Fairfax County’s transportation needs loomed heavily over a joint meeting of county supervisors and representatives from the Virginia State Senate and General Assembly Tuesday night.
Officials sat down to discuss priorities for the legislature’s fast-approaching 2013 session, and the county’s widely publicized road funding woes—a $3 billion need for road projects and improvements over the next decade—took center stage. The county faces a $300 million per year funding shortfall for the next 10 years.
“I know that we’re all aware Fairfax County and the Commonwealth are facing a transportation crisis,” said Sharon Bulova, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.
Fairfax County’s 10-year needs lie in the redevelopment of Tysons Corner, traffic-calming measures as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process and transit projects for Dulles Rail and South County.
But nobody is quite sure where the money will come from. The Commonwealth’s Secondary Road Program, from which the county used to get $29 million annually, is dry. . . .Click here for the rest of Patch's article.
By Taylor Holland
Virginia is unlikely to give Fairfax County any money to bridge the county's $3 billion transportation funding gap, based on the response the County Board of Supervisors received to its pitch for those funds Tuesday.
Board members spoke for nearly an hour on the county's self-dubbed "transportation crisis" to members of Fairfax County's delegation to the General Assembly, only to learn that lawmakers are divided on the topic and expect no transportation-related funding to come from the state next year.
"We cannot afford to take any more money out of the general fund," said Sen. Dick Saslaw, D-Springfield. "I mean not one penny."
Some legislators proposed possibly raising the gas tax or increasing sales taxes by 0.5 percent, but Saslaw said he wasn't confident that would pass . . . .Click here to read the rest of the article.
Our take: Fairfax County's own state legislators are unwilling to push hard to win additional state money for the county to address the $3 billion deficit in its transportation fund. Is this how they represent the county's interests in Richmond? No wonder we have a county-wide transportation funding crisis.
On the other hand, the state will be more than happy to take all the added income tax revenues the new jobs in Tysons and the Dulles Corridor generate because of their rail-related urbanizing development. Who knows where they will spend it, but apparently not in Fairfax and not on transportation.
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