Lawmakers sense inevitability with tunnel toll plans

RICHMOND

What a difference two years can make.

In 2010, when a Northern Virginia lawmaker introduced a measure to place a $2 toll on two Hampton Roads tunnels, the local General Assembly delegation howled with outrage.

"The first shot in the Second War of Northern Aggression," one called Del. Joe May's proposal. And in the face of united opposition from Hampton Roads, the Loudoun County Republican's bill was quickly deep-sixed.

Fast-forward to 2012.

Later this year, the state plans to place tolls on two Hampton Roads tunnels starting at $1.84 for cars at peak hours, with a provision for annual increases. But this time, there has been no unified opposition from lawmakers.

On the contrary, the latest toll plan seems surrounded by a sense of inevitability.

What happened?

With the region increasingly choked by traffic gridlock and Virginia's government now firmly in the hands of Republicans who categorically rule out any new taxes, a realization appears to have set in that there is no alternative to tolls.

A handful of Democratic lawmakers have put forth proposals in the 2012 Assembly aimed at heading off or at least reducing the planned tolls on the Midtown and Downtown tunnels. In theory, those efforts could bear fruit. But with Democrats in a virtually powerless minority, it looks highly unlikely.

That means motorists who use either of the two key links between Norfolk and Portsmouth will soon begin paying $3.68 per round trip at peak hours. A commuter who makes the trip five days a week would pay nearly $1,000 over the course of a year.

The agreement allows for built-in annual increases of up to 3.5 percent beginning in 2016. Over the remaining 54 years of the contract, the cost ultimately could reach $23.58 per round trip - about $6,100 a year.

"It's going to kill us," state Sen. Yvonne Miller, D-Norfolk, said last week. "I have a lot of poor people in my district, and I'm horrified that some of them will have to give up their jobs because they don't make enough money to pay those tolls."

Portsmouth Mayor Kenny Wright predicted a powerful public backlash once the tolls kick in.

"My city has citizens who have to travel through those tubes for a multitude of reasons - seniors going over to the medical center, students going to college, people that have to go to work," Wright said. "It's really going to be a huge burden."

The tolls are part of a $2.1 billion project being undertaken by the state in partnership with a private company, Elizabeth River Crossings. The state's share of the cost is $362 million.

The project includes construction of a new two-lane tube parallel to the Midtown Tunnel, rehabilitation of the Downtown Tunnel and an extension of the Martin Luther King Freeway in Portsmouth.

Del. Kenny Alexander, D-Norfolk, has submitted legislation that would apply the state's 5 percent general sales tax to motor fuels, generating an estimated $550 million a year that he says could be used in part to offset the planned tolls.

Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, has offered an amendment to the state budget that would steer $500 million in bond proceeds toward the tunnel project. Dedicating that sum would reduce the tolls by 50 cents, she said last week.

"I'm not opposing tolls - I know that's going to happen," Lucas said. But she considers the planned rates too high.

Tamara Rollison, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation, said that if additional state money is made available, the tolls could be lowered.

But no one is counting on that.

"I don't see that coming," Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim said. "That decision, I think, has already been made."

Gov. Bob McDonnell, in a recent interview, characterized the tunnel partnership as a way to leverage scarce state resources to pay for a critically needed project.

"Listen, I know there's some concern," he said. "Anybody that's got to pay anything additional out of their pocket is going to be concerned. But roads are not free.... For us to develop the infrastructure that all the leaders in Hampton Roads say that we need, we've got to find ways to pay for it. And I think I've found a decent, creative way that gets us a lot more projects built with a relatively small amount of money directly from the taxpayers."

Some local officials, including Mayors Wright and Fraim, complain that they didn't have sufficient input into planning the project and were blindsided when they learned the details.

"How did it become a $2.1 billion project?" Wright said. "And how much of that is for the new tunnel and how much is for deferred maintenance?"

While it is probably too late to do anything about the tunnel tolls, Fraim said, the process needs to be improved as the state moves forward with other planned public-private transportation projects.

"This was the first time that we have actually been through this experience here, and local governments certainly expected, at a minimum, to be engaged and consulted," he said. "And that didn't happen."

Reflecting that concern, Sen. Ralph Northam, D-Norfolk, submitted a bill to require approval of public-private deals by local transportation planning organizations. The measure was defeated on an 8-6 party-line vote in a Senate committee last week. Three of the "no" votes came from Hampton Roads senators.

One of those, Sen. Jeff McWaters, R-Virginia Beach, said local officials had adequate input into the tunnel project and Northam's measure would have made the process too cumbersome.

"You can't have 30 people negotiating a deal," he said.

As for Loudoun Del. May, the lawmaker who broached the toll idea in 2010, he said he's glad to see the Assembly come to grips with its pressing transportation needs - even if it took two years of reflection.

"That's not unheard of in the General Assembly," he said. "We never rush into things."

Pilot writer Julian Walker contributed to this report.

Bill Sizemore, 804-697-1560, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com