Delays Cost Virginia Funding

The Coalfields Expressway has encountered a dead end.

The Virginia Department of Transportation on Thursday confirmed that the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) terminated prior approval of federal funds for the Virginia portion of the expressway - proposed to start at the West Virginia border in Buchanan County and run 51 miles southwest to connect to U.S. Route 23 near Pound in Wise County.

The first phase was 6.5 miles in Buchanan County carrying a price tag of nearly $31 million, according to VDOT Chief Engineer Mal Kerley. He said planning for that segment will continue, but in the meantime state officials must negotiate a new financial arrangement with the federal government. Kerley said total cost estimates for the project once stood at $3.2 billion.

In a June 2 letter to Virginia Transportation Commissioner Philip A. Shucet, FHWA Division Administrator Roberto Fonseca-Martinez said the agency "has determined that the referenced project is not meeting the goals of the Special Experimental Projects-14 (SEP-14) program. Therefore, it is no longer in the public interest to continue to allow this project to be developed with federal funds under the SEP-14 program.

"On May 17, 2001, this office approved the project to be advanced via the Virginia Public-Private Transportation Act (PPTA) of 1995 under FHWA's SEP-14 program. The principal reason for FHWA's approval of this project under the SEP-14 program was that the procedure outlined would expedite the construction of the project, as indicated in your March 23, 2001, request.

"The entire 51 miles of the Coalfields Expressway was anticipated to be completed in 2012. Currently, the project is significantly behind schedule with no anticipated date for the start of construction of the first eight-mile (approximately) section of the project.

"Thus, based on the inability to meet the goals set in your application, FHWA will not continue to participate in this project with federal funds under the SEP-14 program. Our office will participate in the previously authorized work, such as completion of the design for Section A. We will also consider participating in the further development of this project using standard contracting procedures."

Kerley said SEP-14 funding is outside the "normal" procurement process, which is where the state must now go to arrange new federal financial support for the project. He said SEP-14 is "just one of the tools in the toolbox to deliver the program, and it was the avenue we were moving on the project."

He said VDOT is "exploring possibilities of what to do next."

VDOT spokeswoman Tamara Neale said the agency remains committed to building the Coalfields Expressway, and federal financial support for such an expensive project is "the only way you stay in the game on that."

Kerley and Neale said the state will now pursue "standard contracting procedures" with the FHWA as Fonseca-Martinez suggested.

[imported_Sportsman]

Rick Boucher says otherwise.

Boucher vows Coalfields Expressway will proceed
Saturday, June 25, 2005

By STEPHEN IGO
Times-News

U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said Friday a federal agency's decision to pull funding from the Coalfields Expressway is a "bureaucratic glitch" that can be ironed out one way or another. He emphasized that the decision, while a momentary setback, hasn't killed the project altogether.

On June 2, the Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) informed the Virginia Department of Transportation that approval of federal funding under the agency's SEP-14 program (Special Experimental Projects) was being terminated because of delays getting the Coalfields Expressway under construction.

Boucher said he is confident SEP-14 funding will be restored because Virginia can make a strong case about progress being made on the project. The 51-mile four-lane highway is Virginia's portion of the thoroughfare venturing southwest out of West Virginia - beginning at the West Virginia Turnpike/Interstate 77 near Beckley - and much of the highway in that state has been or is being built.

In Virginia, the Coalfields Expressway is to proceed west-by-southwest from the West Virginia border at Buchanan County to link up with U.S. Route 23 near Pound in Wise County. And it will, Boucher said.

"It is important for people in our area to know what (the decision) means and what it doesn't mean," Boucher said. "This decision does not threaten the Coalfields Expressway project. It is what I would call a bureaucratic glitch, which I hope is correctable. Bureaucratic glitches are not unusual (within the beltway of the nation's capital), and we deal with those every day about a wide variety of projects."

