U.S. 460 at daybreak. Photo credit: VDOT.
One more tale from the Virginia Bloggers Day event: I asked about the McDonnell/Bolling administration’s plans to build a super-U.S. 460 highway between Petersburg and Suffolk, a project that encompasses $1 billion or so in toll financing, a $500 million commitment of state transportation funds, $5 million a year in Port of Virginia funds far into the future, and $50 million in tax credits for industries locating in the U.S. 460 corridor. (See “Taking a Closer Look at the Jobs Governor’s Industrial Policy.”)
Herewith is an amalgam of answers from Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling and Tucker Martin, McDonnell’s communications chief.
“Its a transportation initiative and an economic development initiative,” said Bolling.
Insofar as an upgraded highway would expedite hurricane evacuation from Hampton Roads, it’s a transportation initiative. But it’s mostly about economic development.
The driving force is the widening of the Panama Canal, which will allow larger, deeper-draft container ships to reach East Coast ports. Early on, thanks to its 50-foot channels, the port of Virginia will be the only East Coast port capable of accommodating the monster vessels. But other ports are working on improvements that would allow them to compete for the business. Big ships will drop off hundreds of thousands of containers yearly, only some of which can be handled by the railroads. Highway capacity will be a major bottleneck. If trucks can’t get in and out of the terminal, the port loses its competitive advantage.
The Q&A format allowed for limited follow-up. If I had had the time, I would have asked this: If the economics of the giant container vessels are so advantageous and if the Port of Virginia is so well situated to capture the big-ship traffic, why can’t shippers absorb the full cost of the U.S. 460 tolls? Why does the state need to buy down the tolls with $500 million in state funds?
What tolls will the trucks pay? What would they pay without a state subsidy? How much would the higher toll add to the cost of shipping containers through Hampton Roads, and how would that compare to the cost of shipping through other East Coast ports? What evidence do we have that the subsidy is required to accomplish the goal, which all Virginians want to see, of making the Port of Virginia the premier port on the eastern seaboard?
These are questions that legislators and members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board should be asking!
— JAB
