June 23, 2008
Good morning,
I'm very pleased to be here today to add the support of the Virginia Business Council to the call for our elected officials to address the serious transportation challenge facing Virginia.
The Virginia Business Council is an association comprised of the senior management of nearly 30 of Virginia's largest employers. These companies provide more than 160,000 jobs to Virginians and pay millions of dollars in taxes to the Commonwealth.
The Council was formed to help advance and protect the business climate and quality of life in Virginia and has advocated in favor of robust investment in the critical infrastructure priorities that are needed to sustain and grow Virginia's economy.
The Council believes that a comprehensive and well functioning transportation system is a critical component of continued economic growth and development in the Commonwealth.
The Council also believes that an efficient commercial transportation and distribution system is vital to the economic competitiveness of Virginia and to the mobility and safety of its citizens.
After many years of effort to raise awareness of the need for investment in transportation, it appears that most of our elected leaders understand that Virginia's transportation infrastructure is inadequate. Further, most of them understand that there are significant and mounting costs associated with the failure to adequately address our transportation problems.
These costs include the simple, straight-forward, escalating costs of land acquisition, materials, and labor, which, over time, have significantly increased the cost of doing the same proposed transportation improvements.
These costs also include the more substantial and serious costs of reduced safety and mobility, lost economic growth and opportunity, and a declining quality of life for many Virginians.
I want to commend the Governor for his leadership and persistence in proposing and pursuing initiatives that provide substantial new investment in Virginia's transportation infrastructure.
The Virginia Business Council can support the Governor's transportation initiative or any other initiative that utilizes broad-based taxes or user fees to raise the required revenue to begin to solve our transportation challenge.
In our judgment, in order to adequately address Virginia's transportation challenge, a proposal must provide significant new revenue that addresses the priority needs in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads AND must address the statewide maintenance budget shortfall that is draining the Commonwealth's transportation construction budget.
The Council's call to action is that our elected officials reach consensus on adequate and sustainable new revenues for investment in desperately needed new and improved transportation infrastructure.
Many years of in-decision have caused us to head in a dangerous direction of declining transportation infrastructure. The time is now to change course by reaching consensus on an adequate funding plan that will put Virginia on the road to continued success and prosperity.