- Good afternoon, I’m Lon Anderson, Director of Public and Govt. Relations for AAA Mid-Atlantic, but today I’m serving as the spokesman for this coalition of about 10 organizations gathered here with us including:
- the AAA Clubs of Virginia,
- the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce,
- the Greater Washington Board of Trade,
- the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce,
- the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance,
- Virginians for Better Transportation,
- Virginians for High Speed Rail and
- the Virginia Transit Association.
- We also have some groups here in support that we would like to recognize...
- We are here to make a fairly simple and straight forward appeal:
- The need is urgent and the time is now to pass a transportation budget.
- We would also urge legislators to appropriately fund this budget with new, stable, and dedicated funding sources.
- That’s the critical message that this diverse group wants to deliver loud and clear to the Virginia Legislature this afternoon.
- We have a transportation crisis in the Commonwealth. This is known: Governor Kaine knows this and the Legislature knows this.
- To address this crisis, transportation funding is needed immediately and isolating the transportation budget and postponing action on it will only exacerbate this crisis.
- But what has not been recognized to date and what we want to emphasize today are the very severe consequences that delaying passage of the transportation budget will have on transportation projects around the state.
- There are projects statewide that are dependent upon immediate enactment of the Commonwealth’s transportation budget. With any substantial funding delay, these critical projects are put in jeopardy.
- These are projects that either must shortly be certified to the Federal Highway Administration to be eligible for federal funds, or will simply lack funding when the new fiscal year takes effect July 1, 2006. In either case, impacted projects will be delayed, in some instances, for years.
- This list of projects from the six year plan was provided to us--at our request--by the Virginia Department of Transportation. VDOT noted that the list is by no means final or complete, but is only a sampling of the likely impacts of failing to act now on the transportation budget.
A sampling of the projects and the impacts on them from around the state that will be in jeopardy of being stopped or considerably delayed include:
- Route 164 Rail Relocation, I-264/64 Interchange, and Route 58
- Route 17 widening in Stafford County;
- Route 15 widening in Culpeper County;
- Route 229 widening in the Culpeper District;
- Route 33 widening in Hanover County;
- Barretts Ferry Bridge funding in Richmond;
- Huguenot Bridge in Richmond;
- Route 15 in Prince Edward County;
- Route 29 from Capital Beltway to Merrilee Drive in Fairfax County;
- Route 7 widening in the Reston Parkway area;
- Battlefield Parkway in Leesburg;
- Route 28 - the four interchanges in Fairfax County;
- I-66 at Gainesville;
- Route 220 in Botetout County;
- Route 460 reconstruction in Bedford;
- Route 130 bridge replacement in Rockbridge County;
- Warwick Boulevard in Newport News;
- Jefferson Avenue in Newport News;
- Intermodal Connector construction;
- The Steel Bridge on Route 17 in Chesapeake.
- In fact, the actual damage from the failure to pass a transportation budget promptly will likely be far worse.
- While this list is focused on road projects, we need to be very clear that the damage will also include a broad array of mass transit projects that are also critical to mobility in the Commonwealth.
- Without immediate action to approve a budget with an enhanced and reliable funding stream, all modes of transportation, in short, mobility in the Commonwealth will be damaged.
- With so many critical projects around the state in jeopardy, we appeal to members of the Legislature to demonstrate the highest form of statesmanship and come together to promptly approve a transportation budget that is appropriately funded by new, stable, and dedicated funding sources.
Now I would like to invite some of our partners who are here today to share their concerns about this transportation budget crisis...
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