Local Democratic state senators are promising that the transportation-funding package approved in April will not be the end of the road for money to relieve Northern Virginia’s traffic problems.
“Transportation is still a major problem in Northern Virginia, and that is still a priority for us in Richmond,” said Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple, D-Arlington.
Thanks to last week’s elections, Democrats will control the Senate in January. Party leaders will want to reward Northern Virginia for electing two new senators that helped push Democrats into power, said Stephen Farnsworth, a political science professor at the University of Mary Washington.
“When the Republicans are in the majority, Northern Virginians tend not to get too much out of the legislature,” he said. “The Democrats’ center of power is Northern Virginia. This is going to mean much better times for Northern Virginia interests.”
The April legislation, the first major transportation-funding measure since 1986, should create as much as $600 million annually for Northern Virginia.
The new money is still several hundred million dollars a year less than what area advocates say the region must have to meet all of its transportation needs over the next 20 years.
“The pie of transportation money is still very small,” said Bob Chase, executive director of the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance. “We would like to see a bigger slice of the pie, but the pie needs to be bigger. If you get a larger slice ofa small pie, you still have a small slice. We want to see the pie get bigger.”
April’s bill also did not address the formula the state uses to allocate transportation funding, which is based on the number of lane miles in a jurisdiction. Local lawmakers argue the calculation rewards less-populated rural areas while discriminating against Northern Virginia, which has many more vehicles on its roads than other regions.
Senate Democrats have not said how they would like to generate more money for transportation. And any proposal would run into opposition from the House of Delegates, which quickly rebuffed attempts this year to raise the gas tax and other levies to fund transportation projects.
jrogalsky@dcexaminer.com
