McDonnell touts transportation plan
An analysis of 10 highway projects funded by Gov. Bob McDonnell’s 2011 $4 billion transportation program shows they will provide nearly 3,700 direct jobs during their construction, $190.8 million in personal income, $14.8 million in state and local tax revenues and other benefits to Virginia.
“The Virginia Department of Transportation advertised more than $2 billion worth of construction and maintenance contracts last year, a direct result of the money provided by our 2011 transportation package, which the General Assembly approved,” McDonnell said. “This review of a cross section of new VDOT road projects clearly illustrates that putting such work on the street in turn puts Virginians to work and returns other financial benefits back to the commonwealth.” Read more
Warner proposals on transit safety, development incorporated into Senate bill
U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) joined colleagues on both sides of the aisle in passing legislation out of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs to make improvements to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s public transportation programs.
The legislation included new safety standards championed by Sen. Warner in the wake of a fatal 2009 Metro accident, and incorporates Senator Warner’s legislation authorizing grants for localities to promote transit-oriented development.
The bill passed on Thursday includes critical provisions aimed at establishing minimum performance standards for public transportation systems, strengthening enforcement powers and providing states with resources for training and oversight. It draws on legislation that Senator Warner introduced earlier this Congress with Sens. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), Jim Webb (D-Va.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.). Read more
Governor releases transportation plan
Gov. Bob McDonnell announced on Friday details of his 2012 General Assembly session transportation plan, wihch he said will provide additional funding for maintaining Virginia’s infrastructure and will continue the administration’s efforts to ensure greater accountability and transparency in Virginia’s transportation entities while delivering transportation projects more quickly and cost effectively.
“Last year, working across party lines, we took a significant step forward in addressing Virginia’s long-neglected transportation system by implementing reforms to transportation agencies and by accelerating projects and bond funding that had languished in bureaucracy. Collectively, we put the most new funding into transportation in a generation,” said McDonnell. Read more
Expert: Virginia headed toward transportation ‘catastrophe’
Item by Robert Brickhouse
UVa. news: www.virginia.edu
Virginia is headed toward a transportation “catastrophe” if state political leaders don’t act, according to a former state transportation commissioner.
Ray Pethel made that assessment in a column in the latest issue of The Virginia News Letter published by the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia.
Pethtel, now director of the Transportation Policy Center at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, predicts increasingly severe congestion, deteriorating roadways, risk of bridge failures and possible loss of the state’s AAA bond rating if lawmakers don’t act soon to end a long-running funding crisis.
Pethtel, who was director of the Joint Legislative Audit Review Commission from 1974 to 1986, served as commonwealth transportation commissioner from 1986 to 1994 under governors Gerald Baliles and Douglas Wilder. Read more
Challenges for a decade
Column by David Cox
Submit guest columns: freepress2@ntelos.net
This being the first year without two zeroes in the middle, many are pondering what the decade ahead will hold. Yeah, I know it’s not really a new decade. Still, it’s worth contemplating what we face over the next 10 years. Having issued some projections for 2010–some might call them wishful thinking–here goes for my view of what we in Virginia will face in the “Teens.”
And oh, do we have our challenges ahead.
* We’ve got to confront the transportation mess. That’s the same one people have been promising to tackle for at least six years. And how far have we come? Last week my wife, daughter and I took four hours driving time to get the ninety miles from suburban Washington’s “mixing bowl” to Richmond. From DC to Fredericksburg, a slow-moving parking lot inched along I-95–we managed to get onto Route 1 which was almost as bad–and it was all just traffic. Our nerves, our environment, and our economy cannot sustain that. If Virginia’s future is to prosper, Virginia absolutely must resolve the obvious issues that only get worse and worse. Read more
Greg Marrow | Funding transportation
I wanted to take a moment and respond to Del. Landes’ recent press release regarding transportation funding. It is quite telling that Del. Landes is asking me for ideas on how to fund our current transportation crisis since he has no plan of his own. For four of the last six years we have not had a transportation budget to adequately fund our roads. And now, Virginia was faced to close our rest stops throughout the state. Read more
Ken Plum: No movement on transportation
Posted by afp on April 2, 2010 · Leave a Comment
www.kenplum.com
Ask any of the residents of Northern Virginia to name the top two or three major challenges facing the region and virtually all will include traffic congestion. Yet with this well defined need and the election of a new governor who ran with a “transportation plan,” the legislature adjourned with only raising the speed limit to 75 mph on rural interstates and the governor reopening rest stops that had been closed to save money. Read more
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