Year: 2012
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Under the LiDAR
New technology is taking cost, time and uncertainty out of highway design. For Virginians, this quiet revolution means less traffic disruption, lower costs and faster turn-around times on big projects. by James A. Bacon Last fall Fluor Transurban was negotiating a contract with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) to build or upgrade 29 miles…
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Sugar Shock
Food activists proved wrong about fat are now setting their sights on sugar. by James A. Bacon Once upon a time, there was a medical “consensus” that fat and cholesterol in the diet were major causes of heart disease. Armed with this “settled science,” the public health establishment moved in the 1970s to expunge the…
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Down the Transportation Rabbit Hole
by James A. Bacon Senate and House of Delegates conferees have nearly nailed down a compromise over the state budget. The main obstacle: some $700 million in additional debt to offset the costs of tolls in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads. Jim Noland with the Times-Dispatch has the story. The absence of funding to pay…
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Another “F” for Transparency
By Peter Galuszka Imagine learning that a court date or a city council meeting is to be held in two days. You show up at the door, only to be told by a guard that admittance is by invitation only. You will have to leave. That, in essence, is how the administration of Virginia Gov.…
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Studying the Study Group
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell administration hosted a hastily assembled meeting yesterday to address, in the words Deputy Sectretary of Natural Resources Maureen Matsen, the “perceived lack of transparency in the conduct of [the] Uranium Working Group.” The meeting was attended by a couple dozen stakeholders, administration officials and members of the press. If the…
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IG of the Day: Sprawl in Abeyance
“America’s romance with sprawl may be over,” blares the headline of USA Today. “Five years ago, millions of Americans were streaming to new homes on the fringes of metropolitan areas. Then housing prices collapsed and the Great Recession slowed growth to levels not seen since the Great Depression in the 1930s. Growth remained slow last…
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Connecting the Dots on the 460 Connector
So, I was digging into the economic and financial assumptions of the U.S. 460 Connector project, and I was reading the public-private partnership proposal put forth by 460 Partners, a consortium led by Richmond-based Moreland Property Group that includes infrastructure giants like Skanska USA and Lane Construction Corp… Like the proposals advanced by two competing…
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Virginia at Greater Risk of Corruption than New Jersey? Really?
A couple of weeks ago I highlighted the State Integrity Investigation project, which graded Virginia “F” for transparency and accountability, and warned that poor ratings indicate a higher risk for corruption. (Read blog post.) I argued that Virginians should consider the report a wake-up call. But some people — and not just Virginians — find…
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IG of the Day: Virginia’s Healthiest Counties
The healthiest jurisdictions in Virginia (shown in white) are concentrated in Northern Virginia, the Shenandoah Valley, Roanoke/Blacksburg, Charlottesville and exurban counties surrounding Richmond… oh, and Virginia Beach. The least healthiest counties? Pretty much where you’d expect, in Southside and Southwest. Source: County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. Visit the website for details by county: premature death,…
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What Do You Know, There Is Electoral Fraud in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Not long ago, I dissed the need for a Voter ID law in Virginia on the grounds that it was a solution in search of a problem. Electoral fraud in the Old Dominion, I suggested, was such a rarity that there was no need to get people riled up. It just…
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Quote of the Day: John H. Cochrane
PeterG. often belittles me for scabbing material from the Cato Institute, which, in fact, I almost never do. (Just search “Cato” on this blog to see for yourself — all “Cato” references originate with my old Wonk Salon squibs or PeterG, accusing me of something I don’t do!) Thus, it is with some trepidation that…
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Expanding U.S. 460 and the Chinese Connection
By Peter Galuszka In the past day or so, there’s been a bit of buzz about a decades-old plan to expand the northwest to southeast route U.S. 460 takes through Virginia’s peanut country on its way to Tidewater. This latest bit of boosterism posits that giant ships inbound to Virginia via the widened Panama Canal…
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Virginia’s Next Economic Boom?
Virginia’s economic developers expect a wave of manufacturing and logistical investment when the Panama Canal expansion is complete. Opportunities this big, they say, come along only once in a generation.
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Another Private-Sector Initiative to Salvage Health Care
Back in 2006 an estimated 2.2 million Virginians were living with chronic diseases, running up $24.6 billion in health care costs. The numbers are far higher today. One reason costs are so high is that care is so fragmented. Patients often have multiple providers, treatment plans and prescriptions. Physicians, hospitals and other providers operate in…
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Five Ways Virginia Sucks
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in Blogs and Blog Administration, Children and Families, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Government Finance, Gun rights, LGBQT, Money in politics, Science & Technology, Social Services and EntitlementsBy Peter Galuszka An alternative blogger is listing five ways Virginia may be the worst state in the union, a.k.a. “Bob Land.” Tara Lohan of AlterNet notes that generally, watching the news these days is like going through a time warp when it comes to debates about birth control or teaching science in the classroom.…