The Virginia General Assembly is finally getting to what Northern Virginia has been waiting for — transportation.
The Senate passed the $74 billion, two-year state budget Monday after agreeing to remove additional transportation funding through tax increases. The House of Delegates is expected to pass the bill today. The legislation will then go to the governor.
“Make no mistake that approving the budget now without addressing transportation is a win for the rest of the state and a loss for the rest of Northern Virginia. They get our money to spend and we’re still stuck in gridlock,” said David Snyder, Northern Virginia Transportation Authority chair.
The special session will pick up again in late August or September to discuss transportation, said Del. Vince Callahan, R-McLean, who guessed the transportation session would take a week.
“It is not like the conferees are getting together and dickering over minutia in a 500-page budget,” he said.
“I don’t think it is going to take a week. This is going to take months,” said Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, D-Vienna.
She said regional bills, which would allow localities to choose which taxes to raise to improve the transportation network, would have more of a chance to pass in the House since not all Virginians would be taxed, but a proposed statewide tax increase “is not going to fly in the house.”
Davis said her Northern Virginia regional bill — and three other transportation-related bills — are sitting in the House’s finance committee and will die if no action is taken by Aug. 1.
“They can put new bills in. That is no big deal,” said House Speaker William Howell, R-Fredericksburg, who agreed with Callahan’s time estimate.
Howell said he would consider regional plans, but he does not support a statewide tax.
“The answer to Virginia’s transportation problems is not to raise more taxes and give the money to VDOT,” said Howell, who listed land use reform, reforming VDOT and new sources of revenue as possible solutions.
Special Session Costs
» House – $120,806.39 as of Friday
» House conferees per diem costs – $20,064.59 reimbursed as of June 9
» Senate – $59,648.98 as of Friday
» Senate conferees per diem costs – $8,897.47 reimbursed as of Friday
