ray.reed@roanoke.com 981-3351

Virginia will run out of road-building money in 2014, and people don't realize it will mean missed health care, missed education and missed work.

That was the key message Monday at the Virginia Transportation Conference in Roanoke, where speakers explained that inflation and maintenance of roads will outstrip the dollars coming in for highway improvements.

The conference was put together by the Virginia Department of Transportation, whose commissioner, Philip Shucet, told several hundred people in the highway business that they have failed to tell the public that dire circumstances are ahead unless revenues increase.

The crunch begins at the federal level, where Congress still has not adopted the 2003 transportation bill and probably won't until 2005, said Jack Basso of the American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials, one of the industry's largest lobbies.

A conference committee is considering a $299 billion bill, trying to make it conform to the 18.5-cents-per-gallon fuel tax because few members of Congress want to raise a tax, Basso said.

Because of inflation, the current tax buys less new road than the 3-cents-per-gallon tax that was adopted in 1956. "We're driving a Model T, and we don't know it," Basso said. "We need to undo the politicizing of the program."

Virginia faces an even worse revenue outlook, said Barbara Reese, chief financial officer for VDOT.

Virginia highway revenues are expected to increase 2 percent each year through 2009, Reese said.

But the demands of maintenance, debt service and normal operations are growing faster than revenues, leaving less each year to pay for new roads.

Inflation is crucial, Reese said. Since Virginia last increased its state gasoline tax in 1986, a run-up in the cost of goods has eroded 40 percent of its buying power.

Also, inflation is unpredictable, Reese said. Many economists say it's expected to increase 1.9 percent a year the next six years. But its recent growth rate is 3 percent, she said, and inflation is higher for construction products.

Virginia's 20-year outlook is something like this, Reese said:

There will be 1.9 million more jobs (and commuters).

Population will increase from 7 million (in 2000) to 9 million.

The number of vehicles will increase by 3 million.

"And we have no money. Thank you," Reese said, sitting down.

Shucet told the conference that transportation engineers tend to talk in technical terms and fail to let people know why transportation matters.

Shucet said traffic congestion keeps people from:

seeing doctors.

getting more education.

living in safety.

spending time with their family.

enjoying a better environment.

Lower-income children fail to keep doctor appointments because of transportation issues, he said. Elderly people also face transportation barriers in getting medical care.

Students spend more time on buses to and from school, and transportation can be a factor in attending college.

Emergency response times for heart attacks, and police response to crimes and accidents, also depend on transportation, Shucet said.

The quality of family life also is affected by transportation delays. Some 70 percent of working parents say they don't have enough time with their children; 63 percent of couples say they don't have enough time with their spouses; and 55 percent of working adults say they don't have enough time for themselves, Shucet said.

Nationwide, the annual cost of congestion rose from $14 billion in 1982 to $63 billion in 2002. It consumed 6 billion gallons of fuel.

"Couldn't we do something better with $63 billion?" he asked.

Shucet urged people at the conference to contact their friends and associates and build a groundswell of support for more transportation funding.

"Let's do our duty. Let's invest in transportation," Shucet said.