The six year plan for the Commonwealth Transportation Board took a major hit due to the state budget shortfall.

Revenue projections for the plan are down more than $1.1 billion from just a year ago, which means some major road projects in the Valley are going to be put on hold for a while, such as the $26 million widening of Port Republic Road to accommodate the increased traffic in Rockingham County.

The Port Republic work could wait two years after having been in the work for several already due to the nearly $17 million of state funding that has been cut.

"Really the folks in our area have no idea as to when that road will begin construction as to whereas previously we were expecting to start the road at the very latest in 2011," says Joe Paxton, the Rockingham County Administrator.

That would be just one year after the new hospital is expected to open on Port Republic, which forces Rockingham Memorial Hospital to use it's back up plan for access to the facility.

"It'll cause us to have to spend money to have those temporary entrances made. Then when the funding does go through in the next couple of years, then that all that money we would have invested in those temporary locations will just be wasted or thrown away because they won't work in the long-term design of the road," says Dennis Coffman, the director of facilities planning and development for RMH.

RMH isn't the only reason for all the traffic coming to the area.

"There's a lot of housing out there, and so our concern is traffic safety and being able to move people safely back and forth from the city and to where the hospital is going to locate," says Paxton.

However, until the project can get all the funding it needs, some of it may simply not be done.

"We have to deal with the facts, and the facts are we have 44-percent less funding," says Sandy Myers, the VDOT spokesperson. "And we have to build what we can with that and what we don't have is not going to get built."

RMH will have to spend an additional $500,000 for temporary roads that could have otherwise been used for health care. There will be a public meeting on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Rockingham County Administration Building to discuss this issue.