report: Virginia Transporation Plans not effective

Virginia needs a plan whose objectives are specific, auditor says

exerpts:

Despite the billions Virginia spends every year on transportation, the
state still doesn't have a no-kidding, stick-to-it plan to produce a
seamless transportation network, the state auditor of public accounts
says.

"We're not advocating just planning," said Walter J. Kucharski,
Virginia's auditor of public accounts. "We're advocating actually using
the plan."

"The commonwealth lacks a statement of clear objectives regarding
transportation plans," the audit report on the transportation agencies
said.

"Most of the plans designed and implemented [in the past] were in
response to a specific problem," the recently issued report said,
"rather than part of an intricate statewide plan with specific and
measurable objectives."

Transportation projects have been inserted into the state's plans
because of their "popularity or the desire to begin as many projects as
possible," the report added.

"Many of the plans are ineffective from the outset because they are
unrealistically large and unaffordable project lists," said Stewart
Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth in
Washington. "If you can never realistically afford to pay for it, it's
not a plan."

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