There are two bills from Republican Hampton Roads Delegates for the special Transportation session of the GA. (http:/leg1.state.va.us – click on ‘2006 Special 1’)

Delegates Jones, Oder, Iaquinto and Suit (HB5072) have dressed up the failed ’02 Transportation Tax Scam with new funding, Private-Public Transportation Act authority and people-less tolling with congestion tolling.

Delegate Waldrup (HB5091) pulls all the bridges and tunnels across the James and Elizabeth Rivers and The Bay into a Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

Both become unelected Regional Governments – using the exact same wording, but the scope is different.

HB5072, or ‘Back to the Future’ Bill, creates a Hampton Roads Transportation Authority which pulls in 11 Hampton Roads communities (then adds Accomack and Northampton on the Eastern Shore) to build the same projects that were offered in the ’02 referendum that voters rejected.

HB5091, or the ‘Bay Bridge Authority on Steroids’ Bill, creates a Bridge and Tunnel Authority that includes only 9 Hampton Roads communities (- Williamsburg, James City and York Co, + Northampton).

Both omit Poquoson on The Peninsula and Surry, Sussex and Southampton along 460. Good for us.

HB 5072 gets the money with the following:
• Electronic tolling and congestion tolling
• Additional tax each year at registration ($30 for a car)
• One time tax for registering a new car (.0075 = $150 for a $20k car)
• Hotel/motel room tax (5%)
• Rental car tax (2%)
• Dedicates 20 cents on $100 value on state records tax
• The language of the bill says ‘includes’ these taxes. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if that prevents other taxes, because it says cities and counties may levy additional fees.
• $25 m of Hampton Roads’ sales and income tax in the General Fund goes back to this authority every year. This bill does not inflict a new sales tax like the’06 Quayle bill did.
• When the Chesapeake-Bay Bridge bonds are paid (09), it becomes a cash cow for this government.

HB 5072 has the same projects as the failed ’02 plan. Interesting because that plan’s own analysis said there would be MORE congested miles of roads in 20 years after the plan is built out than in ’02. (Message again – you will have more miles of congested road in 2026 than in 2006 after you build the plan).

HB5072 doesn’t add tubes to the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It takes trucks from the Port of Virginia and dumps them on I-64 about 12 miles up from the HRBT. (I believe the rail connection is from the Peninsula too, not Southside to the Port – not sure and the bill doesn’t say.)

Both plans pay the politicians and bureaucrats for serving plus per diem for going to work where they live.

Both plans have this terrifying paragraph, “To the extent funds are made available to the Authority to do so, to employ employees, agents, and advisors, and consultants, including without limitation, attorneys, financial advisers, engineers, and other technical advisors and, the provisions of any other law to the contrary notwithstanding, to determine their duties and compensations.”

Both plans lack an accountable authority for review of policy, plans and the jobs for friends of ‘pols’ paragraph above.

HB5091 puts all the crossings under one administrative and political authority. Reminds me of NYC’s inter-state Port Authority. That will provide a lot of revenue. The bill doesn’t go beyond that – on what to build and maintain with that money – but it includes the authority to do so and “construct or acquire, by purchase, lease, contract or otherwise,highways, bridges, tunnels, railroads, railroad facilities, and other transportation-related facilities.” It’s not clear if this would include building up the 460 corridor or widening I-64 up in The Peninsula.

Two very different plans.

Putting all the crossings under one authority for revenue – like the Bay-Bridge is now – is fine with me. Giving that authority the planning power to build projects worries me.

I don’t get why another layer of government is needed for either. The Governor and the GA have all the authority they need to set a priority of projects, fund and manage them.