Senator Tim Kaine visits Shore to tout new Federal funding

Virginia’s Senior Senator Tim Kaine visited the Eastern Shore on Wednesday and made two stops.

The first was to Tangier Island, where he announced he had introduced $25 million in the 2023 budget on the Senate side for Tangier Island to combat erosion of the island and sea level rise. The funding has not yet made it through the House of Representatives.

The second stop was in Cape Charles, where Kaine announced $2.5 million in federal funds through the revived earmark system, now know as “Congressionally Directed Spending.”

The money will be used to build a bike trail from the former Canonie rail yard in downtown Cape Charles east to Route 13 along the former railway.

“There were abuses to earmarks. What would happen is members on the appropriations committees would sometimes put things into the appropriations bill at midnight and no body else would know,” said Kaine in his remarks at the Shanty Restaurant. “Then we were voting tomorrow and sometimes you got projects that aren’t that good.”

The new system returns the direction of taxpayer dollars from the President to the people’s representatives in Congress. Under the new system, all earmarks are required to be listed on a Senator or Congressman’s official website in order to be approved.

“We made this request because we’ve seen how these rail to trail projects are doing so well all over Virginia,” he added.

However, the $2.5 million in Federal funding is in all likelihood not enough to run the trail from Route 13 to the Canonie rail yard.

“We are in the throes of the final design with VDOT… and quite frankly we may need some more money,” said Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commissioner and Senior Vice President of Canonie Atlantic Spencer Murray. “We know some places that we can tap. But it’s a great start… you should be able to build right much for $2.5 million… If you can’t build a trail for a million dollars a mile then we really need to look at that.”

Murray also said they still need to finalize the design plans and he was hoping within the next few months this leg of the project will have momentum.

The bike trail is hoped by supporters to one day span from Kiptopeke to Hallwood, but it is not without its detractors. Concerns have been expressed by the agricultural community about a bike trail with a proximity so close to active farming operations. The price tag, as well as security and maintenance costs have also been raised as concerns.

A law firm has also sent out informational packets to land owners along the railroad right of way about a potential class action lawsuit to force the return of the land leased to build the railroad right of way.

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