Gubernatorial candidates Timothy M. Kaine and Jerry W. Kilgore yesterday highlighted their differences over how to solve transportation problems in Northern Virginia.
Mr. Kaine, a Democrat, promised that if elected governor he would ensure that state lawmakers spend the 2006 legislative session fixing the state’s transportation system.
“We are at a crisis level in Virginia in transportation — there is no region that understands it more than Northern Virginia,” he said. “We understand that you are our economic engine. I know there is often frustration with the sense that Richmond doesn’t get the importance of Northern Virginia. I do.”
Mr. Kaine wants to spend budget surpluses on transportation infrastructure, dedicate insurance premium revenue to transportation and improve land-use planning.
Mr. Kilgore, a Republican, said he is committed to widening Interstate 66 inside the Beltway and building another span across the Potomac River.
“We’re going to get traffic moving in Northern Virginia, but we’re going to be decisive about it,” he said.
Mr. Kilgore wants to encourage more public-private partnerships and create regional transportation authorities with power to impose tolls on roads and raise or borrow money for local projects.
“You determine where the regional road needs to go. You determine when or where to build that road,” he said.
The candidates made their comments in Tysons Corner before a crowd of about 150 members of the Potomac Officers Club, made up of Northern Virginia business owners.
Both men want to put a lock on the Transportation Trust Fund so it is not used for any other purposes, and they have pledged to veto any budget that raids the fund.
The candidates also said the transportation referendum failed in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads in 2002 because voters did not trust Richmond lawmakers to spend the money on transportation.
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly criticized Mr. Kilgore at the event, noting that Northern Virginia already has its own regional transportation authority to oversee funds that would have been created if the referendum had passed.
“He had no proposal of any kind for additional or enhanced investment in Northern Virginia transportation,” said Mr. Connolly, a Democrat who supports Mr. Kaine. “No additional investment for transportation is a catastrophic recipe for Northern Virginia.”
Kilgore spokesman Tim Murtaugh later said the existing regional transportation authority in Northern Virginia is not empowered to take any action.
H. Russell Potts Jr., a Republican state senator from Winchester who is running for governor as an independent, was not invited to the meeting.
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