Posted: December 8, 2009

Philip A. Shucet
President
The Philip A. Shucet Co.

After graduating from Virginia Tech in 1972, Philip Shucet went to work for the West Virginia Department of Highways. In 1984, he accepted a position with the Arizona Department of Transportation where he remained for the next five years. Wanting to experience the private sector, Shucet went to work for the Michael Baker Corp., a Pittsburgh-headquartered international engineering firm, in 1989 in Baker's Transportation Business Unit. He went on to become president of two business units, Baker Environmental and Baker Mellon Stuart. In 2002, Shucet was appointed Virginia's Transportation Commissioner by then-Gov. Mark Warner. Shucet continues to be involved in transportation endeavors in Virginia, and started his own company in Virginia Beach in December 2008.

What is the priority transportation project for Hampton Roads?

Because I am professionally engaged in more than one local project, it would be inappropriate for me to express a personal bias toward only one transportation project in the region. With that said, I do support the region's efforts to prioritize transportation improvements and would address your questions this way: The transportation priority for Hampton Roads is simple in my judgment. We need to build a project. Any project that brings a measure of congestion relief and improves mobility. The specific project, the specific locality, is of less importance than the act of building. And building soon.

We have to turn away from arguing, from drawing lines in the sand and forcing citizens and politicians to stand on either side. We've gone so far down that negative path that we've forgotten about the things we do agree on. In Hampton Roads there is near-universal agreement that congestion is growing and that mobility is deteriorating. But rather than focusing on the goal, we've disintegrated into a dangerous diversion of arguing over the means. The result? Nothing. No new money. No new projects. No congestion relief. No improved mobility.

How should we fund a project?

By concentrating on and using whatever sources of revenue are available or are offered to us. That's how to do something rather than continuing to do nothing. We have to take stock of the transportation revenue that the region does have available, take stock of the money that the private sector is willing to invest in the region, and focus our energy on how to use those dollars to build a project. Then we have to build it.

Speaking personally, I know I've taken my ride at the head of the "Raise taxes" bandwagon. I continue to firmly believe that we need to shore up our transportation revenue base, and that we need to do so in a sustainable manner. But I'm a realist, too. We're not going to get there by throwing rocks at the General Assembly or by beating taxpayers into submission.