It would be nice to think Virginia's legislators have been playing a game of chicken over the upcoming special session on transportation. But the evidence points to an impending train wreck.

Stark philosophical differences divide key players such as House Speaker Bill Howell, who refuses to entertain the idea of a statewide tax increase, and Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, who insists on one.

Gov. Tim Kaine has made plain his desire either to impose tax hikes -- despite campaign pledges such as "I will veto any tax increase . . . unless the transportation trust fund is locked up" -- or to hammer Republicans in the political arena for failing to go along with one. The campaign Web site of Kaine's friend, Barack Obama, says Americans "are tired of divisive ideological politics, which is why Sen. Obama has reached out to Republicans to find areas of common ground." And certain Republicans seem to devote more energy to bashing Kaine than to addressing Virginia's infrastructure needs. Citizens want their government -- their governor and their Assembly -- to succeed.

The governor and Assembly Republicans do share some common ground: blame for the failure of the $1 billion transportation package approved last year. Kaine erred when he amended the legislation to transfer regional taxing power from elected officials in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to unelected authorities (the Assembly went along). The Virginia Supreme Court deemed that unconstitutional. Republicans blew it when they adopted the abusive-driver fees that kindled a populist uprising. Republicans did so because they knew the state needed more money for roads but refused to apply Occam's Razor and adopt the simplest solution: tax hikes.

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Now what?

Lawmakers should go into the special session armed with two things: an open mind and a set of precepts. We can't give them the former, but perhaps the following points will help with the latter.

(1)Virginia has a short-term road-funding crisis and a long-term land-use dilemma. The Assembly should move forward on both tracks simultaneously.

(2)Transportation is not, or should not be, an absolutist issue pitting good versus evil. It's a technocratic and utilitarian question that involves managing directions and degrees. Translation: There's room for compromise.

(3)The simplest, easiest, and most obvious way to address the funding crisis is to raise the gasoline tax, which is not pegged to inflation and has lost nearly half its value since the last time it was raised more than two decades ago.

(4)The gasoline tax is also a smart way to fix the problem. It is a user fee, and therefore helps drivers tailor their behavior to the actual costs they impose. That is a better approach than the governor's mishmash of vehicle titling, registration, and real-estate grantor's taxes, which have no clear connection to driver behavior. (Let the record show that obdurate Republican resistance to the obvious has forced Kaine's hand.)

(5)Lawmakers should offset the gasoline tax hike by cutting taxes elsewhere -- perhaps by completing the long-delayed full implementation of the car-tax cut. (The car tax is not a road user fee; it is a levy on property.) This will require economies in other state programs. Deal with it. Set priorities. If the transportation crisis is as dire as the governor et al. claim, then other services that reaped the proceeds from Mark Warner's massive tax hike four years ago should now move to the back seat.

(7)Local-option tax hikes in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads should be restored by reinstituting the original plan to let local officials impose them if they so desire. A one-size-fits-all approach is not the wisest in a state that runs the gamut from Tyson's Corner to Turkey Neck Trail.

(8)Lawmakers also should continue to address the manner in which the commonwealth and its subdivisions approach land-use questions. In the past couple of decades the number of vehicle miles traveled has risen at a rate three times as fast as population growth. Policies that subsidize sprawl bear the blame for that, and need changing.

(9)To that end, localities should be encouraged to promote mixed-use development and to make new development pay for itself. This will require, among other things, confronting powerful lobbying interests such as home builders. Are legislators up to it?

(10)Public transit has its place. That place is in densely populated urban centers such as Northern Virginia and the Richmond region. From a cost-benefit perspective, bus service, commuter rail, and similar programs make little sense in most of the Old Dominion. Virginia (population density: 191 people per square mile) is not New Jersey (1,175) or even Massachusetts (816). Building a huge transit network where no demand exists won't make people ride; it will merely create a white elephant.

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There's a lot more to the transportation question than the foregoing points, which is why we are addressing the subject in a series of editorials, not just one -- and why we encourage and invite contributions from other interested parties. We don't claim to have all the answers, or even most of them. But the previous points should at least help frame the discussion later this month. And today's Op/Ed page features a transportation column by Hugh Keogh, head of the Virginia Chamber of Commerce.

The overarching point may be this: If transportation truly requires urgent action, then Republicans should be open to shoring up road funding, and Democrats should be open to spending cuts elsewhere. If neither side is willing to give ground, then maybe the transportation crisis is not the burning oil platform it's been made out to be.