Governor seeks to remove I-81 toll threat
The News Leader
May 13, 2010
Staff Report
The Shenandoah Valley may be spared the threat of massive highway widening on I-81 as Gov. Bob McConnell asked federal highway officials Tuesday to switch state tolling authority to the I-95 corridor.
“This is a tremendous relief to local governments, civic, and business groups arguing for the past eight years that we can’t afford costly tolls on cars and trucks for a destructive plan to expand I-81,” Kate G. Wofford, executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Network of conservation groups, said in a release.
Such a move would make it almost impossible to raise the nearly $12 billion that would enable state plans to expand I-81 to eight to 12 lanes.
Federal officials granted Virginia the authority to levy tolls on I-81, as part of the planning process to fund widening all 325 miles of the interstate, according to the release. However, the state legislature passed a measure in 2007 requiring General Assembly approval before state transportation officials could toll I-81.
“Valley residents have consistently said that they want neither the tolls on I-81 nor the excessive widening that the tolls would fund,” Wofford said. “We agree that I-81 needs improvements as well as expanded rail freight service to get more trucks off the highway, but these goals are achievable without tolling Valley residents, businesses, and visitors.”
Last month, the governor approved the sale of $500 million in bonds to fund transportation projects around the Commonwealth, including truck climbing lane projects in the I-81 corridor, the release stated.
“Tolling facilities in the Shenandoah Valley—where the mountains, rivers, and historic resources are so close to the interstate—do not make sense,” said W. Denman Zirkle, executive director of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. “So we are glad to see what appears to be the beginning of the end of those plans. We hope that this conversation leads to a more reasonable focus on highway and rail improvements that deliver more bang for our transportation dollars.”
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