SD3 - Executive Summary of the Joint Subcommittee to Study the Role of the Commonwealth and Its Agencies in Meeting Virginia's Future Transportation Needs (SJR 60, 2006)


    Executive Summary:
    The Joint Subcommittee was created by the 2006 Regular Session of the General Assembly with a two-year mandate. During the 2006 interim, the committee held three meetings, at the first of which the Subcommittees co-chairs stated the purpose of the joint subcommittee to be (i) determining what the 21st century Virginia Department of Transportation should look like and to (ii) consider that administrative recommendations and legislative changes were necessary in order to maximize VDOT's efficiency. It was stressed that this would not be a panel that would analyze current or future transportation program funding.

    Events of the 2007 Session of the legislature, however, preempted the work of the Subcommittee expected to undertake during its second year of operation, when a large number of bills on a variety of subjects related not only to VDOT organization and efficiency, but also to transportation program funding, devolution of responsibility for aspects of Virginia's transportation program to local governments and regional transportation authorities, and related subjects were offered. Most of these measures were eventually combined into House Bill 3202, which was passed and signed into law by the Governor has Chapter 896 of the Acts of Assembly of 2007. The work of the Subcommittee having been thus preempted, the panel did not meet at all during the 2007 interim and its mandate has now expired. The committee does not plan to submit a formal report to the 2008 Session, nor does it plan to propose any legislation.