The Virginia Commonwealth Transportation Board has approved a six-year, $18.6 billion improvement program that will fund more than 3,600 state transportation projects beginning July 1, 2017.
Projects include highway, road, bridge, rail, transit, bicycle/pedestrian paths and other transportation improvements across the state. The program allocates $15.2 billion to highway construction, broken out by the following categories:
- $1.1 billion – State of Good Repair
- $2.1 billion – SMART SCALE
- $0.7 billion – Legacy Programs
- $3.4 billion – Specialized Programs
- $1.2 billion – Revenue Sharing
- $1.6 billion – Maintenance
- $0.1 billion – Research and Planning
- $3.9 billion – Public-Private Partnerships
- $1.1 billion – Local and Regional Funding
Rail and public transportation receives $3.4 billion, with $2.6 billion set aside for public transportation projects and $817 million for rail initiatives.
The increase from the previous year is due to a large increase in project participation contributions from the regional entities and localities, offsetting a significant reduction in state revenue and lower use of bond proceeds. Without the increased project contributions, the fiscal year 2018 budget would have been $315 million less, or a 4 percent reduction from the fiscal year 2017 budget. The annual budget is based on the most recent official state revenue forecast from December 2016 and estimated federal funding.