HOT lanes cannot be the only answer

Opinion

On Monday morning, I had the opportunity to attend a Transportation Summit sponsored by the Fredericksburg Area Chamber of Commerce.  A big takeaway from the summit was that our elected leadership in Richmond is failing us on the issue of transportation.

When I served as the Aquia District Supervisor in Stafford County, state officials came to the Stafford Board to gain our support for the HOT Lanes. We told them back then that Stafford could not support this idea unless the lanes extended down to Massaponax, because we knew the terrible bottleneck that would be caused at the end of the lanes. 

Here we are in 2015 and the HOT Lanes have created a nightmare for the residents of this region. Not only could you pay up to $20 one-way to get to DC, but on your return trip home, you will undoubtedly sit in several miles of backup to get off the lanes at Garrisonville Road.  You may think that your toll money is being put back into the state coffers to build roads, but that’s not necessarily true. If profits exceed a certain threshold, then the state may share in those profits. Most of that profit is going to Transurban, a foreign company, and not to our roads. Additionally, if Transurban does not bring in enough money, the Virginia taxpayer is on the hook to make up the difference.  This is the transportation solution that your Delegate, Speaker Bill Howell, has brought you after 28 years in office.  He obviously does not sit in rush hour traffic on I-95, like the rest of us do.

We are so behind in maintaining and upgrading our transportation infrastructure that many see the gridlock on I-95 (the major artery up and down the East Coast) as an issue of national security.  If there were a disaster, could we even effectively evacuate the Nations Capital?  We must work with our federal partners to expand VRE service, extend Metro to at least Woodbridge, and repair our structurally deficient bridges.

Traffic is the hidden tax that we all are paying. We pay it by missing out on our kids soccer games, by not having the time to be a Girl Scout leader, by being held hostage in our homes on the weekends. We pay it with poor health. We pay it in decreased property values. And as Charles McDaniel, long-time owner of Hilldrup Moving & Storage said at the Transportation Summit, we pay for it in reduced business productivity, because we are all sitting in traffic.

This is unacceptable. Speaker Howell has lead us into this nightmare, and we deserve better. We deserve a Delegate with the foresight to invest in transportation infrastructure that will benefit every resident and business in our community.  I ask for your vote on November 3^rd because elections matter. I will go to Richmond to stand up and fight for meaningful, long-term solutions.  I will go to Richmond and work everyday to improve your quality of life.

*Kandy Hilliard is a former member of the Stafford Board of Supervisors and is currently running for the 28^th District seat in the Virginia House of Delegates.