Del. Phil Hamilton recently lamented on these pages that the Virginia Department of Transportation is dragging its feet in using tolls and public-private partnerships to underwrite major road projects.
Why hasn't the state requested permission from federal authorities to toll interstates? he grumbled.
A quick telephone call to VDOT might have cleared up this mystery for Hamilton. Virginia has asked and received the OK to impose tolls on nine projects, of which seven are in Hampton Roads.
The first is already under construction in Northern Virginia, adding four lanes to the Capital Beltway by 2012. The $1.9 billion project depends heavily on tax-exempt bonds. Only seven projects across the country have been approved for the bonds, and only the Virginia project has actually issued debt so far. U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters hailed it as a "historic turning point" this month.
Locally, VDOT is soliciting proposals for widening the Midtown Tunnel. Toll studies are under way for Interstate 64 on the Peninsula and the Southeastern Parkway. State highway officials also are reviewing use of tolls to add capacity to the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, at the request of Peninsula lawmakers, including Hamilton.
Two other projects, U.S. 460 and a third crossing of the harbor, are on hold not for lack of interest from road builders, but because state lawmakers have failed to put up the necessary public match.
It turns out the folks at VDOT were on the ball after all, although you wouldn't know it if you listened to a lot of lawmakers these days.
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Yes Michael, you are
Yes Michael, you are absolutely correct, but the republican play book never misses a good story for want of a few facts. The incredible profusion of legislation introduced this special session is intended to be a smoke screen to hide their inaction for the last decade, the fact that they passed legislation last year only if others were responsible, and that the Governor's proposal or some reasonable facsimile thereof, will pass in the Senate and they will have to deal with it in the House. They have clearly decided as a party that Virginians are simply uninterested in transportation improvements. They are sold on the fact that we like congestion, that we are willing to endure any delay, congestion, and lack of safety in order to have the lowest tax rates in the country. They simply believe that we are so poorly informed that we will fail to see that their intransigence has led our system to go from one of the best in the nation to one of the worst in just a short decade. And they have been in charge. I really hope we are not that stupid.
Deflecting Blame
This is just another way for the General Assembly to deflect blame for their own spineless inaction. They are famous for hopping on the bash VDOT bandwagon when the real blame lies squarely in Richmond on Capital Hill. It is a shame that VDOT does not employ spin doctors to deflect comments made by members of the General Assembly and the Attorney General's office. How many more times can VDOT be auditted to cover the General Assembly's inaction ? And comments made by Del. Hamilton just illustrate his lack of knowledge with regard to VDOT. Before he speaks to the media about VDOT, he needs to do his homework. As this article states, he obviously has not. A subscription to Governing Magazine could possibly enlighten him if he can take the time to read.