A perspective from the development community.

• Author: Hopping, Wade L.
• Position: Florida

It seems to be almost universally accepted that Florida's transportation concurrency system does not work. It creates economic winners and losers. It encourages developers to seek existing transportation capacity on the road system wherever possible in order to manage their costs, sometimes in locations where public policy otherwise seeks to discourage development. And it encourages cities, counties, the Department of Transportation (DOT), and developers to "game the system," breeding disrespect for how we pay for development-created impacts to our transportation system.

These are not only my conclusions: The 2009 Florida Legislature found that "the existing transportation concurrency system has not adequately addressed the transportation needs of this state in an effective, predictable, and equitable manner, and is not producing a sustainable transportation system." (1) The legislature set the stage for "fixing" this problem by directing the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) and DOT to complete their current studies on a new mobility fee to replace transportation concurrency. It required that the mobility fee provide for mobility needs, ensure that new development provides mitigation for its impacts, and "promote compact, mixed-use and energy-efficient development." (2) Implicit in this last command is that a mobility fee takes into account, in some way, vehicle miles or people miles traveled.

Adoption of a mobility fee will not be simple or painless. Nevertheless, it is consistent with the fact that developers in the private sector would prefer certainty and are willing to pay for their new impacts to the transportation system. However, they are neither obligated nor capable of paying for years and years of neglect and backlog on the road system or for financially unrealistic level-of-service standards that have been adopted for many roads. Developers should be asked to pay once for their transportation impacts so they can get on with business. They should not be hit with multiple fees and exactions, or be asked to pay more than one time for the same impacts.

The heart of the challenge in arriving at a policy framework for a mobility fee will be addressing and reconciling several somewhat conflicting goals while respecting the well-developed body of law that governs such matters:

* Adopting a fee high enough to replace both transportation concurrency and local government transportation impact fees so developers only pay once for new...