House passes Metro bill that hurts road funding, impact on Route 1 project unclear

Del. Paul Krizek, center, and Del. Mark Sickles, far left, and other Virginia House members discuss the Metro funding bill Wednesday in Richmond. (Alphonso Lopez photo)

A Metro funding bill passed by the Virginia General Assembly on Wednesday cuts a major funding source for transportation projects in the area, including the Route 1 widening project between Napper Road and Jeff Todd Way.

The bill passed after the House of Delegates had earlier in the afternoon voted down an amended Metro bill that would have raised taxes on real estate transactions and hotel stays, but spared Northern Virginia Transportation Authority (NVTA) funding . The House voted 50-48 along party lines to defeat that bill after it had cleared the Senate. All three House members representing parts of the Richmond Highway area — Paul Krizek, Mark Sickles and Kathy Tran — voted for the bill. 

Both the Richmond Highway widening project and the bus rapid transit (BRT) project for the Route 1 corridor are expected to receive significant funding from the NVTA. The $215 million widening project in particular is heavily dependent on the NVTA and ranked first among Fairfax County’s most recent funding request to the Authority.

While it’s too early to tell whether the Richmond Highway widening project will be affected — the NVTA will not announce any decisions on the 60 projects that are candidates for funding until June — one local politician said he remains optimistic the project will stay on track.

Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay said he’s hopeful because larger projects like the widening tend to be scored highest by the NVTA, due to the amount of congestion they are designed to relieve. Smaller projects, however, could be in serious jeopardy, he said. 

“I’m still very optimistic about the Route 1 project because it scores so high,” McKay said Wednesday. “I think the biggest victims in this are going to be the smaller projects on the [NVTA] list.”

Area politicians, including McKay, Mount Vernon Supervisor Dan Storck and Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, had joined with a bipartisan group of area politicians and organizations that had advocated over the past few weeks for Gov. Ralph Northam and House members to pass a Metro funding bill that spared the NVTA. In the end however, Northam’s amendments gained no traction among GOP members of the House.

McKay blasted two Northern Virginia delegates who voted against the amended funding bill, Republicans Tim Hugo of Fairfax and David LaRock of Loudoun County. 

“These two guys single handedly have put a major end to road building in Northern Virginia, if we’re not able to go back and look at this next year,” McKay said. 

But McKay said he expects the issue to be revisited at next year’s General Assembly session and encouraged community members to speak out about the NVTA funding cut. 

“My hope is that there’s going to be such a visceral reaction to this, that there’s going to be a sense of urgency and a requirement that in the next general assembly that they’re going to fix,” McKay said. “The devastating effect on our road projects is going to be known a year from now.”