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WHEREAS, in creating HRTA, the House of Delegates (the Senate and the Governor concurring) declined to provide any material state funding source for needed transportation improvements in the region, and instead merely authorized HRTA to impose various local taxes and fees on citizens and businesses in the region; and WHEREAS, a legal proceeding styled Marshall v Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, record No. 071959, arose calling into question the constitutionality of HR T A; and WHEREAS, on February 29, 2008 the Supreme Court of Virginia unanimously held that a funding mechanism identical to that created for HR T A is unconstitutional because the General Assembly had improperly delegated its own taxing authority to HRT A; and WHEREAS, this determination that HR T A's principal funding source is unconstitutional now creates an abyss in which there is no source of funding whatsoever to meet the critical transportation needs of the Hampton Roads region, thus not only causing undue inconvenience and expense throughout the region, but also jeopardizing the state economy and having a negative effect on national security; and WHEREAS, the entire Route 58 corridor, which commences or terminates at the Midtown Tunnel, has long been envisioned as a statewide Trade Corridor funded primarily by the state, and yet the state has failed to provide critically needed state funding to expand the Midtown Tunnel portion of Route 58. WHEREAS, it has been clear for over four hundred years in Virginia, since the arrival of English settlers at Jamestown on May 13, 1607, that providing an adequate state highway and transportation system is a state responsibility, as evidenced in part by the following representative events and conditions: · In September of 1632, the Virginia House of Burgesses adopted the very first highway legislation in America. · In 1772, the Virginia General Assembly authorized the first toll road in America, to-wit a toll road in Augusta County over the mountain between Jenning's Gap and Warm Springs. · In February of 1816, the General Assembly established the nation's first state board of public works and created a fund for internal improvement. The board was given the unprecedented power to appoint a "principal engineer" to deal in part with public transportation needs of the state. · The James River and Kanawha Canal was conceived of by George Washington as a trade route between central Virginia and the Ohio Valley, and it was commenced in 1785. · The Northwestern Turnpike was constructed in 1827 beginning in Winchester and connecting Virginia with profitable trade in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. It is known today as Route 50.