Weekly Column: Where Should the NVTA Spend $500 Million of Your Money?

Where Should the NVTA Spend $500 Million of Your Money?

              Now is the time to help direct transportation funds to our community.

 For 27 years, between 1986 and 2013, Virginia did not raise its transportation taxes.  While labor, steel, asphalt and concrete got more expensive and cars became more fuel efficient, gas tax revenues declined.  During those years, Virginia stopped repaving roads and other maintenance to fund road construction.  In 2013, the General Assembly passed new taxes to restore highway maintenance funding and we passed new regional taxes to fund regional transportation construction through the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA). 

                The 36^th Senate District has benefitted from these taxes in projects like US 1/Richmond Highway widening (design and land acquisition), U.S. 1/Dumfries widening (design and land acquisition), U.S. 1 bus rapid transit (design), U.S. 1 at Featherstone widening, $80 million in Virginia Rail Express improvements, a new CSX bridge crossing of US. 1 at I-95 and Old Bridge Road/Occoquan Road intersection reconstruction.

Comment on Regional Transportation Funding Today

 

            The Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) has published its rankings for its next Six-Year Plan Update to fund $522 million of projects over the next six years.

            The NVTA plans its projects in a six-year plan every two years.  Local governments and other entities nominate projects for funding.  It uses objective criteria to rate projects based on congestion relief, economic development, pollution reduction and safety with congestion relief getting the highest weight.  This ranking is named after the bill that authorized it – HB599.  

             After projects are scored, the score is divided by the funding request so that we can see which projects give our region the biggest bang for the buck.  As you can see in the table below, this means that while some projects scored very well – such as the U.S. 1 widening – after you consider the cost, their relative ranking dropped substantially.  

             There are $404 million in seven projects at risk in the 36^th Senate District at-risk:

36th District Submitted Project List
Comment Deadline May 24, 2020 

Overall Rank	Project	Description	Request	HB599 Rank
3	Annapolis Drive U.S. 1/VA-123 Connection	Connect Annapolis Drive between U.S. 1 and VA-123	$8.0m	9
5	Widen U.S. 1 Thru Town of Dumfries	Widen and realign U.S. 1 through Town of Dumfries to construct new boulevard, construct sidewalks and paths.	$78.0M	6
10	Summit School Rd. Extension & Telegraph Rd. Widening	Connect Telegraph Road to Minnieville Rd via Summit School Drive to bypass Potomac Mills Mall.	$24.0M	7
20	U.S. 1/Richmond Highway Bus Rapid Transit	Construct bus rapid transit from Huntington Metro to Fort Belvoir	$71.0M	1
22	VRE Woodbridge Station Improvements	Construct new passenger platform for new third rail.	$2.2M	11
23	Extend Van Buren Road from VA-234 to Cardinal Drive	Planning funds for new road between VA-234 and Cardinal Drive.	$8.0M	30
25	U.S. 1/Richmond Highway Widening Hybla Valley to Fort Belvoir	Widen U.S. 1 to six lanes, new sidewalks, multiuse paths, and reserve space for BRT from Fort Belvoir to Hybla Valley.	$183.0M	3
30	PWC Parkway & Old Bridge Intersection Rebuild	Realign intersection to create more seamless PWC Parkway.	$30.0M	37

Please provide me your comments using the two forms below.  I have include links to information about the projects and the project rankings at the top of the form if you want to investigate further.

Fairfax County NVTA Project List Comment Form
Prince William County NVTA Project List Comment Form

I will be submitting all comments to the NVTA before May 24, 2020.