Governor comes to Danville to talk transportation

A few dozen people weathered the heat to attend a town hall style meeting with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Saturday afternoon to discuss his highly publicized transportation plan.

“Transportation infrastructure and education infrastructure are like the two wings that help you take off economically,” Kaine said at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. He who added that “we have had some challenges in really squarely addressing transportation needs.”

Having reliable and maintainable transportation infrastructure is crucial to attracting and keeping new businesses in the area, for example. Kaine said that as governor he has seen busi-nesses base the decision of whether or not to open up shop in Virginia on issues relating to reliable roads and other infrastructure.

Kaine narrated a power point presentation, which highlighted some of the main problems with transportation now along with his proposed solutions. He has a three-pronged approach: Safety First, which essentially includes maintenance issues; Regional Relief which targets high conges-tion areas and the Transportation Change Fund which invests in railroad, ridesharing and more opportunity for teleworking.

Yes, the plan requires more money. And yes, that money will need to come from taxes.

Compared to other states, Kaine illustrated with a few graphs and charts, Virginia has a rela-tively high per capita income and a relatively low taxes and state expenditures.

For maintenance issues, Kaine proposes increasing the statewide motor vehicle tax and increas-ing the statewide annual vehicle registration to fund maintenance by $10. He said raising the tax from 3 percent to 4 percent, which would add between $300 and 350. The nationwide average of motor vehicle tax sales is 4.6 percent, he said.

To address traffic congestion in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads he proposes raising the retail sales in the region, excluding food and medication, by 1 percent. This, he said would add over $1 billion. Currently it stands at 5 percent, with the national average just over 6 percent.

He also proposes increasing the gas tax. At 17.5 cents, Virginia ranks among the lowest in statewide gas taxes.

For the Transportation Change Fund, Kaine advocates a 25 cent increase on the statewide grantors tax.

“We can’t have a good system by paying the mediocre amount,” he explained.

Danville Mayor Sherman Saunders introduced the governor by highlighting many of the eco-nomic development projects that have come to Danville during Kaine’s tenure.

“I believe we must continue to help him,” said Saunders, for by helping him we are continuing to help ourselves.”

Delegate Danny Marshall (R-14th) said solving the transportation crisis was essential and ex-plained a bit of legislative shuffling representatives from Northern Virginia propose. Rather than doling out transportation funds based on the number of lane miles in a particular area, as it’s done now, some have suggested distributing money based on congestion. This, obviously, said Marshall would divert a considerable amount of money away from Southside.

If that happens, said Marshall “we’ll be screwed.”

Kaine said he’s feeling confident that he and the legislature will come up a solution, “if every-body just comes together.”

He said he’s sure they won’t accept all of his specific proposals, but that lawmakers are working and will have something by June 23, when they are set to vote.

“We just hope there are more problem solvers than there are problem avoiders,” he said.

Contact Sarah Arkin at (434) 791-7983 or sarkin@registerbee.com