choo-choo systems.
To sharpen the issue for voters, candidates should promise that their criteria for divvying up transportation dollars will be easing traffic flows and improving safety. Politics and economic-development speculation should play no role. Highway-budget earmarks or setting aside discretionary pots of money for legislative leaders to tap should be viewed as invitations to corruption. Using highway-related taxes to fund trains should be viewed as tantamount to theft.
Recent research has demonstrated that far from being an intractable problem, traffic congestion can be combated by setting firm priorities, embracing innovative ways to build and operate roadways, encouraging telecommuting, using small buses and vans to meet legitimate transit needs with efficiency and flexibility, and clearing aside zoning and regulatory underbrush that reinforces artificial divisions between where we work and we live – thus forcing commutes to be longer.
We know what to do. We know what not to do. Let’s see some politicians discover the right words and the required courage to lead on the issue.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.