Area leaders will attend a meeting of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization today in Chesapeake where one of the primary areas of discussion will be the transportation bill and how it will affect Hampton Roads if Gov. Bob McDonnell signs it into law.
The bill changes the nature of transportation funding in the state, scrapping the 17.5 cent per gallon gas tax that has generated money since a 1986 transportation overhaul. Instead, the bill calls for a package of funding components to pay for projects.
The bill will generate about $880 million per year by 2018 for state projects, with $175 million to $200 million of that figure going to Hampton Roads, according to HRTPO estimates.
The changes to taxes and fees statewide are as follows:
- The 17.5 cent per gallon motor fuels tax is eliminated
- A 3.5 percent tax statewide on wholesale price of gasoline is created
- A 6 percent tax statewide on the wholesale price of diesel is created
- A $100 registration fee for alternative fuel vehicles is created
- The motor vehicle sales tax rises from 3 percent to 4.3 percent
- Statewide sales and use tax goes from 5 to 5.3 percent
- The transportation share of existing sales and use tax rises from 0.5 to 0.675 percent
- Takes money from the Market Equity Act, which would charge sales tax to online retailers if passed by the Federal Government. If that bill fails, an extra 1.6 percent tax would be applied to the wholesale gasoline tax
In addition, Hampton Roads would face an additional sales tax increase of 0.7 percent, putting the sales tax in the area to 6 percent. The tax on the wholesale price of gasoline would also face a 2.1 percent regional tax, bumping that figure to 5.6 percent for the region.
McDonnell (R) initiated the transportation plan, which Democrats at first resisted. But negotiations yielded a bipartisan vote to approve the bill in both houses.
The HRTPO meeting is one of the first in what will likely become a process that stretches over many years as localities throughout the region and state explore ways to finance their transportation projects.
An emerging trend in these discussions is that the major infrastructure projects that would provide needed relief to some of the most heavily congested segments of Hampton Roads are time consuming and expensive, making it difficult to find a consensus among localities for how limited dollars should be allocated.
Authorities have not been waiting for this meeting to discuss the legislation, however. Since both houses of the General Assembly passed the bill, it has been the subject of discussion among the supervisory boards of Triangle localities.
The bill was the subject of a heated discussion among James City County Board of Supervisors members March 12 after Mary Jones, the board’s HRTPO representative, voted against endorsing the bill on behalf of the county at a special HRTPO meeting March 4. She did not tell other board members there would be a vote on the bill, nor did she reveal her vote after the meeting, drawing the ire of Chairman John McGlennon.
Triangle Officials Emphasize Importance of I-64 Widening
The bill was a topic of conversation at the March 14 Williamsburg City Council meeting, where City Manager Jack Tuttle presented cost estimates for major projects to the council. Among the projects he discussed:
- A widening of Interstate 64 from Jefferson Avenue to Fort Eustis, estimated to cost $260.1 million
- An expansion of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, estimated to cost $3.1 to $4.2 billion
- The creation of Patriots Crossing, a bridge/tunnel system that would connect I-564 to the Monitor Merrimac Bridge and to Craney Island Portsmouth, estimated to cost $4.4 to $6.7 billion
“You could apply all of the new money to these projects and bond it out over time, and you still could not quite pay for them,” Tuttle said of the projects. “Every penny of new money regionally doesn’t get you there.”
Tuttle referred to Patriots Crossing and the HRBT project as an either-or proposition. HRTPO staff recommends the board determine by early April which of the two projects it wants to recommend to VDOT.
“These projects are both extremely expensive, and there’s not alignment politically,” he said at the meeting. He said Norfolk supports the Patriots Crossing project because an expansion of the HRBT would cause a headache for Norfolk residents, where as Hampton would like to see the HRBT expanded to better serve its residents who need to go to the Southside.
HRTPO assigned priority scores to these projects and others in its 2034 Long-Range Transportation Plan. Most of the projects on the list are not in the Historic Triangle, though the consensus from Triangle officials is any expansion of I-64 on the peninsula will benefit area drivers. A widening of I-64 from Jefferson Avenue to Ft. Eustis Boulevard is on the list, as is a widening from Fort Eustis Boulevard to Route 199.
I-64’s widening, HRBT and Patriots Crossing all rank high on the prioritization list, with Patriots Crossing ranking highest of the three and the I-64 widening ranking lowest.
“I-64 widening would be of great benefit to the Historic Triangle,” said York County Assistant Administrator J. Mark Carter. “The greatest potential for impact on or benefits to York County would be associated with the widening of Interstate 64 between Jefferson Avenue and the Water Country Interchange [Exit 242], which is a segment that has been identified as a priority for improvement by the Board of Supervisors.”
Tuttle echoed that sentiment.
“The key project for the peninsula without question is improvements to I-64,” he said. “You pick up with where we are on Jefferson Avenue and those improvements need to be continued all the way to Richmond.”
In December, the Virginia Department of Transportation held public hearings throughout the region to present a draft of an Environmental Impact Statement for changes to I-64 from the I-95 interchange in Richmond to the I-664 interchange in Hampton. That project is estimated to cost between $4.7 billion to $7.3 billion.
During those presentations, VDOT announced a number of ways the state could approach I-64 in the coming years. They proposed five ways to address I-64:
- Adding additional lanes on the outside of the existing lanes
- Adding additional lanes in the median
- Adding additional lanes to the outside and tolling all lanes
- Adding additional lanes to the median and tolling all lanes
- Adding a managed lane (managed lanes are typically high-occupancy, bus or truck-only lanes)
HRTPO staff recommends they vote to recommend the first option, which would add general purpose lanes to the outside of the existing lanes. Until that can come to fruition, however, the staff recommends VDOT expands I-64 to three lanes in each direction by using the existing shoulders as lanes while meeting safety standards.
Tuttle, who presented this option to the Williamsburg City Council at the March 14 meeting, said it could cost around $5 million per mile to use the shoulders in that capacity.
“That’s much less expensive than starting over and rebuilding interchanges and overpasses,” Tuttle said.
To fund Patriots Crossing and the HRBT project, as well as widening I-64 from Richmond to Hampton, the state would be looking at an estimated bill of $12.2 to $18.2 billion.
York Supervisors, Historic Triangle Collaborative Discuss Potential Alternative to I-64 Work
The York County Board of Supervisors discussed the bill and Triangle transportation issues at their March 19 meeting. In that conversation, Chairman Walt Zaremba talked about his impression of the way the funding will be allocated in the coming years.
“The way this thing is going to be carved up is whoever has the strongest voice and the biggest bicep will get it,” he said of money generated by the bill, if signed.
He talked about the March 19 Historic Triangle Collaborative meeting, where members of that group discussed an alternative to an expensive widening of I-64. By installing a spur in the Bottoms Bridge area that connects I-64 and U.S. 60, the hope would be that some of the I-64 traffic could be routed to 60.
“Highway 60 is hardly ever used,” Zaremba said. “Most tourists don’t know about Highway 60.”
But as for the major projects, Zaremba said, it will come down to one factor: “It’s going to be who has the firepower up in Richmond.”
The U.S. 60 project, which would require the spur and signage on I-64 to direct drivers to that road, does not seem to have the traction that the I-64 projects have within planning organizations and state agencies.
By using the U.S. 60 alternative, the state could save billions of dollars, though I-64 would still pose a potential problem: a 2011 VDOT assessment found 56 percent of interchanges on the road are approaching or have already reached an unstable traffic flow. By 2040, that number is expected to climb to 96 percent.
