Senate Committee Kills Roads Funding Bill

RICHMOND – The Senate Finance Committee has killed a bill that would have allocated a portion of sales tax revenue to fund transportation projects in Virginia’s most congested areas.

Senate Bill 1394, sponsored by Sen. Jeff McWaters, R-Virginia Beach, would have dedicated 0.25 percent of sales tax revenues in the Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to transportation projects in those regions. The plan would have generated more than $1.1 billion for the two areas over a seven years.

The committee voted 13-1 on Tuesday to kill the bill.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” McWaters said. “It was a spirited exchange, but in the end my fellow senators walked away from a billion dollars. It was a big opportunity missed.”

The 2010 Urban Mobility Report, published by the Texas Transportation Institute, ranked the Washington, D.C., metro area as No. 1 in congestion nationally, outstripping even the New York-New Jersey region.

According to the report, congestion in the D.C. metro area (which includes much of Northern Virginia) costs each commuter an average of $1,555 annually in wasted fuel.

The Hampton Roads area also ranked high in congestion, costing an average of almost $700 per commuter.

When the sales tax was increased by 0.5 percent five years ago, half of the additional revenue was allocated to education with the remainder directed to the state’s general fund. SB 1394 would have redirected the money going into the general fund to transportation projects instead.

“The solution isn’t raising taxes,” McWaters said.

He said Hampton Roads would have received $390 million and Northern Virginia $720 million for construction projects.

McWaters said transportation is “very dangerously underfunded” in Virginia, and especially in Hampton Roads.

He isn’t sure whether he will re-introduce a similar bill in the future. But McWaters said transportation will always be a major issue for him: “We need to make the investment now when borrowing and construction costs are low.”

###

On the Web
To read the Texas Transit Institute’s Urban Mobility report, visit:
 http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2010.pdf

For more information about congestion in the Hampton Roads area, visit:
http://vaperforms.virginia.gov/indicators/transportation/trafficCongestion.php
www.hamptonroadsperforms.org

For video of a press conference at which Sen. Jeff McWaters discussed his transportation funding bill, visit:
 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGyTekMCofc

###

For the Record
Here is how the Senate Finance Committee voted Tuesday on SB 1394 (State sales & use tax revenue; dedicates portion for transportation projects in Hampton Roads, etc.).

The committee voted that the bill be “passed by indefinitely.” The vote was 13 yeas, 1 nay.

YEAS--Colgan, Wampler, Stosch, Houck, Howell, Saslaw, Quayle, Norment, Miller, Y.B., Marsh, Lucas, Whipple, Reynolds--13.
NAYS--Watkins--1.