Boucher said even if the agency's decision stands, the FHWA remains committed to providing 80 percent of the funding for the project.

"It remains a high-priority corridor within the national highway system, and that designation qualifies the road for 80 percent federal funding, and that status is unchanged," Boucher said. "This decision in no way affects the federal funding that we have made available to the Coalfields Expressway to this date."

He said the federal contribution to the project to date is $95.3 million, "and that funding is still available."

He said nearly $38 million has been invested into the project to date for planning, design and preliminary right of way acquisition, "and none of that is affected by that decision."

Boucher said he spoke with new Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer about two weeks ago about the situation. He said Homer is collecting information "which responds to the (FHWA) letter that shows the progress we are making and that we are able through the public-private partnership to conduct a number of elements of the project simultaneously. We will demonstrate (to the agency) the ways which (the project) has progressed."

Boucher said he has spoken with FHWA's Roberto Fonseca-Martinez, the agency's division administrator who informed state officials of the decision, "and he expressed a broad willingness to enter discussions and entertain information that was not available when that decision was made."

SEP-14 permits expedited contracting procedures to build a road, Boucher said, "and we are going back to say, "?We should be qualified for (the funding) because you may not be aware of the elements of the progress we are making.'"

The Coalfields Expressway was one of the first public-private partnership highway construction projects entered into by Virginia, inked by former Gov. Jim Gilmore during his final week in office. Part of the state's Public-Private Transportation Act that makes such projects possible is for private contractors to bring either direct financial investment or a similar element of risk into the road-building venture.

In this case, contractors proposed to mine coal where available along the corridor route, a proposal that buys down the cost of the project to taxpayers because a contractor will do at least some of the heavy roadbed earthwork ahead of actual highway construction. Taxpayers win by getting a cheaper project, and the contractor wins not only by making a profit off the coal, but by waiver of certain federal and state environmental restrictions on surface coal mining, such as restoring a mined area to its approximate original contours.

State Sen. William Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, said he was a bit dismayed to learn of the FHWA's decision to terminate the Coalfields Expressway project from further SEP-14 funding.

"How in the world can a federal and a state agency come to the conclusion that a vital project of this magnitude is stopped without first trying to fix any problems?" he asked. "And secondly, do it without giving everyone a chance to revise whatever needs to be fixed?"

The Coalfields Expressway isn't in his district, but Delegate Terry Kilgore, R-Gate City, said the project is so important for the region that he will join his Southwest Virginia delegation compatriots to help find and forge solutions.

"This is a regional project, and that makes it important for all of us in Southwest Virginia. What we ought to do is step back and look at it, and just go ahead with what state money we've committed - and that's somewhere over $100 million - and start the construction," he said. "What I'm concerned about it is we signed a contract to proceed with this public-private partnership, and I think we may be bound to follow that contract."

For economic development we need this badly. I don't go along with this just being a glitch. But if this goes on the back burners for long. Economically it will kill SWVA. Many were looking to this to help with their economic planning for new businesses and industries.
And some have added it in their layout to attract business to SWVA or far SWVA as i am now told we are called.
I hope Boucher is correct. If not this could be one of those put on the back burners for years, which would kill us here locally, especially attracting the kind of big and good paying industry jobs.

[imported_Sportsman]

So realistically, how many years til we see this road?

Honestly if it gets pushed back to the back burners. 6 yrs. maybe more.
And that is based on what i understand as what the state uses as their need and ability to supply. VA statewide does a 4, 6 and 10 yr plan. So basically this gets pushed back, we may not see this project ongoing for 6-10 yrs.
What gets me, we had a surplus budget, to use this year that a large portion was to go to roads, yet where is it, and why wasn't this project included, in that as vital as it is to the growth of this area.
Honestly i'd like a few answers from those in the know on this. Cause economically it will set us back 6- 10 yrs probably more. We won't be able to include it in our economic packages.

