XML FeedsVirginia Beach Light Rail Funding?
By Wally on Jan 26, 2010 | In Va Beach, State, National, Light Rail Crime | 5 feedbacks »
Virginia Beach Light Rail and the Spending Freeze
Show 'em the money
President Obama will call for a three-year freeze in spending on many domestic programs, and for increases no greater than inflation after that. Also, newly elected Governor McDonnell has his own initiatives on budget reallocation.
Follow up:
The President’s freeze would cover the agencies and programs for which Congress allocates specific budgets each year, including air traffic control, farm subsidies, education, nutrition and national parks.
It would exempt security-related budgets for the Pentagon, foreign aid, the Veterans Administration and homeland security, as well as the entitlement programs that make up the biggest and fastest-growing part of the federal budget: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
But where is transportation in all this? And specifically the Virginia Beach light rail project which is under study as blog is being written. The Virginia Beach City Council is committed to acquiring the Norfolk Southern right-of-way (ROW) that bisects the city east to west. Also, the city has purchased private property along the ROW for a possible light rail station. State-wide will the Governor accept light rail as an acceptable transportation funding issue?
The construction funds for the project rely highly on both federal and state funding as well as local.
The President and Governor must demonstrate confidence in the ability of these programs to be effective. Investments in projects like light rail can be efficient in creating jobs and reorienting the society towards a sustainable lifestyle but they require large government allocations. Will the “spending freeze” encourage the idea that federal spending is wasteful? How can transportation advocates push for more financing of such projects when Mr. Obama is solidifying their opponents’ claims that they are pork?
Then there are Virginia Beach’s actions necessary to balance the budget with declining revenues. Cutting spending means making very unpopular decisions. That means jobs being cut. It means some services being cut. It means bureaucracy being minimized and cut through. Those things have to happen and they’re not easy. It's painful. But it has to happen. Politically, City Council has to have the strength to do that. Unfortunately, there are Council members that lack stern stuff, and would rather initiate a garbage fee or raise property taxes rather than face the scowl of the City Manager.
Piled on all that, will the City contemplate underwriting a transportation system that requires a better than 70 percent subsidy to operate?
Plummeting tax revenues also have had a huge impact on the nation's largest ongoing mass transit project, the FasTracks light-rail system Colorado. Voters approved a sales tax increase in 2004 to pay for it. But costs ballooned and revenue fell far short of projections. (What else is new?) Voters will probably be asked to double that tax to finish construction on schedule.
Right now to get the whole thing built out by 2017, the original schedule, it's going to take another four-tenths-of-a-percent sales tax increase. If they don't get more revenues into the program, then it's going to be after 2035 that the whole FasTracks program is realized.
The decision whether or not to proceed with light rail in the current economical environment needs to be solidified by a city-wide referendum before wasting any additional funds on preparations and requesting scarce, or for that matter, unattainable funding.
5 comments
I'm trying to decide if you're engaging in wishful thinking or trying to scare people. Maybe both:
1. Both Federal and state mass transit and roads funds come from seperate dedicated accounts.
2. Bob McDonnell naming Norfolk LRT supporter Thelma Drake to be Director of Virginia's Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) clearly signals the new administration's intent to extend Norfolk's Starter Line.
3. The subsidy for buses is 70% and for rail 50%, not the "better than 70 percent" you try to scare people with.
4. The Bush Administration's FTA largely cleared the books of applicants waiting for LRT funds, so Virginia Beach would have few competitors for Federal money.
5. If Obama does do a second round of stimulus (as long rumored), having the Virginia Beach extension "shovel ready" would have us sitting very pretty.
6. Obviously what additional transportation dollars the Obama Administration does make available in outlying years will be mass transit and rail.
Thanks for the input. So your saying a possible 3 yr spending freeze will have no effect on the regional "light rail" efforts? Perhaps we could get a statement from the new be Director of Virginia's Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) on the Commonwealth's commitment on light rail and high speed priorities.
A Federal spending freeze would only impact if a slew of other localities suddenly launched studies out of the blue. That's unlikely.
Who knows how much larger President Obama and the Democratic Party controlled Congress and Senate will grow the Federal budget BEFORE the freeze? They have been spending (and borrowing) like there is no tomorrow since the last election cycle.
Even frozen at today's funding levels, if my memory serves me correctly, SAFETY-LU and TEA-3 contain a minimum of at least $750M in every authorization cycle for light rail and other mass transit spending. I am not sure how much is structured for new starts.
Of course, the question is this - what will a extension of the Norfolk Tide "starter line" be? A new Start or something else?
I believe that matters in regard to the pot of Federal tax money used to fund its construction.
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