Transportation Projects Hit Roadblock in Virginia

Four Decades of Planning at Stake

Forty years of transportation planning in Virginia was finally coming together. Metrorail to Dulles International Airport was on track to bring transit to Tysons Corner and other job centers. Money was finally in place for hundreds of major and secondary roads, interchanges, new turn lanes and other fixes for the region's worst bottlenecks.

But it took less than a month for the 40 years of planning to unravel. The federal government's hesitation on Dulles rail, a state Supreme Court decision killing a huge source of transportation money and the economic downturn have the state's plans in tatters.

"It's a grim situation," said Julia A. "Judy" Connally, a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the panel that establishes administrative policies for the state's transportation system.

Even if state and local planners are able to reverse the slide, the month of bad news has caused massive delays that will put some of the major projects at the end of the funding line. The delays also have made costs rise, forcing officials to find new funding during a time of tight budgets.

"We went from a situation where we were increasing investment in transportation to a net negative," said Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D), a member of the now-powerless Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, which was created to develop a transportation plan for the region and raise the money to pay for it.

In Prince William County, officials spent millions of dollars in county bond funds demolishing houses and buying up land for an expansion of Route 1. The project was dependent on NVTA money to complete the work. "Now what?" said the authority's vice chairman, Martin Nohe, a member of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors. "We can't refund those people their houses."

The Virginia Supreme Court ruled Feb. 29 that the landmark transportation package approved by lawmakers last year, which had the largest increase in transportation spending in 21 years, illegally shifted responsibility for raising taxes and fees to the NVTA.

Arlington County Board member Chris Zimmerman (D), the NVTA chairman, said that before the court ruling, the authority was on schedule to start several projects this year, including improvements to Route 28 in Loudoun County, Prince William County and Manassas and improvements to Route 7 in Fairfax County and Falls Church. Commuters were to begin seeing relief in two to three years. The authority was preparing to leverage $300 million in taxes and fees into a $1.5 billion bond package.

Now the panel is trying to determine how to refund about $12 million in taxes and fees it has collected this year. The money collected by the NVTA was supposed to supplement state funding to the region, money that local officials have long decried as inadequate for the region's economic and population growth.

Last week, the Virginia Department of Transportation announced a $1.1 billion cut, or 47 percent, in transportation spending statewide over the next six years. Included in the cut was $300 million from the repeal of the abusive-driver fees that were approved last year as part of the transportation package.

Deputy Transportation Secretary Barbara Reese said the cut was forced by a slowing economy. The state's gasoline tax is set at 17.5 cents a gallon, not as a percentage, like the sales tax. So the state treasury has not benefited from the recent spike in gas prices. And although gas tax revenue remains flat, contractors bidding on transportation projects must take into consideration the skyrocketing price of fuel, materials and labor. The result is that fewer projects are started.

Additionally, construction costs are far outpacing policymakers' ability to find the money to pay for the fixes needed to keep pace with the region's growing population and traffic congestion. Reasons include the rising cost of petroleum for asphalt an construction vehicles, the high price of cement and steel and the weakening dollar.