After that, the Federal Government took up the slack. But when Congress, with the support of many of Virginia's legislators, joined the movement to trim the Federal budget of nearly all domestic and urban expenditures, there was no one to make up for it. So the City of Richmond, which has the highest tax burden and lowest per capita income in the Richmond Metropolitan Area, must support the area's bus system out of its own constantly shrinking tax funds. Meanwhile, the state continues to pay for the expansion of the transportation systems of the suburban counties. With their new state-built roads, the counties take more and more of the center city's jobs and commerce.
Cars move freely back and forth.
But city buses are turned back at the county line. Virginia's General Assembly last year voted a special appropriation to pay for the extension of bus service into Chesterfield County for two years, simply to make it possible. But Chesterfield County was given the legal right to veto the bus service, even if it did not pay for it. They did so. The reason, county leaders said, is that they didn't want to have any item in their budget for trunk bus service either today or two years from now.