Virginia already has cut more than $2 billion from its six-year transportation funding plan, laid off hundreds of employees and pledged to reduce mowing along highways to save cash.
But the state’s transportation secretary gave a grim forecast for the commonwealth’s transportation future, suggesting more gloom and doom ahead.
“We are approaching a cliff,” Pierce Homer warned Wednesday morning in a speech to local officials and business leaders sponsored by the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters had called state transportation secretaries on a Friday afternoon in September to warn them the Federal Highway Trust Fund was struggling as drivers traveled less. That weekend, Homer said, the country crossed a threshold that may force the country to reconfigure how it pays for transportation infrastructure.
And now, Homer said, the country is gearing up for worse. The trust fund could have a shortfall of $5 billion to $13 billion by August, he said. The fund, primarily made up of federal gas tax revenue, helps highway construction projects around the country by contributing 80 percent of the cost if matched by 20 percent in local funds. “This is the most imminent crisis,” he said.
Meanwhile, state and local revenue sources are drying up. And the bond market that the state had been counting on for about $3 billion of funds may yield just $2 billion or less, he said.
So Virginia has had to abandon much of its focus on reducing congestion. Instead, Homer said, “We’re trying to keep bridges from falling and pavement from deteriorating.”
Bob Chase, head of the nonprofit alliance that held the talk, said many Virginians haven’t been outraged by the cuts to road projects and transportation plans until now. But the plan to scale back mowing of highway medians and shoulders has started to draw attention as a visible symbol of the problem.
“That sends a message of the lack of commitment,” he said after the meeting.
Despite all the bad news, Homer said the state has had a few bits of good news. The federal stimulus act is bringing $810.6 million to the state, helping keep construction companies from filing for bankruptcy while improving some roads, bridges and rails.
He also said public-private partnerships around the state, such as the Capital Beltway high-occupancy toll lanes and Dulles Rail tax district, will help fund $9 billion of projects, which dwarfs the size of the federal stimulus package. “It has worked for Virginia,” he said.
