Virginia’s secondary roads are deteriorating, and neither the state nor localities have the resources to fix them, the Virginia Department of Transportation reported. Nearly a third of the state’s secondary roads are now considered deficient, up from 24 percent in 2007, according to VDOT estimates. The secondary system, the state’s responsibility since the 1930s, now has the highest percentage of deficient roads of all the systems in the commonwealth.
“Obviously, Virginia has changed dramatically since that time,” said state Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton. “We are seeing the system growing, we are seeing the resources not keep up. Now, because of where the revenues are, we have no money at all for secondary streets.”
Secondary roads in Northern Virginia include Rolling Road in Fairfax County and Balls Ford Road in Prince William County.
The General Assembly approved Gov. Bob McDonnell’s $4 billion transportation package this year, some of which will go toward secondary road improvements. But the major problem is still money. Budgets for secondary road construction and maintenance dropped from $669 million in 2007 to $410 million in 2011, according to the report done for VDOT by Jonathan L. Gifford of the George Mason University School of Public Policy.
“We asked for a study to start this dialogue, because nobody is happy with the current system,” said Connaughton. “The state can either do a few things really well, or a bunch of things poorly, and we’re getting to the point where we have to make a decision.”
Options for improving the depleted system include allowing counties to levy special taxes for road improvements, and putting localities in control of their road systems, a notion that Fairfax County has toyed with recently. Arlington and Henrico counties already maintain their own roads, as do all Virginia cities.
Where the rubber meets the road, though, is cash, said Fairfax Supervisor Jeff McKay, D-Lee, who chairs the county’s transportation committee.
“Finances aside, logically I agree with the basis of the study,” he said. “Local governments are probably better equipped to deal with local roads.”
But Supervisor John Cook, R-Braddock, said that state funding formulas are crafted so that county taxpayers shell out more in state taxes than Richmond returns in road work, and so taxpayers would actually get more bang for their buck if control of the roads was turned over to the county.
