Faced with a revenue drought, state officials have recommended cutting millions of dollars intended to help replace the ailing Belmont Bridge.
City officials have long planned to replace the aging span, which caused a stir in 2006 when it dropped softball-sized chunks of concrete on empty cars below.
“Unfortunately, there’s a lot more needs than we have money right now,” said Lou Hatter, Central Virginia spokesman for the Virginia Department of Transportation.
The Commonwealth Transportation Board proposes to nix $3.6 million it had planned to allot for the Route 20 bridge’s replacement over the next six years. The board will make a final decision in December, after a public hearing.
“The bridge just needs to be replaced,” said Charlottesville City Council member David Brown. “It’s an aging bridge.”
The work, which would reduce the bridge to one lane in each direction for about a year, was slated for 2008, but had since been pushed back to at least 2015.
State authorities have already dedicated $4.4 million in federal and state funds to the project, and city officials have also earmarked some funds. The project is predicted to cost roughly $9.2 million total.
Because the reductions the state recommended — the result of a prediction that revenues will drop another $851.5 million — are only preliminary, city officials say they hope to lobby for the bridge’s funding.
“I’m hoping that we’ll try to make a case that it needs to be put back in, but whether that’ll do any good or not … who knows?” Councilor Julian Taliaferro said.
City Council members said that Route 20’s path through the city is crucial.
“It links the north and south parts of the city,” Councilor Satyendra Huja said. “It is a major arterial route from Monticello to downtown.”
Taliaferro said the move is part of a broader pattern.
“This just one [example] of another disturbing trend, that the state continues to cut money and put the burden on the folks back home,” he said.
But even as fuel tax and Department of Motor Vehicles revenues tank, the state officials spared another Charlottesville bridge project.
A bridge on Jefferson Park Avenue near the Fry’s Spring neighborhood is currently not rated as strong enough for emergency vehicles. Hatter said the funding reflected the Common-wealth Transportation Board’s preference for projects that are already “in the pipeline.”
“That’s a situation where we’re almost ready to advertise that one for construction,” he said.
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