The Virginia Museum of Transportation is one step closer to becoming a state agency after subcommittees in both the House of Delegates and state Senate unanimously approved bills Monday.
The museum that sits inside the nearly 106-year-old, brick-walled former N&W freight station in downtown Roanoke has been the Commonwealth’s Official Transportation Museum for over half a century but is a nonprofit that receives no state funds. HB802 from Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, and SB418 from Sen. Chris Head, R-Botetourt County, are identical bills to make the museum a state agency, similar to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Virginia Museum of Natural History.
“It’s been Virginia’s Museum of Transportation for 60 years,” Rasoul told a House Education subcommittee. “It’s the largest museum with the most comprehensive collection that spans all modes of transportation. It creates a positive multimillion dollar impact to the region and supports a variety of different businesses. It often tells the neglected role of people of color who have played a role in our transportation history with dedicated exhibits and partnerships.”
Both bills passed their respective Higher Education Subcommittees after being referred from Transportation.
“The Museum of Transportation is also the home of the Official Steam Engine of the Commonwealth of Virginia, the (N&W J Class) 611, which is the most technologically advanced steam engine that was ever built, designed, constructed in existence,” Head said to the Senate committee. “It’s been fully restored and does work, but we need to make sure we are continuing to protect that and the other great works of the Transportation Museum.”
Similiar bills have moved forward in previous sessions only to get derailed at some point. In 2023, the Senate passed a bill by then-Sen. John Edwards, D-Roanoke, to have the state take over the museum but that measure was killed in a House committee.
Under the Rasoul and Head bills, the museum would be run by a board of 15 citizen members, all appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the General Assembly. One of those would be a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board.
For more on the museum, see our 2022 story.
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Senate panel advances bill to study creating rural secretary but House committee puts it off a year
A bipartisan effort to establish a new Secretariat of Rural Affairs position was pushed back to the 2025 General Assembly by the House Rules Studies Subcommittee on Monday.
Del. Israel O’Quinn, R-Washington County, and Sen. Lashrecse Aird, D-Petersburg, had introduced bills calling for a study to examine the feasibility of establishing a new secretariat to focus on rural Virginia.
The House panel continued O’Quinn’s HJ32 until next year. Last week, the Senate Rules Committee approved Aird’s SJR21 unanimously and sent it to the Senate floor.
These bills come after a University of Richmond Law Review showed that rural Virginians are more likely to face unnecessary hospitalizations and struggle to obtain employment that is economically self-sufficient.The article by University of Virginia law professor Andrew Block and then-law student Antonella Nicholas proposed that the state “create a high-level cabinet position with interagency authority to oversee rural affairs and development. Only a high-level position like this, with the authority to unify and direct efforts to improve the lives of rural Virginians, will have the ability to fully and comprehensively help rural communities in a way that they both need and deserve.”