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Portriots Crossing: Now do you like it?
Op-Ed by Brian Kirwin, Daily Press – 2/2/2011
The Third Crossing isn't the Third Crossing anymore.
In reality, it never was. It was an expanded Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge Tunnel with an east-west connection to I-564.
Voters realized the Third Crossing was more about the ports than about the people and traffic congestion, and its six billion dollar price tag dwarfed the half-dozen other regional transportation priorities.
The Third Crossing had become about as popular as Katy Perry at a Sesame Street reunion.
So, the brilliant minds solving transportation issues had two choices: Develop a new project that actually solved transportation congestion, or change its name.
It's now called "Patriots Crossing."
It's new and improved! And it's a 50 percent off sale! Transportation solutions are now being marketed like laundry detergent with a catchy new name.
Gone now are expansions to the MMBT/ I-664 (the road that actually is a crossing between the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads). What's kept? The T-connector that connects the ports.
Portriots Crossing?
Not that helping the ports is a bad thing. I'm all for helping the ports. Thriving ports means jobs and more people and businesses paying state taxes, while we pay tolls to pay for Portriots Crossing.
Anyone else think that's a little backwards?
And make no mistake, Portriots Crossing means people using the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel or the Monitor-Merrimack will be paying tolls, despite adding not a single improvement either one.
So, Patriots Crossing it is, although the only connection to our founding patriots is that today's leaders didn't pass a Stamp Act to pay for it.
At least not yet.
But even sadder than regional leaders' clinging to their port crossing is how proud local leaders are of the name change.
Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, told local media, "How can you be against something named Patriot?"
Lots of non-New England fans find it quite easy.
And let's not even get into how popular the Patriot Act was.
But think of the possibilities!
Change the name "gas tax" to the "Patriots tax" and voters will suddenly cheer paying more at the pump.
Are you ready for the "Patriot's option" on national health care?
Imagine the turnaround Planned Parenthood could have if they just called themselves "Planned Patriothood!"
With all due respect, do the proponents of this name change think we are that stupid?
Transportation politics aren't language arts as much as they are about mathematics.
Voters rejected transportation tax increases in 2002, and in polls they still do, and it's not hard to figure out why.
VDOT says a peak of 100,000 vehicles daily use the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, and that's during tourist season. Hampton Roads has over 850,000 voters. Those aren't the seeds of successful politics, especially when many people get stuck in traffic on streets and not highways.
Tolls are less hated, because most people don't make a daily drive across the water.
Time will tell if this rose by any other name will still have thorns.
I'd love to conduct a poll asking "If they changed the name of the Third Crossing to Patriots Crossing, would you be more or less likely to support it?"
But that's because I love asking questions when I already know the answer.
Now, if they called it Tea Party Patriots Crossing, they might've had something.
Contact Kirwin at brian@rourkpr.com; read more at BearingDrift.com.
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