Balkanization of VA roads?
Posted by Brent Finnegan on May 5th, 2008
Last year’s state transportation plan failed. Now Gov. Kaine is expected to unveil a revised transportation package to state legislators for their review before next month’s special session. And it sounds like many legislators are biting their nails over the prospect of a tax increase.
According to Kaine’s press secretary, “state law requires that maintenance comes [before construction].” But how much should be spent on maintenance is being disputed. And where the money should be spent is also ruffling a few feathers. The Roanoke Times reports:
Some GOP lawmakers have accused Kaine’s administration of inflating the projected maintenance shortfalls in an effort to win support for tax increases. And some have noted that Kaine made no push for new maintenance money until after the Virginia Supreme Court’s ruling affecting the regional authorities [...]
Kaine said the projections are based on official revenue forecasts as required by law and called the GOP criticisms “completely bogus.”
“Regular people won’t buy that,” Kaine said. “They know there’s a real problem. They know it’s not just some revenue estimate situation.”
The transportation debate has some partisan undertones, but also has the potential to create regional frictions. Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, said failing to deal with rising maintenance costs could lead to “Balkanization” of the state’s transportation network, hurting rural areas.
“We’re going to end up with a system that’s 21st century in some parts of Virginia and 1950s in others,” Deeds said. “We’ve got to grow together.”
The focus of concern appears to be over Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads areas. Right now, I’m seeing very little about Valley roads, let alone Port Republic Road. Guess we’ll have to wait and see what money (if any) will be allotted for local improvements.






I just received this response from Del. Lohr via email:
If this is correct, the funds for the road won’t come through until well after the new RMH has opened.
OK, I’ll state the obvious: The Commonwealth Transportation Board allocates the funds that YOU Delegate Lohr make available. You know, taxation. So don’t even try to suggest that the failure to fund the Port Road upgrade will be anything but your own failure.
Too bad you didn’t know how important the already started Port Road construction was before you torpedoed it with your “no taxes” fiscal-illiterate pandering. But never mind that – What are you going to do? And quit begging, the CTB wants money. You got hired to do a tough job, get up and be part of the solution, or go home. Please.
it strikes me as strange that this wasn’t figured out during the planning stage for the new RMH. anybody know whether they were just moving ahead on rosey-glassed assumptions or if there was some speculation as to the difficulty of securing funds from the CTB for this project?
It was figured out, budgeted and RoW was procured. Then the no-count House of Delegates decided to get the vapors and not adequately fund the transportation budget. When the highway budget is underfunded, the priority becomes maintenance of existing highways. Money is moved from construction of new road (Port Rd) to pay for maintenance elsewhere.
These projects are carefully planned years ahead to give the hamsters in the HoD time to figure out how they will pay the bills. The majority party decided to play games with transportation funding and brought us to the current failure.
More of the same talking points in today’s news:
And Mr. Bolling and Mr. Obenshain, this is precisely why we remain stuck in this pothole regarding transportation funding in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Both of you would rather make this a political fight, rather than admit the truth that Virginia roads need attention, and Virginia Citizens deserve a functioning and self sustaining ability to operate our system of transportation.
In short, if we want roads and rail, we need to build and maintain roads and rail, and we have to pay for them…
I received a response from Sen. Obenshain about funding issues and Port Road. He wrote