Virginia to have $1.1 billion less for roads in next six years

With a faltering economy and holes blown into last year’s landmark transportation plan, Virginia will have $1.1 billion less to spend on roads in the next six years.

Hit especially hard are the sources of money that Hampton Roads relies on to improve most of its key non interstate thoroughfares. Those funds will decline about 44 percent from the previous six-year period .

“Forty-four percent is close to half of our construction money for urban, secondary and primary programs,” Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer said. “That’s a very significant loss of funding.”

A deflating housing market, a dip in auto sales and elimination of the short-lived and controversial abusive-driver fees generally are blamed for the decline in state revenue .

A recent Virginia Supreme Court ruling denying regional transportation authorities the power to levy taxes for new highway construction projects is not related to this portion of the state’s financial problems.

Transportation planners had been warned that leaner times were ahead. Now, a week after Virginia lawmakers approved a two-year, $77 billion state budget, they are reviewing specific projects to determine which ones will have to wait longer.

The decline is a bitter pill for cities that had seen a brief increase in local funding after the transportation bill brought the first significant infusion of new money for roads and rail projects in two decades.

“The primary, secondary and urban funds are at 25 percent of their high marks of 15 years ago,” said Dwight Farmer , deputy executive director for transportation at the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. “When you account for inflation, we’re getting one-tenth of what we were getting in the early 1990s.”

The final decision on which projects to fund will come in June when the Commonwealth Transportation Board votes on its six-year budget.

Until then, city officials across Hampton Roads will again have to delay local road projects, raising the possibility that some improvements might never be completed because inflation will outstrip the state’s ability to save money for them.

Transit funding will suffer a 10 percent reduction, officials have said.

Interstate maintenance is relatively safe because, by law, it must be funded before new interstate construction projects. Because of funding constraints, the already small budget for new interstate work will shrink even more.

In the cities where state money is crucial for ongoing roadwork, the projected decline in noninterstate funds will hit hard.

John M. Keifer , Norfolk’s director of public works, said he expects further delays in the planned widening of Military Highway near Lake Taylor Transitional Care Hospital.

That $95 million plan would alleviate congestion between Robin Hood and Lowery roads with more travel lanes and a rebuilt interchange at Robin Hood near Norfolk International Airport.

The project has been a priority since the late 1980s, but the shortage of money is expected to delay its start date beyond 2015, Keifer said.

Portsmouth has been saving money for an $11.6 million widening of Turnpike Road between Frederick Boulevard and Constitution Avenue but has to delay the work until money is in hand.

“It’s been part of our long-range plan since 1986,” said Richard Hartman , Portsmouth’s city engineer.

All of Portsmouth’s urban road allocation from the state is devoted to repaying the state for rebuilding the Pinners Point

interchange, completed in 2005.

John Fowler , the city engineer in Virginia Beach, said the planned reductions will allow the city and VDOT to keep alive only about half a dozen of the Beach’s top 14 urban projects.

The widening of Birdneck Road and a portion of Lynnhaven Parkway will continue, he said, as will planning for an extension of Nimmo Parkway, the widening of Princess Anne Road from Dam Neck Road to the Municipal Center, and improvements to the Princess Anne/Kempsville Road intersection.

“Jobs that have been deferred for some time are just going to be delayed again,” he said.

Despite the new budget, local lawmakers have said they will push for repairs to the tattered transportation plan. The delegation representing Hampton Roads is scheduled to meet

April 3 in Suffolk to discuss transportation should Gov. Timothy M. Kaine call for another special session on the subject.

Even if the Hampton Roads lawmakers can agree on a plan, they might find it difficult to win approval in the House. GOP leaders are skeptical of any plan to raise taxes, particularly if it requires state approval.

“That would be extremely difficult to get out of the House,” House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith , R-Salem, said Tuesday.

Staff Writer Warren Fiske contributed to this report.

Tom Holden, (757) 446-2331, tom.holden@pilotonline.com