The state is straining to keep up with the phenomenal economic growth Loudoun is experiencing, Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer told the county's Chamber of Commerce at its State of Transportation breakfast last Tuesday morning.
"That is the reality of our situation," Homer said.
Homer, along with Sen. Charles Hawkins (R-19), Del. Thomas Davis Rust (R-86) and Dale Castellow, director of Loudoun's Office of Transportation Services, spoke to the chamber about the problems facing Loudoun's transportation system.
"It is a basic fact that we spend $1.5 billion per year on highway maintenance," Homer said. "That doesn't relieve one ounce of congestion."
Homer and his fellow panelists called the issues facing Loudoun County "simple arithmetic."
"We have a shrinking revenue base and a growing cost base," he said. "We are taking $400 million out of construction and putting it into maintenance."
HAWKINS, WHO IS the chairman of the Statewide Transportation Analysis and Recommendation Task Force, told the chamber there is "no rabbit to pull out of this hat" and there will be no magical fix to the state's transportation issues.
"All of the structures our wealth has been built around historically are gone," he said. "We need a transportation plan that deals with this century."
He said the main issue is that the state's infrastructure is antiquated and cannot support the current population and continued growth, adding later that the state had not visited a statewide transportation plan since 1986.
"If we're not careful that commute that increases day by day is going to get so bad that CEOs are going to get to a point where they decide they don't want to deal with it anymore," he said. "Once that starts it is impossible to stop."
The senator from southern Virginia said there needed to be a statewide transportation plan in place that meets the needs of the total population and that the changes need to happen soon.
"If we wait until 2009 or 2010 you will see a system in place that is almost 100 percent maintenance driven," he said.
AS A FIRST STEP towards getting money for road construction in Northern Virginia, Rust said he planned on filing three bills in the General Assembly, two of which, he told the chamber, he knew would fail.
With only 25 representatives from Northern Virginia, Rust said bills that suggest sending more money back to the area get defeated 75 to 25.
Both of the bills Rust said would never get out of committee involved Northern Virginia localities keeping $400 million dollars of its generated revenue. He said he wanted to file the bills to prove to people that existing resources cannot be used to fix Northern Virginia's transportation issues.
The third bill, which would increase several fees, would require the support of local businesses as they would be taking the biggest hit. The bill suggests increasing vehicle registration fees by $30 per year. In addition, any new people moving to the county and anyone buying a new car would pay an additional 75 cents on their registration fee.
"We asked people if they were willing to spend an extra $30 a year to raise $400 to $500 million for transportation improvements," Rust said.
The bill would also call for a 5 percent increase in hotel and motel fees and a 2 percent increase in car rental fees. Those increases, Rust said, would make tourists using the county's roads contribute to the monetary solution.
The tax increase that would hit business owners most is the bill's suggested increase on property zoned commercial and industrial. The fee would be raised to 30 cents per 100. Rust pointed out that Fairfax County is seeing taxes as high as 110 cents per 100 and Maryland is two to three times what the new bill would suggest.
"This bill raises money in Northern Virginia, keeps money in Northern Virginia and spends money in Northern Virginia," he said.
The one caveat to the bill, however, would be that localities would have to adopt the fees suggested in the bill in order to receive any money.
"To have any hope at all we have to get local governments involved," Rust said.
Transportation continues to be at the top of citizens‚ concerns, Rust said, "but then you ask them how to pay for it and no one wants to pay for it."
IN ORDER FOR the bill to be successful, Rust called for local business owners’ help. He said, when the General Assembly goes back into special session in September, constituents will need to work to convince their colleagues of the importance of the transportation bill. If the bill can get out of committee, Rust said he was confident they could get the 51 votes needed for it to pass.
While some people are looking at the state government's current surplus of approximately $1.5 billion, both Rust and Hawkins pointed out that all of the extra money is in the state's general fund.
"Right now the general fund is in good shape, but if it turns we will have no money," Hawkins said. "We can't count on that fund every year."
Both politicians pointed out that if money from the general fund is used, transportation would have to compete against all other departments, including education, for money.
"If we rely totally on the general fund, [transportation] competes against everything else and it loses," Rust said.
While Rust said he is not happy at the prospect of raising taxes, he said he understands the severity of the transportation issue for county residents.
"I prefer to think of myself not as a tax raiser," he said, "but as an infrastructure funder."