A proposed change to the way Virginia allocates its road maintenance dollars could more than double Northern Virginia’s share of money to fix potholes and worn roadways, according to a transportation advocacy group’s analysis.
Later this month, the Commonwealth Transportation Board plans to consider shifting how it funds pavement maintenance on the state’s nearly 58,000 miles of roadways. The Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance estimates that the change could mean the region’s share of the Virginia Department of Transportation pie would increase from about $37 million a year to about $84 million.
“Northern Virginia has so much traffic volume, there’s inordinate wear and tear on our highways,” said the group’s president, Bob Chase. “This is an important initiative VDOT is taking.”
However, he noted, “It’s still a small pie.”
VDOT officials shied away from those numbers, though. Spokesman Jeff Caldwell cautioned that the budget hasn’t been adopted yet, so it’s too early to know any actual dollar amounts.
“How will that shake out district to district, region to region?” he said. “We don’t know yet. We’re still looking at the numbers.”
VDOT could not provide any figures Friday on how much money Northern Virginia roads got last year in pavement funds.
However it did confirm that officials were looking to increase the overall amount of money spent on pavement improvements statewide.
Over the past several years, the price of asphalt went “through the roof,” said VDOT’s operations systems chief, Connie Sorrell, lessening the purchasing power of Virginia’s dollars. “Pavement conditions worsened over the last three to four years,” she said.
Now, Sorrell said, the state is trying to shift more money to improving the conditions — especially on interstate and primary roads — by moving the money from other areas such as median mowing and tree cutting.
The state has been collecting data on road conditions and setting goals so that no more than 18 percent of any particular section of the interstates and primary roadways have less-than-acceptable conditions.
Northern Virginia has more traffic on its roadways than many parts of the state, Chase said, and has roads that are falling apart. Still, he said, he’d like to see such needs-based funding be applied to construction as well.
