Northern Virginia officials are preparing their legislative wish lists for the General Assembly’s 2011 session and the one item that tops everyone’s list is more funding for transportation.
Where the General Assembly, which convenes Jan. 12, will find that money is not clear.
Virginia has drastically reduced transportation spending over the past three years, including a $4.6 billion cut in the state’s Six-Year Program, used by state officials to divvy up funds for transportation construction projects already scheduled to be built over the next six years.
Overall, money for transportation projects is now so scarce that the state may soon be unable to provide matching funds needed to attract federal funding for transportation construction projects.
“We’re heading in that direction,” said Jeffrey Caldwell, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. “We’ve basically become a federal aid system, meaning that the only projects that we can afford are those where we get federal money.”
VDOT is already using all available funding just to keep major highways in good repair, with little left for construction or maintenance of secondary roads, Caldwell said.
For counties such as Fairfax, where 90 percent of the highways are classified as secondary roads under state control, the results of the funding shifts can be devastating.
Fairfax County officials report that funding for secondary roads has dwindled to less than $2,000 annually for all counties. And growth in maintenance spending has been cut from 4 percent to 3 percent.
“The pavement conditions in Northern Virginia are the worst in the state,” said Bob Chase, president of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. “VDOT doesn’t have the money to properly pave the roads, let alone get funding for new projects.”
Arlington County, Fairfax County and Alexandria all say they need new sources of local and state revenues to provide the necessary transportation funding just for Northern Virginia. To meet the needs of the entire region, Fairfax officials are asking for at least $300 million for in new state revenue.
Moreover, each jurisdiction says that a dedicated, reliable source of revenue is needed to fund Metro.
But at a time when VDOT is struggling to collect revenue from its most reliable sources, the gas tax and auto sales, there are few recommendations for how the state could come up with the revenue.
The General Assembly could consider a higher gas tax, said Chase. The current tax of 17.5 cents per gallon was set in 1986. A 10-cent increase in the gas tax could raise $500 million for Virginia’s maintenance fund, according to Chase.
