Long-simmering impatience over HOT lanes for a Virginia highway is boiling over. The chief executive of the Australian company Transurban, one of two contractors charged with adding the high-occupancy toll lanes along Interstate 95, told an Australian newspaper Monday that his company would pull out if state officials took more than a year to complete an environmental review.
“We’ve been negotiating and we’re ready to move, but the [approval] process is largely out of our hands,” Transurban CEO Chris Lynch told the Australian newspaper. “If this continues for another 12 months or more, there come’s a point where I think we’d be ready to walk away.”
The project has already been delayed 18 months after Arlington County sued over an environmental study. The state eventually moved the project out of Arlington. The revised project would add HOT lanes along I-95 from Garrisonville Road in Stafford County to Edsall Road in Fairfax.
The Virginia Department of Transportation was eager to assure everyone that another yearlong delay wasn’t likely.
“We’re moving very aggressively to move this project to construction,” state Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told The Washington Examiner. “We share their frustration regarding this project.”
Alluding to Arlington, Connaughton expressed annoyance with local governments causing delays.
“You have to look at each project like economic development. You essentially have an entity in your community offering you millions of dollars in development. You should be welcoming that, not trying to chase it away,” he said.
The environmental review should be done by the fall and a contract signed by year’s end so construction could begin in 2012, he said.
“This project has been around for eight years. We’re finally now getting to the point where we’re going to be able to move the project forward by the end of this year and that’s because of the effort of this administration to recognize that time is money,” Connaughton said.
Transurban spokeswoman Jennifer Aument said the company had been reassured by the state’s steady pace, though she didn’t rule out the company quitting the project if there is “another long unexpected delay.”
“Delay is bad for the commuters stuck on I-95. Delay is bad for the region. Delay is bad for our investors,” Aument said.
Connaughton said if Transurban did pull out, Virginia would have to look for another contractor. He did not know how long that would take.
