[ infrastructure ]
The Road Ahead
West Virginia’s 55 counties are
now empowered to generate their
own funds to improve transportation infrastructure through a
county-wide sales tax increase.
Through House Bill 4009,
passed March 12, 2016, each
county can pursue a vote for up
to a one percent sales tax increase
to fund new transportation initiatives, such as roads and bridges.
“This is an opportunity to stir up interest for much-needed
projects that are important to our communities,” says Daniel
Kimble, Morgantown Area Chamber of Commerce’s former
president. “All 55 counties have the option to consider this tax
increase to support their transportation needs, but they are not
required to do so. The Legislature added the vote component
to give the counties the option to choose.”
Prior to voting, which must occur during a general election, project plans must be approved by the West Virginia Department of Highways and the West Virginia Department of
Transportation’s cabinet secretary to ensure there is sufficient
funding to complete the projects. Public meetings and hearings
will also occur before the general election. According
to Billy Atkins, chairman of the Morgantown Area
Chamber of Commerce’s transportation committee, this approach ensures residents will
know where the money is going.
Funding from the sales tax increase
must go toward the specifically named
projects. Once the projects conclude, the tax increase ends
and cannot be extended for
other efforts.
The tax increase
concept emerged
about three years
ago and originated with the Morgantown chamber’s transportation committee.
Kimble and Atkins collaborated with other chamber members,
local developers, the Monongalia
2016 Legislation
Paves the
Way for
Transportation
Improvements
in the
Mountain State
County Commission, Morgantown City Council, Morgantown
Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization and Monongalia County’s Delegate Joe Statler to pursue the legislation.
“We’ve watched the federal government continue to try to
downsize economically and knew the state numbers were already
showing decreases in funding,” says Kimble. “The answer wasn’t
going to magically appear from the outside—those days are past
us. We wanted to find a way to assist in our own solution.”
Monongalia County is currently preparing a project plan for
the 2018 general election. The Morgantown chamber’s transportation committee formed a sub-committee that is collaborating with the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization to explore which projects have the highest
priorities. Criteria for the projects include addressing the roads
that have the highest traffic counts as well as finding opportunities for job creation and promoting additional development.
“It is not uncommon for a trip across our small town to take
45 minutes or longer after 3 p.m.,” says Jason Donahue, a local
real estate developer and member of the chamber’s transportation committee. “I have worked and done business in major
metropolitan areas, and our traffic situation i n Morgantown
is much greater than the size of our population. We don’t have
a beltway. We are not D.C. or Atlanta. But relatively speaking, with Morgantown’s size, for it to take so much time to get
three to four miles makes no sense. Our roads need to catch
up to our population.”
Based on the projections from economists working with the
transportation committee, Kimble says they are hoping to generate $5-6 million for the projects.
“We honestly believe that across the state, counties and municipalities are going to have to be looking at every means possible to try to resolve their own issues,” he explains. “I don’t see
anything on the horizon from our economists that indicates we
are soon to return to a day of federal and state monies showering down on local entities. We firmly believe this is an investment, and we will only see more opportunities and more jobs
available in the Monongalia County region.”
Katlin Swisher
www.wvexecutive.com
summer 2016
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