Month: September 2012
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A Moment of Clarity on The Lawn
By Peter Galuszka Calm seems to have returned to the Lawn at the University of Virginia where one of the most crucial battles in current higher education was fought in June. Now that the dust has settled, The University of Virginia Magazine, a publication of the alumni association, has come out with a remarkable Fall…
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Don’t Mess with Down Home
By Peter Galuszka Steamy and sticky in the late-summer humidity, U.S. 460 between Petersburg and Suffolk has the milieu of the Deep South with its rusting peanut processing plants, red brick small towns and the straight-as-an-arrow mainline of the Norfolk Southern slicing through occasional roads with warning lights at the sides. These days, curious little roadside…
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Citizen Input on the Charlottesville Bypass: Influencing the Edge of the Periphery of the Margins
Let me set the scene… The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has allocated $200 million to build the Charlottesville Bypass and has selected a contractor to move the project forward. Before construction can commence, the state must submit an Environmental Assessment (EA) for final approval by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). But the bypass design…
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Will Virginia Flub the MFUB Challenge?
Sooner or later the United States will embrace Mileage Based User Fees (MFUBs) as a financing tool for roads and highways. The idea makes so much sense that even American politicians can understand it. Every vehicle owner should pay taxes for road maintenance in direct proportion to which he contributes to the need for that…
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The Entertainment Economy — Double-Edged Sword
by James A. Bacon As robots, artificial intelligence and other labor saving innovations penetrate the economy, traditional jobs that entail making things or providing routine services — Toro is testing a robotic lawn mower for golf courses, for Pete’s sake — could disappear. The only jobs that will be left, it seems, are those in…
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Two Unsatisying Conventions
By Peter Galuszka Thankfully, we’re done with two underwhelming, policy-idea-deficient political conventions that, save for a couple of speeches, offer limited hope for the November election from either party. The best part of the Democrat-confab at Charlotte was Bill Clinton’s rousing speech, as well as Michelle Obama’s class-act performance, but they gave Barrack Obama a…
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Virginia’s Hottest Contraband
By Peter Galuszka Somehow it seems as quaint as a black and white crime movie from the 1950s. A van pulls up to a country store in the dark of night. A gang of men led by gravel-voiced Robert Mitchum loads up on cartons of cigarettes, and sets off for the big city Up North…
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The Biggest Transportation Game Changer of All
In a recent post, “Fixing Transportation Takes More than Money,” I argued, among other things, that it is useless to forecast the need for future transportation capacity based on past trends. I neglected to mention one of the greatest game changers on the horizon: Intelligent vehicles. The ability of cars (1) to sense one another…
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The Madness of Building in Flood-Prone Areas
My skepticism of Global Warming alarmism is well documented on this blog. But being skeptical of chicken-little, the-world-is-going-to-end hysteria is very different from being skeptical of the fact that global temperatures are rising and so is the sea level along with it. We can argue how rapidly sea levels are rising but not the fact…
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Cool Richmond: Two Hours from the Beach… and One Minute from Itself
by James A. Bacon The denizens of River City are ecstatic about Outside magazine’s designation of Richmond as the “Best River Town in America.” The recognition is very cool, considering the competition. Better than Ashville, N.C., and Durango, Colo., cities known for their connection to the great outdoors? Yessss! (Fist pump!) Cynics might observe that…
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Fixing Transportation Takes More than Money
Yes, Virginia, the Old Dominion has a transportation funding crisis. The problem has been highlighted for the upteenth time in a letter from government leaders from urban crescent encompassing Northern Virginia, Richmond and Hampton Roads. (See previous post.) Everybody knows there isn’t enough money to support, much less modernize, Virginia’s transportation system. But that’s where…
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Virginia’s Urban Crescent Needs Transportation Funding, Say Mayors and Chairs
Inaction on growing traffic congestion in the state’s urban crescent is undermining the state’s quality of life and its economic competitiveness, warn 38 “mayors and chairs” of Virginia local governments in a letter to Governor Bob McDonnell and leaders of the General Assembly. “The Urban Crescent’s economic health is vital to the Commonwealth, and without…
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After a Town Is Buried, Controversy Still Rages
In Colorado and Virginia residents debate whether proposed uranium mills will help or hinder their economies. by Rose Jenkins To reach the place where an entire town had been dismantled and buried in a Superfund cleanup, I traveled through coils of red rock canyons—sheer cliffs that enclosed the Dolores and San Miguel Rivers in southwest…
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Poverty and Death in the Coalfields
by James A. Bacon On April 5, 2010, an explosion erupted in the Upper Big Branch coal mine of the Massey Energy Company, sending a fireball shooting through its long underground corridors. Twenty-nine miners were killed. It was the worst United States coal mining disaster since 1970. In his newly published book, “Thunder on the…