Transportation Projects Hit Roadblock in Virginia
Four Decades of Planning at Stake

By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 11, 2008; A01

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.

According to the Associated General Contractors of America, federal statistics show that the cost of road and highway construction materials rose 49 percent from December 2003 through January 2008, while consumer inflation increased 14.5 percent.

Fairfax County has been trying to rebuild the intersection of Route 29 and Gallows Road for more than two decades. As soon as funds are allocated, however, the price goes up and the plan is shelved until more money can be raised.

"It's a vicious cycle," Connolly said.

Even large infusions of cash seem unable to make a dent in the backlog, a problem affecting the entire region.

Maryland last year raised more than $400 million for transportation, but most of the money is being gobbled up by maintenance and backlogged projects. The state isn't adding a single major project to the regional transportation plan this year.

That doesn't mean that all transportation projects have ground to a halt. Several are under construction or about to begin.

Ronaldo T. "Nick" Nicholson, the VDOT official charged with coordinating the region's largest projects, said he has plenty to keep him busy.

"I'm still coordinating rail to Tysons," Nicholson said.

The Federal Transit Administration has not issued a final decision but has made it clear that it is leaning against funding $900 million of the ambitious $5 billion rail extension, questioning the overall cost of the long-delayed project and whether the regional airports authority has enough experience to get the job done.

Work also is proceeding on the $2.5 billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge, which includes a twin-span drawbridge and four interchanges. This month, work is starting on widening Interstate 95 south of Springfield. And there are two public-private projects that would build high-occupancy-toll (HOT) lanes on the Virginia portion of the Capital Beltway and convert two existing carpool lanes on Interstates 95/395 into three HOT lanes to the Pentagon.

Reese said that although work is continuing on the region's interstate system, getting commuters on and off the highways will be much harder. Much of the money that would have been spent by the authority and VDOT's six-year plan would have targeted the series of clogged arterial and secondary roads that feed into interstates or express lanes.

For example, the NVTA had budgeted $26 million for a Fairfax County Parkway-Fair Lakes interchange that would eliminate a daily nightmare for thousands of commuters.

Now the region waits.

"Our fate is in the hands of folks in other places: Richmond and Washington and the White House," Zimmerman said.

Zimmerman said he fears Northern Virginia is getting a reputation among national business leaders as a place increasingly mired in gridlock, without the political will to dig itself out.

"There are going to be economic cycles. The question is whether you rebound," Zimmerman said. "Or at what point do you become yesterday's news and people start looking elsewhere?"