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This report provides a comprehensive summary of practices in Virginia jurisdictions for the purpose of raising local revenue for transportation purposes. To the extent possible, every current practice was located in the Code of Virginia to enable tracking of developments in the statutes and permissions referenced in the report. Transportation districts featuring special in-district taxation for the funding or financing of district transportation projects have a 55-year history in Virginia, with a number of variations approved and rescinded by the Virginia General Assembly over the years. Major transportation districts exist currently on a scale from the multijurisdictional/regional to specific highway corridors, and they scale down to the residential neighborhood at the most local level. Urban settings are conducive to successful regional transportation districts in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. The strategy of tax increment finance areas is practiced widely in urban jurisdictions as well. Not least, Virginia has a long history of tolled highway facilities in urban areas. For jurisdictional control, however, specific legislative permission is required. In more rural areas of Virginia, local transportation funding has been derived from coal and gas extraction, the Virginia Tobacco Commission, and three federal agencies that target communities in relative need. A concentration of such communities has long been identified in southern and southwest Virginia. These funding sources can usually be pooled effectively for local transportation projects. By Dillon’s Rule, Virginia jurisdictions currently have de jure permission under the Code of Virginia to enact several means of local revenue generation for transportation, but they must meet eligibility rules to implement others. Yet the Code of Virginia is a living document with the potential to be changed annually by the Virginia General Assembly, and transportation funding is a perennial subject of intense legislator interest and involvement.
In 2003, the Virginia Department of Transportation developed a list of alternative transportation funding sources available to localities in Virginia. Alternative funding sources are defined as those that are not included in the annual interstate, primary, secondary, and urban allocations available through VDOT's Six-Year Improvement Program. The Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, passed by the U.S. Congress in 2005, eliminated some of these programs and created new opportunities. Accordingly, the list of funding sources was updated based on information available as of December 2005. State and federal funding sources and programs, and their potential uses, are detailed in this report. In some cases, the program described does not provide money above the normal annual allocations but rather allows the allocations for the primary, secondary, or urban system to be used for bicycle and pedestrian projects, following the standard VDOT project development process, or road improvement projects that use a simplified design and construction process.
The focus of this research is Virginia's Secondary Highway Construction System funding allocations and its impact on statewide deficient lane miles reduction. The research question guiding this study is: "Which of the four allocation models -- the current Secondary Highway System allocation model or one of three alternatives of this model based on Brian D. Taylor's geographic equity categories (outcome, opportunity, and market) best maximizes statewide deficient lane miles reductions?" Taylor defines each of these geographic equity categories (independent variables for this study) for all levels of government. While Taylor's research focus has been on equity as it relates to transit and congestion pricing, this study applied his construct to highways. As a result of scanning subjects related to transportation, the need for this study became apparent. Since the 1980's, Virginia's highway allocation formula has not changed (Virginia Department of Transportation, 2005). The Virginia General Assembly has sponsored follow-up studies through a series of resolutions over the years (Auditor of Pubic Accounts, 2004). To date, none of the legislatively sponsored research findings have prompted an update of Virginia's highway allocation formula (Virginia Transportation Research Council, 2008). There is a significant academic and professional literature on federal transportation politics and specific transportation engineering issues. However, there is very limited research on the development of state level highway transportation funding methodologies. This study used the quantitative research approach, which is concerned with determining the relationship between one factor (an independent variable) and another (a dependent or outcome variable) in a population (Walker, 2005, Newman, 1998, and Geddes, 1990). Therefore, this study employed the quantitative research approach to study cause and effect (Mulhall, 2004, Loughborough, 1995, and Collier 1995) relationships of Virginia's Secondary construction allocations to individual counties and statewide deficient lane miles reductions overall. The .20 portion of the formula for area was examined because this data rarely changes due to locality annexations. Conversely, the .80 portion of the formula was excluded from the analysis because of the demographic variability due to population shifts. As such, the Federal Highway Administration and states update population statistics from the decennial census with the apportionment of funds for formula based programs such as Virginia's Secondary Highway Construction program (Federal Register, 2002). This researcher concluded that of the four geographic allocation models, the geographic opportunity equity maximized an additional 4.15 statewide deficient lane miles reductions over the baseline model. This study recommends using the geographic opportunity equity model when allocating Virginia's Secondary Highway Construction funds to maximize the statewide deficient lane miles reductions above the baseline model, the geographic market equity model and the geographic outcome equity model.

Report of the Select Committee to Review the Findings and Recommendations of the Virginia Department of Transportation Concerning the Sufficiency and Distribution of Funds in the Transportation Trust Fund to the Governor and the General Assembly of Virginia

Virginia. Select Committee to Review the Findings and Recommendations of the Virginia Department of Transportation Concering the Sufficiency and Distribution of Funds in the Transportation Trust Fund

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 26


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