Tunnel backups vs. Rte 460 - What's wrong with this picture?
COALITION FOR SMARTER GROWTH, SIERRA CLUB - VIRGINIA CHAPTER
PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release:
September 28, 2011
Contact:
Stewart Schwartz, CSG, 703-599-6437
David Dickson, SC, 202-834-4842
What's Wrong with this Picture?
Hampton Roads' news on September 28, 2011:
5-mile Backup at 8am at Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and
Route 460 is Governor McDonnell's Top Transportation Priority*
These two stories were posted in today's Daily Press. "With Hampton Roads commuters routinely facing massive traffic back-ups at the region's bridge-tunnels, these bottlenecks should be the top priorities for our scarce transportation funds, not Route 460," said David Dickson, Transportation Program Manager for the Sierra Club-Virginia Chapter. "It's good that the Midtown and Downtown tunnels have been a focus, but we also need to address the James River crossings before diverting funds to a duplicate Route 460."
The most serious of the private companies to make a bid on the Route 460 project, CINTRA, has said it would need $782 million in taxpayer funding (52% of their estimate of project costs), a low interest U.S. Government backed TIFIA loan of $491 million (33% of project costs) and $217 million that CINTRA would contribute in private equity (just 15% of the total). The winning bidder would have exclusive rights to the toll revenues for at least 75 years. Today's story indicated that Governor McDonnell would allocate a combined $750 million from the state's Transportation Trust Fund (including some diversion of Port Authority funds from the TTF).
Meanwhile, in today's Virginian-Pilot, the story about area traffic congestion included:
Dwight Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization, who said that for the commuters who use the region's notorious bridge and tunnel bottlenecks, the delays are far more severe, at least three times greater than the regional average. "I think the backups at these chokepoints are steadily getting worse," [Farmer] said, adding that four or more miles of congestion at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel has become common during rush hour. "But we have a lot of other travel on other roadways that don't have anywhere near the level of congestion those chokepoints have."
"Fixing the critical James River bridge/tunnel crossings is essential to the economy of Hampton Roads and to connecting people to jobs," said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. "In contrast, there is minimal traffic along the existing Route 460 and it's doubtful that a new, duplicate Route 460 would offer any peak-hour traffic relief for commuters on I-64 and the bridge-tunnel crossings."
"Instead of diverting as much as $782 million in tax dollars and $491 million out of a limited supply of low interest federal government loans to a private toll road contractor for Route 460, our scarce state and federal resources should go into the James River bridge-tunnel crossings," said Schwartz.
"Furthermore, if we are serious about fixing the crossing, about moving the most people to jobs, and reducing our dependence on imported oil, then a core part of our investment should be light rail and passenger rail connections," said Dickson.
*
- September 28, 2011, Daily Press traffic update: http://www.dailypress.com/news/traffic/dp-traffic-0928,0,624248.story
- Daily Press article on Route 460: http://www.dailypress.com/business/ports/dp-nws-port-cutbacks-20110927,0,6876771.story
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