VA State Senator Wants More Lanes on 66 Before Tolls

7AM UPDATE – According to published reports, a compromise deal concerning an expanded I-66 could be announced in Richmond later on Wednesday. 

Steve Burns
WMAL

RICHMOND – (WMAL) A new proposal to derail Governor Terry McAuliffe’s plan to toll Interstate 66 inside the Beltway may be hitting a roadblock itself. State Senator Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, proposed a bill to mandate widening the highway before it can be tolled, but it was not received favorably by a subcommittee this week. It goes in front of the full Transportation Committee today.

“My bill’s very simple. It just says you can only have tolls on newly-created lanes on I-66,” Petersen told WMAL. “You cannot take existing lanes and put a toll on it.”

McAuliffe has said his studies show widening the highway alone would provide little benefit. Petersen doesn’t buy it.

“I don’t really care what the statistics say. I know what my eyes tell me, and that is you need to widen 66 if you’re going to have any impact on traffic,” he said. “Right now we have two lanes going either way in Arlington County, and that’s just not sufficient capacity, period.”

His main objection to McAuliffe’s plan as it stands now, he said, was that there will be no new improvements, though McAuliffe’s plan calls for using toll revenue to enhance mass transit options through the corridor.

“I support mass transit, but the bottom line is actual lane capacity itself is important. There’s a reason we have highways and not bike lanes going into D.C.,” he said. “It’s because people use automobiles.”

Despite the opposition Petersen’s bill saw in subcommittee, he is not giving up on it.

“I may not be able to get my bill out of the full committee, but that doesn’t mean that when similar bills come to the floor I can’t amend them. It doesn’t mean I can’t put an amendment on the budget,” he said. “It doesn’t mean there’s not a half dozen different tricks I can use in this legislative process to either get what I want, or hold up the overall project until we get something that makes sense.”

His proposal may face further opposition past the General Assembly. Arlington County has threatened to sue in the past to prevent widening the highway in the West Falls Church-Ballston corridor.

“People can threaten a lawsuit. That’s no big deal. We have an Attorney General to represent the state,” Petersen said. “Bottom line is, we put a man on the moon, we can figure out a way to put six lanes through Arlington.”