Transportation Funding Facts

As the Virginia General Assembly tries to reach consensus on whether after a quarter century it might actually be "time" to put serious new money into transportation, consider the following: FY 2012 year-to-date transportation revenues are running below FY 2011 levels. State gas tax revenues are down 4.9% from FY 2011 levels; vehicles continue to get better mileage. FY 2012 VDOT revenues ($3.7 billion) are nearly 12% less than FY 2007 ($4.1 billion). With the exception of revenue sharing and a few other minor programs all state transportation revenues are consumed by maintenance (and yet 27,000 lane miles of secondary roadways have substandard surfaces). Doubling the current gas tax rate (17.5 cents per gallon) to 35 cents per gallon would mean Virginians would pay the same per gallon rate in today's dollars they did 25 years ago in 1987 dollars.

Still Think Virginia Can Continue to Afford to Ignore The Need for New Sustainable Transportation Funding?