Transportation funding and administration. (SB6010)

Introduced By

Sen. Chuck Colgan (D-Manassas)

Description

Transportation funding and administration. Creates new statewide and regional revenue sources for transportation funding. Statewide, the bill creates new revenues by (i) increasing by three-quarters of one percent the motor vehicle titling tax, and (ii) creating a recapture index to be applied to the existing seventeen and one-half cent gas tax over the next nine years. To offset these new revenue sources, the bill eliminates the one-half of one cent sales tax on food that is currently designated for the Transportation Trust Fund. These new revenues are distributed for funding for mass transit, highway construction, highway maintenance, and a new Tolling Incentive Fund to provide additional moneys for transportation infrastructure in areas that implement new tolls or expand existing tolls. In addition, a new fund is created to support the debt service for $100,000,000 in bonds authorized to be issued for mass transit. Regionally, the bill imposes in the localities embraced by the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (i) a one-half of one cent sales and use tax, (ii) an additional 40 cents per $100 grantors tax, and (iii) a $5 per night hotel tax. These new revenues will be deposited in the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority Revenue Fund to be used for transportation needs in the Northern Virginia region. In the Hampton Roads region, the bill imposes (i) a three-quarters of one cent sales and use tax, (ii) a one percent local motor fuels retail sales tax, and (iii) a $5 per night hotel tax. These new revenues will be deposited in the Hampton Roads Transportation Revenue Fund to be administered by the Commonwealth Transportation Board for specified transportation projects in the region. The bill will also impose an additional one percent sales and use tax on any urban region in the Commonwealth that has an aggregate of 8.5 million daily vehicle miles traveled in the area in accordance with the most recent written determinations of daily vehicle miles traveled by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The additional sales tax would only apply to localities that have a voting member on the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Metropolitan Planning Area in which the locality is located, and the additional sales tax would not apply to localities in the Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads regions. In pursuing transportation reform and efficiencies, the bill establishes a goal of state agencies reducing the total vehicle miles traveled by state employees in commuting to work by 20 percent by 2012. Such reductions may be accomplished through telework, alternative work schedules, ridesharing and carpooling, or mass transit. The Governor shall report annually on the state's efforts to reduce vehicle miles traveled, and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation is directed to develop incentives and guidelines to reduce miles traveled by public and private sector employees. The bill also directs the Commonwealth Transportation Board to identify projects in its six-year plan that would be suitable for tolling, including the use of tolling in projects suitable for public-private partnerships, and directs the Secretary of Transportation to seek federal permission to impose tolls on existing Interstate Highways to be used for maintenance revenues. Read the Bill »

Status

06/23/2008: Awaiting a Vote in the Finance and Appropriations Committee

History