EDITORIAL: Connolly brings home the bacon

By: | Inside NoVA
Published: December 15, 2009

Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-11, is bringing home the transportation cash, and thank goodness for that.

While our area's traffic woes and commuter crying continue, Connolly is doing his best to be the people's representative.

In a bill, which could and is expected to pass Congress soon, Connolly hit up the feds for transportation-related money.

Among his wish list was $3 million for new rail cars for Virginia Railway Express, $1 million for the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission's western bus maintenance facility and cash to widen U.S. 1 in Woodbridge.

Way to go, congressman.

Say what you want about Connolly's "liberal" politics, but clearly the man is doing his best to look out for our area and its commuters.

While Connolly is doing his job at the federal level, we are awaiting the swearing in of our new governor, Republican Bob McDonnell, who spent quite a bit of the campaign telling the people what they wanted to hear about transportation.

But after the governor-elect takes office, he will have to transform those words into actions, and we will be watching.

First on our list will be the relatively simple promise that both he and his opponent, Democrat R. Creigh Deeds, made -- to reopen the closed Virginia rest areas.

That is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to McDonnell's transportation promises, but its success will be an indicator of how seriously we can take his word.

Here's hoping that we will see from McDonnell the same interest in our traffic concerns as we are seeing from Rep. Connolly.