Region: Assembly Notes

Bills try to take tolls off table for I-81

Northern Virginia Daily

January 25, 2008

Daily Staff Reports

RICHMOND — The STAR Solutions plan to widen Interstate 81 may be dead, but a number of Shenandoah Valley legislators aren't taking any chances.

Sens. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, and Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Upperville, and Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock, have either introduced or signed on to support a series of bills that would make it more difficult to use tolls to fund an I-81 expansion.

Other valley legislators have also signed off on the bills or introduced their own anti-toll measures.

Plans by the Virginia Department of Transportation to widen the road took a major hit earlier this month when KBR, the major partner in the STAR Solutions consortium, pulled out of negotiations with the agency.

STAR had proposed a $13 billion expansion of the highway to be paid for with tolls on tractor-trailers. The legislation proposed by Obenshain and Gilbert would, among other things, require legislative approval before tolls could be imposed.

The legislation is pending before both the House and Senate transportation committees.