The Virginia House Transportation Committee held an orientation session with new Secretary of Transportation Nick Donahue of the Spanberger administration, who outlined transportation priorities including major projects in flight, highway safety concerns, WMATA capital funding needs, rail expansion, and emerging opportunities in advanced air mobility, autonomous vehicles, and the spaceport at Wallops Island. The committee adjourned following the presentation and Q&A, with no legislative action taken.
Secretary Donahue implicitly criticized the 2018 decision not to index WMATA's dedicated capital funding, stating: 'If we had indexed that money in 2018, I don't think I'd be talking to you about a capital funding need for wmata. For those of you who are here, you know there are a variety of reasons as to why that happened. I'm not going to get into that history because it doesn't really change where we are today.' No specific individuals were named.
“At the end of the day, the decisions that the Commonwealth Transportation Board makes, as well as decisions that the other agencies under the Secretary make, influence the economic competitiveness of Virginia, the affordability of Virginia. And so we owe it to those taxpayers whose money we're investing to be clear about the decisions that we're making, the rationale behind that, and then to take their comment and feedback very seriously as we make those decisions.”
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Sign in to subscribeThe House Transportation Committee will come to order and will go at ease as we wait for some additional members to arrive. Thank you, everyone. House committee on Transportation will come to order. If the clerk would please open the roll for attendance and you could please mark your presence on the voting board. It. Okay, the clerk will close the roll. We also have a new member appointed to our committee. If Delegate Pope Adams, would you like to take just a few seconds to introduce yourself and say where your district? Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning, everyone. I'm delegate Kimberly Pope Adams representing the 82nd district that covers Dinwiddie County, Prince George County, Surrey county and the city of Petersburg. So my district is about 90 miles wide, so I know a lot, about 460, and my bank account reflects that. So I'm thankful to be on this committee and I look forward to doing the work. Thank you so much. Welcome to the Transportation Committee. Delegate Pope Adams, we're really glad you're here. All right, so we are post crossover. So we're waiting for Senate bills to be assigned to our committee. We'll be handling legislation…
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