RICHMOND — Virginia’s failure to adequately fund its transportation network stands as Gov. Tim Kaine’s biggest regret as he prepares to leave office, he said Wednesday.
Kaine, with less than a month left in his term, looks back with frustration on four years of logjam, false starts and partisan rancor in the General Assembly that deferred what was a top campaign promise in his 2005 bid for governor. And he said he feared only a disaster would be enough to prompt action in the General Assembly.
“If something were to happen in Virginia like a Minnesota bridge collapse, I know the legislature would fix this immediately,” Kaine said in an interview with The Examiner in the governor’s mansion. “I just think we ought to fix these problems before there’s a crisis or cataclysm.”
Kaine evoked a tragedy that struck closer to home to argue for more transportation funding: The April 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, which exposed a cracked, underfunded community mental health system.
“After that happened, we went in and we fixed it,” Kaine said, citing increased funding for mental health and legal reforms put in place after the shooting. “And not that that hadn’t been challenging in a tough budget time, but we did it anyway.”
Virginia’s highway planning panel has culled billions of dollars from its six-year blueprint for projects, and a week ago slashed another $893 million in planned improvements. With steady declines in fuel and auto sales, the taxes that fund road and rail projects, the commonwealth has been forced to increasingly focus on maintenance at the expense of construction.
The federal stimulus bill included $695 million for Virginia highway funding, allowing for some projects that would otherwise have been deferred. Kaine calls that windfall “bittersweet,” because of the continued impasse in the General Assembly.
Incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell joins the Republican majority in the House of Delegates in his blanket opposition to increasing taxes, proposing instead to sell off the state’s liquor monopoly, divert general fund dollars, and install tolls at the North Carolina border to fund transportation, among other ideas. The no-tax promise, Kaine said, is “going to make it very difficult” for his successor to find a solution.
