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2006 SESSION

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SENATE BILL NO. 13 Offered January 11, 2006 Prefiled December 9, 2005 A BILL to amend and reenact §§ 33.1-221 and 33.1-221.1:1 of the Code of Virginia, relating to funds for access roads to industrial sites, etc., and funds for industrial access rail tracks. ---------- Patron-- Reynolds ---------- Referred to Committee on Transportation ----------

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Virginia:

1.  That §§ 33.1-221 and 33.1-221.1:1 of the Code of Virginia are amended and reenacted as follows:

§ 33.1-221. Funds for access roads to industrial sites and airports; construction, maintenance, etc., of such roads.

A. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, there shall be appropriated to the Commonwealth Transportation Board funds derived from taxes on motor fuels, fees and charges on motor vehicle registrations, road taxes or any other state revenue allocated for highway purposes, which shall annually allocate from the Transportation Trust Fund funds to be used by the Board for the purposes hereinafter specified in this section, after deducting the costs of administration before any of such funds are distributed and allocated for any road or street purposes. The amount of such allocation shall be $2.75 million for fiscal year 2006-2007, and shall be increased each fiscal year thereafter, based on increases in the Consumer Price Index.

Such funds shall be expended by the Board for constructing, reconstructing, maintaining or improving access roads within counties, cities and towns to industrial sites on which manufacturing, processing or other establishments will be built under firm contract or are already constructed and to licensed, public-use airports; in the event there is no such establishment or airport already constructed or for which the construction is under firm contract, a county, city, or town may guarantee to the Board by bond or other acceptable device that such will occur and, should no establishment or airport acceptable to the Board be constructed or under firm contract within the time limits of the bond, which shall not commence prior to the date on which such funds are made available to the county, city, or town, such bond shall be forfeited. Towns which receive highway maintenance payments under § 33.1-41.1 shall be considered separately from the counties in which they are located when receiving allocations of funds for access roads.

B. In deciding whether or not to construct or improve any such access road, and in determining the nature of the road to be constructed, the Board shall base its considerations on the cost thereof in relation to the volume and nature of the traffic to be generated as a result of developing the airport or the industrial establishment within the total industrial area. In any industrial park or airport, the total volume of traffic to be generated shall be taken into consideration in regard to the overall cost thereof. No such access road shall be constructed or improved on a privately owned plant site.

C. Any access road constructed or improved under this section shall constitute a part of the secondary system of state highways or the road system of the locality in which it is located and shall thereafter be constructed, reconstructed, maintained and improved as other roads in such system.

§ 33.1-221.1:1. Fund for construction of industrial access railroad tracks.

A. The General Assembly declares it to be in the public interest that access railroad tracks and facilities be constructed to certain industrial commercial sites where rail freight service is or may be needed by new or substantially expanded industry and that financial assistance be provided to areas seeking to furnish rail freight trackage between the normal limits of existing or proposed common carrier railroad tracks and facilities and the actual site of existing or proposed commercial or industrial buildings or facilities. This section is enacted in furtherance of these purposes and is intended to be comparable to the Industrial Access Roads Fund, established pursuant to § 33.1-221.

B. The funding for this program shall be set forth in the Appropriations Act Commonwealth Transportation Board shall annually allocate from the Transportation Trust Fund funds to be used by the Board for the purposes specified in this section, after deducting the costs of administration before any  such funds are distributed and allocated. The amount of such allocation shall be $2.75 million for fiscal year 2006-2007, and shall be increased each fiscal year thereafter, based on increases in the Consumer Price Index.

C. The Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation shall administer and expend or commit, subject to the approval of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, such funds for constructing, reconstructing, or improving industrial access railroad tracks and related facilities. The Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation may consult with the Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the Executive Director of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, or their designated representatives, concerning applications for funds. Funds shall be spent directly by the Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation or by reimbursement of the local entities, private or public.

D. Funds may be used to construct, reconstruct, or improve part or all of the necessary tracks and related facilities on public or private property currently used or being developed, existent or prospective, for single industries or industrial subdivisions under firm contract or already constructed, including those subdivisions owned or promoted by railroad companies and others. Applications for funds must be approved by the local governing body.

E. In deciding whether to construct any such access track, the Commonwealth Transportation Board shall consider the cost thereof in relation to prospective volume of rail traffic, capital investment, potential employment, and other economic and public benefits. The Commonwealth Transportation Board shall adopt procedures to encourage widespread use of the funds, shall limit allocation of funds so that no county, city or town receives more than twenty-five percent of the funds in any one fiscal year unless there are not sufficient applications prior to May 1 of each year to use the available funds, and shall consider the practices of the Department of Transportation in distributing industrial access road funds under § 33.1-221.

F. Tracks and facilities constructed with such funds shall be the property of the Commonwealth for the useful life of the project as determined by the Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation and shall be made available for use by all common carriers using the railway system to which they connect. The landowners or using businesses shall, prior to the commitment of funds by the Director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation, be contractually committed to the perpetual maintenance of such tracks and facilities so constructed and to the payment of any costs related to the future relocation or removal of such tracks and facilities.