Governor McDonnell has touted Route 460 as his top priority transportation project and a key reason for his transportation borrowing and spending plan. “We’ve expressed strong concerns about the level of borrowing to be spent on billions in subsidies to private toll road builders,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “Most wasteful of all of these projects is Route 460, which would consume at least $782 million in state grants and $491 million in subsidized state loans, with only 15% covered by the private contractor.” Even national toll road promoter Peter Samuel has questioned the viability of the project.
Schwartz continued: “This $1.5 billion – or higher — project cannot be justified based on the traffic numbers and would divert scarce resources from much more critical needs in the trafficchoked areas of Virginia. Yet, the current transportation funding package would write a blank
check to the Governor to proceed with projects like Route 460.”
