Fairfax County faces an estimated $300 million per year gap in transportation funding for the next 10 years.
From now until fiscal year 2021, the county has $8.1 billion in needs but anticipates only $5.1 billion in revenues, said Tom Biesasiadny, director of the county's Department of Transportation.
That gap leaves a $3 billion deficit over 10 years, or $300 million per year.
The federal and Virginia governments have no money to give, Biesasiadny said as he outlined the funding woes during this week's meeting of the county transportation committee.
As a result, the county wants community feedback on ways to increase revenues for much-needed projects.
Officials have posted a list of ways to raise the funds on the county website. Ideas on the table include a 1 percent sales tax on services that could bring in an estimated $367 million per year, or a .5 percent income tax for an estimated $229 million per year.
Board Chairman Sharon Bulova stressed during the meeting the county didn't prefer any one option to another. Aside from the 20 options outlined in the program, projects could also be scaled back.
"I don't think we want to make people believe that … the whole purpose of this is to push new taxes," she said. "The whole purpose of this is to show what the transportation situation is."
Without new revenue sources, projects would fall by the wayside.
"We're not doing this because we want to raise taxes," she said. "If there's not a source of funding to pay for it, this stuff will not get done."
Fairfax's major needs lie in the redevelopment of Tysons Corner, traffic-calming measures as a result of the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process and transit projects for Dulles Rail and South County.
The county is launching an outreach program in which residents have from Sept. 24 to Oct. 12 to provide input on how to fix the funding issue.
The outreach program comes weeks after Bulova and leaders from 38 counties, cities and towns in Fairfax County, Richmond and Hampton Roads sent a letter (attached) to Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) urging the state to meet its responsibility of meeting transportation infrastructure funding needs.
According to the letter and Tuesday's presentation, Virginia has ranked first or second on CNBC's Best States for Business for the past few years. But in 2012, the state slipped to third and dropped from No. 10 to No. 33 in quality of transportation and infrastructure.
"We have a real maintenance challenge and that affects not just Fairfax County, but it affects everybody in Virginia," Bulova said of the letter.
And expectations for transportation improvements are still high, Sup. Michael Frey (Sully District) said.
"I get people all the time saying, 'When are you going to pave my road?'" he said during Tuesday's meeting. "And it doesn't matter how many times you say, 'No money.'"
The county's outreach program, deemed a "Countywide Dialogue on Transportation," kicks off Sept. 24.
The first of nine meetings is sechduled for 7 p.m. Monday at the Springfield Governmental Center, 6140 Rolling Road, Springfield.
Click here to find a meeting in your neighborhood.
Residents will have the opportunity to take an online survey here from Sept. 24 to Oct. 12.
Same thing with plenty of the "needed projects" on the list. Most of those who are complaining about the traffic are from OUTSIDE the county and dont even pay taxes to Fairfax, like the Route 7 whining coming out of Loudoun County residents. Do more with less. Put off building those extra 2 lanes for an extra year, it will give you a chance to see if its really needed. Pausing construction will likely help traffic flow more than continuing it anyways by getting construction obstruction out of the way in perfectly good lanes. Or we could demand the state(who receives 11 billion from NOVA but returns back only 2 billion in assistance) provide more or we will secede.... but thats just a pipe dream I suppose.
Well, our so-called 'leaders' could START by taking control of Dulles Rail Phase II before MWAA approves double-priced bids and locks us into generations of payments just for the overcost in Phase II. We are already locked into paying the slightly lower, but still massively excessive prices for Phase I. Our so-called 'leaders' have talked about lowering the tolls, but gee - they never say how they might do that. We might surmise: 1) They will have Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy pay the tolls down. 2) They will make money fall out of the sky to pay down the tolls. 3) The federal government will provide Tifia LOANS, and then they will forget about getting paid back. 4) The federal government will provide Tifia LOANS, and then Virginia will pay them back with tax funds. 5) The federal government will provide Tifia LOANS, and then Fairfax and Loudoun Counties will pay them back with tax funds. Face it, folks - it's going to be #4 or #5. My bet is #5.
Not to mention it's a silly idea to work late-night shifts just because Virginia has pathetic public transportation compared to peers. How about people give up their big yards and move closer to work. My wife and I used to live in Tysons. We now live in a smaller townhouse 2 miles away from the office and never see 66, 267, or 495. Most people living out in Sterling don't need an acre of land and five bedrooms; yet they complain about the commute nonstop.
This area is full of roads where construction on the roads was deferred. Like the Fairfax County Parkway. Deferred for 30 years while the southern part of the county stagnated. Where just getting out of Burke was like breaking out of Lorton. The mentaility of "do nothing" is exactly what got us into this mess in the first place. Your null option theory, while simplistic and popularist, is not grounded in reality. Things need to be done, but they need to be prioritized and then cut off where the funding ends. Everything below that line either doesn't get done, or alternate funding is found for it. I don't think that should be a blanket tax on everybody, but an increase in the gas tax, which hasn't been raised since 1988.
The taxpaying public obviously doesn't remember any of this from week to week. There are still two US DOT IG audits going on - the one announced on June 21, 2011 that has exposed the MWAA Board as a big clown show, and the super-secret one announced on March 15, 2012 that is looking into the financial soundness and risk of the Phase II plans. These audits used to be reported in the news - until the March 15, 2012 audit, that has NEVER been mentioned in any news article I have seen. The $53 million FTA blunder of July 3, 2011 was never reported in any news article I have seen either. I saw exactly one quote that even hinted at it - and it was just a random quote that contained a tangential reference that nobody would even have noticed unless they were looking for it. But that article seems to have vanished from the internet - an interesting feat. The people behind these little mysteries can always just pack up and leave the area when the disaster they are creating gets to be too much for them. We can too, of course - but WE didn't pocket a few Billion dollars of overcharge while all this was going on.
Phase II of the Silver Line is a priority now, because soon the bids will be approved by the same MWAA that allowed the project cost estimates to get jacked up to nearly two times what the job should cost - and as soon as those papers are signed, we will be locked into this ripoff. We are already locked into the Phase I ripoff - let's stop the Phase II ripoff while we still can!
Virginia State Senator Richard Black is asking Gov. Bob McDonnell to have VDOT take the DTR back from MWAA- this is a huge step towards slowing or stopping toll increases. https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B64IfZTFiYIAeGo1dmpWVjlhMUE Toll Road users and local residents need to contact Gov. McDonnell and ask him to take our road back. He can be reached at (804) 786-2211 or http://www.governor.virginia.gov/AboutTheGovernor/contactGovernor.cfm For more information, visit www.NoTOLLincrease.org
Gee, I wonder if anybody thought of that, when they approved the near-double cost of the Silver Line. Taxpayers should have paid attention to the near-double prices of Dulles Rail construction, because those costs are headed home to roost. http://www.bruhns.us/civic/DullesRail/Dulles-Rail---Silver-Line-overcost-report---Bruhns.pdf
A small portion of the Columbia Pike light rail is in Fairfax County (near Skyline) and has been approved by the BoS, but yes the vast majority is in Arlington. The county is expected to fund roughly $28 million of the cost. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/fairfax-supervisors-endorse-columbia-pike-streetcar/2012/07/31/gJQA72eQNX_story.html
The problem for the past decade or so, is that property tax rates stayed high, while assessments went up. This was not some random coincidence, it was a choice by our goverment leaders to increase tax revenues, in order to have more money to spend. Do people want ever increasing real-dollar tax? You tell me. I thought there was supposed to be some economy of scale, but it certainly is not evident.