Fairfax County supervisors on Monday put their weight behind reviving toll lanes on Interstates 395 and 95, countering officials in neighboring Arlington County who have sued to halt the project.
In a joint statement, five supervisors said the stalled proposal “may be the only viable opportunity to achieve the critical infrastructure we need” in the well-traveled corridor and urged Gov. Tim Kaine to end a state-imposed delay on the project.
The Kaine administration last month put on hold the creation of new high occupancy toll lanes on the highway, citing trouble securing financing and a raft of community concerns.
The lanes would run from the Pentagon to Spotsylvania County, be free to buses, motorcycles and carpoolers, but charge tolls on cars with fewer than three occupants. A similar project is under construction on the Capital Beltway.
Arlington County has filed a lawsuit to halt the construction pending a comprehensive study on the impact to public health and the environment.
The suit also argues that low-income and minority residents living along the northern section of the project would bear the brunt of the air pollution from vehicles traveling on the new lanes. At the same time, the suit argues the project would grant “unimpeded access on tolls lanes” to “a financially able, privileged class of suburban and rural, primarily Caucasian residents from Stafford and Spotsylvania counties.”
One Fairfax supervisor, Republican Pat Herrity, quarreled with the racial references in Arlington’s lawsuit.
“It’s playing the race card, and class warfare,” Herrity said. “And that has no place in transportation in Northern Virginia.”
Arlington was not “playing the race card,” said County Attorney Stephen MacIsaac. Instead, he said the suit was referencing “what is effectively a disparate impact on minority and low-income populations on the northernmost end of the project.”
“This project puts more cars, [and] we would argue, less people down the lanes,” he said. “And those additional cars are going to generate bad air quality emissions.”
Fairfax Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, who joined in the statement, said she plans to meet with her counterparts in Arlington about the HOT lanes.
