Virginia’s highway panel on Thursday pared nearly $900 million in road and transit projects planned over the next six years, bringing the state’s transportation ambitions in line with its free-falling tax revenues.
The cuts scuttle major Northern Virginia interchange upgrades, road widenings and bridge work, most of which are in advanced planning stages. They include the $14 million bridge replacement over Little Rocky Run in Fairfax County, and an interchange revamp at the crossing of Glebe Road and Route 50 in Arlington County.
In all, the Commonwealth Transportation Board has now slashed $4.6 billion worth of projects from its six-year improvement program since mid-2008.
“That’s about what we take in over the course of a year,” said Virginia Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer. “We’re running a six-year program on five years of revenue, basically,” Homer said.
Some of Thursday’s harshest cuts fall on VDOT’s programs. As part of a $88 million reduction in its current year budget, the transportation agency is cutting $45 million in repaving, “which is not a good thing,” Homer said.
“One of our major core responsibilities is proper maintenance and operations, but that’s something we have to do to react to the current downward trend in revenues,” he said.
The state derives its transportation dollars primarily from automobile, gasoline and retail sales. Fuels tax revenue is expected to fall over the next two years but rebound by 2015, leaving it roughly the same as today’s revenues, according to data provided by state officials. Vehicle sales taxes are expected to fall $404 million over the next six years, with sales tax down $373 million and other sources down $149 million.
Thursday’s cuts heap on top on several, increasingly visible, moves that shrink the scope of VDOT. By far the most controversial has been the shuttering of 19 rest stops, which incoming Gov. Bob McDonnell has promised to reopen within 90 days of taking office.
