VDOT makes ‘drastic’ cuts

Battered by the recession, Virginia’s highway and transit programs have shrunk by one-third in two years.

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“We’re back to basics,“ state Transportation Commissioner David S. Ekern said Thursday. “It’s about pavements and bridges now. It’s not about congestion. It’s not about expansion.“

Ekern made his comments after the Commonwealth Transportation Board adopted a $7.5 billion statewide transportation-improvement program for 2010-2015, down $4 billion from the $11.5 billion in the 2008-2014 program.

“The commonwealth is facing a crisis in transportation funding,“ Transportation Secretary Pierce R. Homer said in a statement. “These drastic reductions reflect our ongoing challenge to meet federal obligations and state maintenance needs while experiencing drastic declines in state and federal revenues.“

Virginia has only enough of its own money to use to match federal grant dollars and to pay for mandated programs, according to Reta Busher, the Virginia Department of Transportation’s chief financial officer.

Consequently, the cutbacks have eliminated the state funding distributed to localities for their own use on secondary, primary, urban and unpaved road work.

Federal transportation stimulus funds will blunt—but they won’t offset—the reductions in Virginia’s transportation revenues, state officials said.

The state is to receive $694.5 million in federal economic-stimulus funds, to be spent within three years. The board so far has awarded contracts for $81 million of the money.

However, the state highway program brought good news for metropolitan Richmond.

The board approved more than $97 million to start two ready-to-go projects in Richmond and Henrico County: rehabilitating 11 deteriorating bridges on Interstate 95 and repaving the intensely potholed Interstate 64 between I-95 and Parham Road.

“We’re good to go,“ said Transportation Board member Gerald P. McCarthy of Richmond.

VDOT’s chief engineer, Malcolm T. Kerley, hit one of the potholes on I-64 near Glenside Drive last week, blew out one of his tires and bent its wheel. “Even VDOT people are not immune,“ he said.

With transportation revenues tumbling, the board chopped VDOT’s maintenance and operations for fiscal 2009-2010:

—shutting down 19 of the state’s 42 interstate-highway rest areas and welcome centers;

—reducing motorist-service patrols in metropolitan areas;

—closing 51 VDOT local residency offices and equipment shops;

—scaling back interstate maintenance contracts;

—cutting roadside mowing and maintenance by $20 million; and

—paring some ferry services.

Aimed at saving $9 million a year, the rest-area closures have been a particular sore spot with the trucking and tourism industries, as well as local officials and members of the public, particularly along Interstate 81 in western Virginia.

“It’s ridiculous,“ said Megan Svajda, the Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association’s director of government relations. “This is the height of the tourist season. For any to be closed is detrimental to the tourist industry.“

Tourism is big business in the state. Travelers spent almost $18.7 billion in Virginia in 2007 and generated $4.3 billion in payroll, according to the state tourism agency.

“We’re a state that people have to go through,“ said Transportation Board Member James A. Davis of Winchester. “We really need to be friendly to them.

“It’s shortsighted how we’re going to precipitously close” the rest areas this summer, he said.

Ekern said VDOT is trying to accommodate the travel industry. “I’m not just going to throw up barricades” blocking travelers from the rest stops.

At Thursday’s board meeting, Davis tried to use $9 million in highway paving money to keep the rest stops open, but the motion failed.