Region has cash for mass transit and fixes but trails in new projects

Light rail
Hampton Roads is getting $67.1 million toward Norfolk’s $288 million light-rail line and $300,000 toward a study to expand it into Virginia Beach.

$825M: Proposed cuts to the state’s roads budget. The Commonwealth Transportation Board is scheduled to vote on the move Thursday.

$325M: The amount slated for the Hampton Roads district next year for repairs and maintenance. This year, the total was roughly $323 million.

$271M: The sum Northern Virginia will get next year, compared with $262 million this year.

By Debbie Messina
The Virginian-Pilot
© December 14, 2009

While Hampton Roads has not fared well attracting interstate construction money, the region is pulling in the state’s largest chunk of highway maintenance funds.

That fact is touted by local representatives on the Commonwealth Transportation Board, who are preparing to vote Thursday on another round of reductions, $851.5 million, to the state’s roads budget to make up for shrinking revenue.

Road building is only one piece of the state’s transportation spending. Repair, maintenance and mass transit development are areas in which the region has come out ahead, they said.

“Everyone around the state needs more money for interstates, but there are other parts of the puzzle that need to be considered,” said Aubrey Layne, who represents Hampton Roads on the CTB.

“You have to look at the entire transportation package,” said Dana Dickens, an at-large CTB member from Hampton Roads.

Local officials have been reeling from the impact of $4.6 billion in road budget cuts since the spring of 2008. Projects slashed included widening sections of Interstate 64 in South Hampton Roads and on the Peninsula, improving the I-64/264 interchange, and several I-264 interchange improvements in Virginia Beach.

But CTB members want to steer their attention to a few bright spots in the budget.

The Hampton Roads district is getting roughly $323 million to repair and maintain roads this year compared with about $262 million in Northern Virginia. While the numbers have not been finalized, the region is slated to receive $325 million next year while Northern Virginia will get $271 million.

Maintenance funding is distributed based on lane miles, traffic levels and needs, said Reta Busher, Virginia Department of Transportation chief financial officer.

CTB members also note that the region is getting money for light rail: $67.1 million toward Norfolk’s $288 million light-rail line and $300,000 toward a study to expand it into Virginia Beach.

Still, CTB representatives are bothered by some funding trends revealed by Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization. Farmer suggested to state officials in a letter earlier this month that Hampton Roads is getting less than its fair share of state funding to build roads.

He noted that while the state is proposing an overall increase of about 3 percent in the fiscal year 2010 budget for all road construction, Hampton Roads’ share would decrease by 13 percent. Hampton Roads is the only region in the state that would have a reduction; Northern Virginia would see a 5 percent boost.

In addition, the region would get no interstate construction funds in 2011, which Farmer said is unprecedented. That same year, Northern Virginia would get $225 million, or 93.2 percent of the state’s interstate money.

Farmer said Hampton Roads’ funding outlook improves in 2015 with nearly $100 million in interstate allocations. But the six-year plans are revised regularly, and Farmer wrote that he has “no confidence that the strategy would hold for the long term.”

Over the six years, Hampton Roads would get 15.3 percent of interstate funds and Northern Virginia would get 66.5 percent.

Dickens said he’s “concerned by those numbers.”

“There certainly are some questions that need to be answered,” he said.

He acknowledged, however, that “there is, by nature of the transportation business, a sort of ebb and flow in these budgets.”

Layne said he concurs with the state’s strategy of directing limited funding to projects already under construction, of which there are few in Hampton Roads.

“When there has to be choices made, the logical step is to build what we have in the pipeline,” he said.

That includes the $133.8 million Gilmerton Bridge replacement, which began last month and is expected to open by 2013. It has remained fully funded.

“Going forward, we don’t get as much of a share of those dollars as we would like,” Layne said, “but I’m pretty comfortable that the projects the money is going toward meet the criteria for funding.”

The Interstate 564 Intermodal Connector in Norfolk, leading to the port and the Navy base, is also fully funded – but most of the money comes in the later years of the six-year plan, which makes it less certain.

“Obviously we’d like to have more interstate funds here, and we’re working towards doing that,” Layne said.