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General Assembly's inaction affects all Virginians
For the second year in a row our General Assembly ended its Special Session without a much-needed transportation funding solution. While this outcome has become a bad case of déjà vu, the real question is who is paying the price for our legislators' continued inaction and the answer is YOU!
There have been varying reports that our legislators' indecision was based on backroom politics or that one party was unwilling to compromise on new revenues for transportation, but regardless of what their actual reasons were, the fact remains that our legislators where elected to represent the best interests of their constituents and the Commonwealth of Virginia as a whole. With that in mind, how can these individuals say they have done the job they were elected to do? At a time when travel on our roadways is rapidly increasing and demand on our public transportation systems is at an all-time high, how did our legislators just walk away from dealing with one of Virginia's largest issues?
Our transportation system should also allow for the Commonwealth to grow economically. Whether it is congestion on our highways, overcrowded public transportation, opportunities for expanded rail capacity, or sub-par facilities at our ports, the Commonwealth is losing millions of dollars in potential economic growth, but our legislators have yet again decided to look the other way.
With every passing session our transportation funding outlook gets increasingly bleak and all we are left with is a surplus of frustrated travelers and businesses who will continue to be affected through lost time, revenue and a lack of transportation alternatives.
To that point, the following facts highlight how your legislators' continued inaction will affect you over the next year:
- The average Virginian will again pay more than $900 in congestion costs.
- With gas prices reaching upwards of $4 per gallon, Virginians will waste another 260 million gallons of gas due to being stuck in traffic.
- At a time when Virginia's roadways claimed the lives of 1,026 people last years (which was triple the Commonwealth's murder rate), we will have declining funding for safety improvements.
- Due to inflation, the cost to repair our 1,746 structurally deficient bridges will increase by more than $200 million.
- Local governments will see their funding for urban and secondary roads decline by more than 44 percent.
- There are no revenues for new rail initiatives such as high-speed rail, rail service to Virginia Beach/Norfolk, expansions of the Virginia Railway Express or I-81 corridor rail improvements.
- There is no funding for major highway corridor projects such as Rt. 460, I-81, The Third Crossing, etc.
- A public transit system that is unable to meet ridership needs.
- Hampton Roads residents will still live with the fact that if a natural disaster hits, they are faced with an estimated evacuation time of more than 24 hours.
- Northern Virginians will waste another two weeks stuck in congestion.
- The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) will have to eliminate or delay 195 projects that were scheduled for construction.
- We will stand to lose much-needed jobs and dollars for Virginia's economy that would be generated from an increase in transportation funding.
Facts like these truly help put the Commonwealth's transportation funding needs into perspective. We simply cannot afford to allow our elected officials to get away without solving the problem.
To contact your legislator, click here.
To learn more about Virginia's transportation funding crisis, click here.
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Slumping economy affects transportation funding
During a recent presentation to the Commonwealth Transportation Board, John Layman, chief economist of the Virginia Department of Taxation, addressed Virginia's dwindling transportation revenues.
Due to the downturn in the economy, the state's transportation funding sources along with the housing market and employment rates are performing at significantly lower levels than projected less than a year ago.
Some of the highlights of Layman's presentation include:
- Adjusted for the additional revenues resulting from House Bill 3202 (2007), actual FY08 transportation fund collections were $47.5 million less than FY07 collections.
- Since FY95, the average annual percent change in motor fuels tax collections (HMOF) is 2.1 percent. Over the last four years, the average annual growth has been 0.3 percent.
- Adjusted for inflation, motor fuels tax collections are at 20-year low.
- FY08 motor fuel tax collections were 9.0 percent below the level recorded in FY04.
- The number of new vehicles sold in Virginia in fiscal year 2009 is expected to fall to levels not seen since the mid-1990's.
- Highway Maintenance and Operating Fund (HMOF) revenue are forecasted to be $122.9 million below projections for FY09 and $126.3 million below projections for FY10.
- Over the next six years, the Highway Maintenance and Operating Fund collections are being reduced by a total of $739.9 million.
To read Layman's entire presentation, click here.
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Quotes from around the Commonwealth
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The Daily Press:
In an opinion piece that addresses a recent study of Virginia's deteriorating bridges and the fact that there is not adequate funding to address this major issue, the author said, "Among the consequences of the General Assembly's failure to adopt a transportation plan is that Virginia doesn't have a program for funding maintenance and repairs that bears much relation to the need. Not one that's forward looking or even, really, backward looking, sufficient to address problems that have already developed." To read the entire opinion piece, click here.
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Yahoo! Finance:
In an article that deals with the increasing financial needs and ridership demands of the Washington DC metro area's transit systems, John Catoe, general manager of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority said, "It would take $7 billion just to maintain current service and keep the system running safely and reliably from 2010 to 2020. That includes repairs to leaking tunnels and crumbling platforms, as well as replacements for aging rail cars. It would take billions more to deploy longer trains and more buses to meet the projected increase in demand. The number of trips taken on Metro trains is expected to grow 22 percent to about 1 million a day by 2020. Bus ridership is expected to grow 9 percent to 600,000 trips." To read the entire opinion piece, click here.
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The Lynchburg News & Advance:
In an editorial that that calls attention to Virginia FREE's recent assessment of the 2008 General Assembly's legislative performance, the business organization's report said, "We have not only a shortage of transportation dollars, but also a shortage of courage and leadership needed to elevate good governance above short-term partisan gain." To read the entire editorial, click here.
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The Richmond Times-Dispatch:
In an article that details a sharp decline in state transportation dollars, John R. Layman, the state Department of Taxation's chief economist, said, "The state's highway maintenance fund will see about $125 million less in each of the next two years and maintenance revenues are projected to fall by $739.9 million over the next six years." To read the entire editorial, click here.
For more information about the transportation funding crisis or Virginians for Better Transportation, call 804-237-1399 or click here. to visit the It's Time Web site.
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