Senate Committee Kills Roads Funding Bill

Capital News Service

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-8th District) 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 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 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.”