Virginia Transportation Funding for Tidewater Virginia

If you've ever wondered what people are complaining about locally when they say Tidewater Virginia gets all the transportation funding while NoVa gets nothing, you absolutely have to read this article in TollRoadsNews.

Here are the key points:

• VDOT and a public-private partnership (P3) consortium known as "ERC" are all giddy about lining up $2.1 billion in financing for building a new tunnel in the Norfolk-Plymouth area--the SECOND such tunnel--plus a series of connections to area interstates, rehabilitating an old tunnel, and more.  "The project not only involves building a tunnel, but improving the transportation network in the region," said VDOT commissioner Greg Whirley.  Well, there you go!

• And to take any possible sting out of inconveniences these projects might cause (those poor suffering people), the good ol' Governor has stepped up "make the project more acceptable to locals:
  - toll collection delays from later this year to early 2014 funded by $100m from state transport funds
  - no tolls for local trips on the MLK Extension toll expressway whose construction is part of the project linking the Midtown Tunnel and West Norfolk Bridge (VA164) to I-264. Local trips are vehicles entering or exiting the MLK extension at London Boulevard or High Street (see map nearby) at the northern end of the project."
  Earlier the McDonnell administration had allocated money (ed:  specifically, more than $300 million)to reduce tolls by 40% as compared to those in the January 2010 interim agreement with the P3 partnership."

•  Oh, yeah, and there is a $422 million federal TIFIA loan that goes along with all that. 

And what is NoVa getting for the most important transportation infrastructure development project in the region since the beltway:  The good ol' Governor may allow us to have $150 million dribbled out over three years to delay the doubling and tripling of tolls on the Dulles Toll Road IF MWAA plays nice and doesn't insist on a PLA. 

You just have to read this article--there is much more to this story--to believe the outrageous gall of Richmond's politicians, but please take your blood pressure medicine first if you use it. 

You can not make this stuff up!