Their po'ed wonder about all the local counties, who sank thousands into, well what will amount to nothing, if this doesn't become reality.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore and state Sen. William Wampler Jr., R-Bristol, raked the Virginia Department of Transportation's handling of the Coalfields Expressway project during a joint teleconference on Saturday.

Kilgore also took jabs at the Warner/Kaine administration for what he said is an example of a failure of leadership on a project that lost federal funding earlier this month.

On June 2, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) informed state officials it was revoking further funding for the Coalfields Expressway because Virginia has yet to build a single inch of the 51-mile road.

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore inked a public-private construction pact in 2001 that secured 80 percent federal funding for the Coalfields Expressway under the FHWA's SEP-14 program (special experimental projects) where private contractors will mine and sell coal extracted during the road-building process and taxpayers get a cheaper four-lane highway out of the deal.

On Thursday, DeLacey Skinner, spokeswoman for Democratic Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine's gubernatorial campaign, blamed Gilmore for staking the future of the Coalfields Expressway project on a shaky funding foundation. On Saturday, she said the behind-the-scenes take really is that the SEP-14 funding mechanism is little more than a wink and a nod method of funding, but Kaine is committed not only to the project but restoration of those funds.

On Friday, 9th District Congressman Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said the FHWA's revocation of further funding under SEP-14 was little more than a "bureaucratic glitch" that can be worked out one way or another, and the Coalfields Expressway isn't threatened.

On Saturday, Kilgore and Wampler said the funding fiasco finally exposes an internal VDOT bias against a Southwest Virginia highway project and a lack of leadership and commitment to that project on the part of their friends on the other side of the partisan fence.

Wampler claims the Coalfields Expressway is only the most recent example of a number of regional highway projects whose completion the General Assembly has made a law, and VDOT has blithely ignored.

"Exits 14 and 17 (I-81) and Moccasin Gap, now the Coalfields Expressway. The General Assembly hasn't simply appropriated the money for projects that aren't ever built, but made it the law to build them," Wampler said. "I'm not a lawyer and maybe the (former state Attorney General Jerry Kilgore) can elaborate on this, but I understand there is a writ of mandamus in the law. We might have to go to court to compel somebody (in state government) to follow the law."

Wampler said he empathizes with VDOT's challenge to manage a complex transportation budget where there are never enough dollars to go around, but the Coalfields Expressway "is not a request. It's a statute."

"I don't know how many more of these bureaucratic glitches we can take," Kilgore said of a highway project that has been gabbed to death in Virginia since 1989. West Virginia, meanwhile, didn't just talk the talk but has built and is building its portion of the highway that will link U.S. Route 23 near Pound in Wise County to the West Virginia Turnpike/I-77 near Beckley, W.Va.

"There has been resistance within VDOT to this project from day one," said Kilgore. Wampler said the agency's shrug at legislative directives speaks for itself. He said the General Assembly told VDOT "you're going to build this road and here's the money to build it with." That was in 2000 and, five years later, Wampler is steamed over a bureaucratic glitch.

"The absolutely most frustrating point out of this exercise is how the (FHWA) and a few executives in Richmond decide we're going to stop the Coalfields Expressway," Wampler said. "How in the world can unelected bureaucrats stop something of this importance? Why were we not given an opportunity to address this?"

Kilgore said the Kaine campaign's blame for the loss of funding is "typical Kaine-speak. The General Assembly is clear (about the project) in its budget language, and we've not seen one portion of this road paved since (Warner/Kaine took office.) They want to blame everything on a past administration. Come on, we're almost finishing four years, here." He said the Kaine campaign wants to have it both ways: blame Gilmore for having the gall to secure federal funding for the project, and for losing it four years after he left office.

Kilgore said the funding fiasco exposes a "lack of leadership" in the Warner/Kaine administration that will be corrected once he is elected governor in November. Wampler said he believes the Coalfields Expressway needs a new "project manager" and that person will be Kilgore as the next governor.