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Major provisions of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's nearly $1 billion annual highway funding plan will remain fundamentally unchanged from the draft he outlined six weeks ago, Kaine said Monday night.

Kaine's bill incorporating the new statewide tax and fee proposals is expected to be introduced late this week, just ahead of a special legislative session beginning Monday called exclusively for transportation funding.

Kaine told about 130 people at the ninth of 10 town hall-style forums where he tried to rouse public support for his plan that he would make unspecified minor alterations.

"What I'm doing right now is writing a bill. Ideas I've heard from these town hall meetings will help me write this bill better," Kaine said.

But he restated his intent Monday to stick with the fundamental funding proposals behind his proposal.

They include a $10 annual increase in the fee to register cars, a boost in the titling tax on the purchase price of cars from 3 percent to 4 percent and an increase in the grantor's tax homeowners pay on the sale of real estate.

The registration fee and the titling tax increases will be exclusively for upkeep and maintenance of the state's system of highways and bridges. Most of the increase in the grantor's tax is designated for rail and mass transit funding.

Without substantial new funding to take care of highway maintenance, the amount of cash diverted each year from new road projects to pay for upkeep will increase to nearly $600 million by 2014.

Leaders of the Republican majority in the House of Delegates have said Kaine's plan for new taxes in a troubled economy has no chance of succeeding.

They have accused the administration of inflating maintenance cost estimates and are calling for limiting the special session to restoring regional funding packages for the state's two most populous and traffic-choked regions, northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. There is no consensus among Hampton Roads lawmakers on a proposal for their region.

The Democratic-led Senate's leaders support funding highway maintenance needs at least partially with an increase in the gasoline tax. House Republicans are equally adamant against increasing the tax on fuel as the cost of gasoline tops $4 per gallon.

Kaine has said he is willing to accept other formulas for funding maintenance statewide. As in eight previous forums, he urged the crowd Monday night to press their legislators to demand some type of new funding formula.

"You don't have to tell them to accept the governor's plan but to at least take it seriously and go to Richmond next week and get something done," Kaine said.

Kaine has said he will not accept any regional funding packages the General Assembly might approve if they do not also provide for statewide maintenance funding.

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