Virginia's long-term spending on transportation is shrinking.

Last year's six-year plan called for starting 237 new highway-construction projects around the state. This year's plan lists only 164.

The state is swamped with increasingly intractable urban traffic jams, while its rural areas want access to markets and opportunity.

But "there will be no priming of the pump" to solve those problems, state Transportation Secretary Pierce Homer told the Commonwealth Transportation Board yesterday. "We've gone backward."

Because of shortfalls in expected revenues, the Virginia Department of Transportation's budget next year will be $3.8 billion, down 5.5 percent from $4 billion this year.

"I'm not pleased with this," said board member Mary Lee Carter of Fredericksburg.

And "rural Virginia is being hit hard," said board member James L. Keen of Vansant in Southwest Virginia.

Despite increasing traffic congestion and ballooning gas costs, Virginians overwhelmingly travel in their own cars and trucks on the state's almost 58,000 miles of public roads.

A hefty chunk of Virginia's highway-building money -- $378 million -- included in the 2009-2014 state transportation program will actually be going to rebuild older roads that have begun to fall apart, officials said yesterday.

"The construction . . . is in fact maintenance," Homer told the board yesterday. "There's more of this coming."

For instance, under the 2009-2014 state transportation program, VDOT will spend $40 million repaving Interstate 64 in Henrico County between Staples Mill and Parham roads, officials said. And sections of Interstate 295 around metro Richmond will receive a $14 million rehabilitation.

"The pavements have lived their lives," said state Transportation Commissioner David S. Ekern. "It's time to replace them."

State support for public transit and rail projects will, however, grow. The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation budget increases from $624 million this year to $671 million, up 7.4 percent.

The General Assembly will meet Monday to consider how to fill an estimated $385 million gap next year in state highway maintenance and generate more than $500 million in funding for the congestion-clogged regions of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

If the state government is not successful in the special session, Homer said, the problem "simply comes back."

Contact Peter Bacqué at (804) 649-6813 or pbacque@timesdispatch.com.