Transportation and transit issues took center stage Saturday morning at a Mount Vernon town hall hosted by state lawmakers from Northern Virginia.

State Sens. Toddy Puller (36th District) and Adam Ebbin (30th District), as well as Del. Scott Surovell (44th District), all Democrats, spoke before constituents during a two-hour event at the Mount Vernon Government Center. Puller said Route 1 north of Highway 235 will be widened, but the timetable is up in the air.

“You will see the funding for that, I do believe, but I don’t know whether it will be in my lifetime,” she said.

Puller noted that many Fort Belvoir employees are driving to the base from the south, also causing traffic back-ups toward Prince William County. 

Surovell noted that expansion at Fort Belvoir has increased traffic on both Route 1 and George Washington Parkway. “The parkway is taking more and more of this traffic, and that’s a road not designed for heavy volume,” he said.

Surovell said as part of the state’s Route 1 Transit Study, the state will provide funding for short- to medium-term improvements, and the county is funding the long-term component through a three-year alternatives analysis. Widening Route 1 from Interstate 95 to Woodlawn would cost $800 million, he said.

Also, Surovell said, preliminary site work has begun for the Mulligan Road project, where grading could begin as early as spring. “The relief is coming, I promise” he said.

Ebbin noted that the state’s gas tax, currently 17.5 cents per gallon, was last raised in 1986. Meanwhile, road-building materials have increased in price while gas mileage has improved, raising project costs while decreasing revenues. Surovell said increasing the gas tax by 5 cents per gallon would cost only $30 more per year for the average driver, but Gov. Bob McDonnell has vowed to veto any tax increase.

Ebbin told local residents he objected to the governor’s proposal to merge the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission and the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority. The commission focuses more on transit, while the transportation authority has a wider mandate, he said.

“They serve different functions because there are different jurisdictions involved in each, and different approaches,” Ebbin said.

Health care, voter ID rules discussed

The lawmakers also addressed health care in Virginia. Puller said she supports establishing a database tracking medical procedures costs at local facilities to help lower health care costs. “It’s a very important step forward in our health care practices,” she said.

Puller also said the state should set up its own health insurance exchange by 2014, lest the federal government impose an exchange on the state as part of the Affordable Care Act.

“I think we’d much rather have one that is set up, working with the entities that already exist in the commonwealth, and get them to agree on what we want in our health care exchange, which would be a way for people to get health care insurance,” she said. “… We are going to have one for Virginia that’s not imposed on us by the federal government.”

Surovell agreed, saying McDonnell is blocking progress toward creating an exchange in Virginia.

“If the federal government wants us to do something, it’s going to happen. So it’s much better if we’re proactive about it,” he said.

Surovell and Ebbin also spoke out against Republican plans to enact new voter ID restrictions, which critics claim discriminate and lower-income and minority voters. Under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, Virginia must submit voting law changes to the Justice Department for approval, and the department did not approve similar legislation in South Carolina, Ebbin noted.

“Show me the evidence of when was there vote-stealing in Virginia,” Ebbin said. “We don’t really know of that do be a problem.”

Surovell called voting “about as fundamental a constitutional right as it gets.”

“There hasn’t been a single documented example of a person impersonating a voter in this country in I don’t know how long, but there’s a big suspicion that all these people are coming across our borders from Mexico to vote, to change our elections, is one of the things we hear, which isn’t really realistic,” Surovell said.

“… It’s just a pure political power play is all it is. It has nothing to do with protecting the integrity of the vote.”

Legislative agendas

Ebbin also discussed bills he is introducing this session, including legislation to allow local school districts to choose when to begin the school year, prohibiting discrimination against gays and lesbians in adoptions, adding sports coaches to the class of individuals required to report suspected child abuse and studying the effects of solitary confinement in prison.

Surovell discussed his positions on various pieces of legislation, saying he is against using public tax dollars for private school enrollment, allowing home-schooled children to participate in public school sports or allowing another state’s concealed carry weapons permit to be valid in Virginia. He also said he supports permitting hunting on Sundays. He has is introducing bills that, among other issues, would support renewable energy, extend childcare subsidies and establish mental health services at community colleges.