RICHMOND — Republican Bob McDonnell called for redirecting some stimulus cash, selling state liquor stores and more highway tolls, including on two inbound freeways from North Carolina if he’s elected governor.
In outlining his ideas for funding billions of dollars in backlogged transportation projects on Tuesday, McDonnell also proposed allowing motorists to speed up from 65 mph to 70 mph on some highway stretches.
The proposal, unveiled at a made-for-the-cameras event atop a parking deck overlooking a perpetually jammed freeway in Arlington came a day after his Democratic foe, state Sen. Creigh Deeds, discussed ideas about transportation among his economic proposals.
It also came the same day lame duck Democratic Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced $260 million in federal stimulus package for priority transportation projects for Arlington and three other major localities in the Washington suburbs.
There and in Hampton Roads, the state’s two most populous and gridlocked regions, transportation is a daily burden and perennial priority — one that has gotten nowhere in two special legislative sessions the past four years.
McDonnell said he believes his blend of the conventional and unconventional ideas can succeed where others have not.
He wants to sell Virginia’s state-owned liquor stores and plow the revenues into highways, and boost the speed limit on some stretches of open road to 70 mph.
Selling the state’s Alcoholic Beverage Control, McDonnell estimated, would yield about $500 million alone, not counting $179 million in annual taxes on spirits that would also go to highways.
Tolls on cars entering Virginia on Interstates 85 and 95 from the south is possible now where it had not been in the past because of new willingness of North Carolina to consider it, McDonnell said.
The tolls from the northbound lanes of I-95 would be used to maintain the primary East Coast highway artery in Virginia. Revenues from the I-85 tolls would support expansion of U.S. into a freeway from Petersburg east into Hampton Roads.
McDonnell says he also wants Congress to allow $900 million in stimulus cash reserved for 2011 to be spent in Virginia now, and to allow its use for transportation.
He also called for dedicating a portion of the sales tax collected in northern Virginia and route it to a fund exclusively for transportation initiatives in the region.
Deeds said some of McDonnell’s ideas are palatable, but its basis is gimmickry that could take money from public education.
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