Author: James A. Bacon
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Traffic Management Contract to Save $47 Million
by James A. Bacon Outsourcing management of Virginia’s five traffic operations centers will save about $47 million over the life of the six-year contract and accelerate the adoption of state-of-the-art technology and best management practices. So says Dean Gustafson, state operations engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation. In a presentation yesterday, Gustafson briefed the…
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How Seriously Should We Take the Dulles-Air Cargo Hype?
There’s an apocryphal story about a big corporation that assigned its scientists and nutritionists to concoct the healthiest dog food they could devise. After great effort, they unveiled the product. This dog food, they announced, would keep dogs fit and slender. It would give them thick, smooth hair. It would take away their bad breath.…
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Governor Bob as King George?
This quote from Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, at the Commonwealth Transportation Board was just too good to bury in the longer news story I filed last night…. Here’s the context: Marshall was making the argument that the Virginia Department of Transportation and McDonnell administration had provided insufficient transparency to the approval process for the Bi-County…
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A Bump in the Road
Under withering criticism for a lack of transparency, the Commonwealth Transportation Board has agreed to a one-month delay before formally endorsing the McDonnell administration’s vision for the North-South Corridor.
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A Grand Unified Vision for Richmond’s Future
by James A. Bacon By 2035 the Richmond region will grow by roughly 200,000 households (435,000 people) and 200,000 new jobs. That’s a mind-numbing number for a metropolitan region with barely more than 1 million inhabitants today. But, assuming the forecast is valid, where those people wind up living and working will have a dramatic…
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Do American Households Really Prefer “Sprawl” Development?
by James A. Bacon The United States appears to be experiencing another building boom — it’s amazing what 3% mortgage rates will d0 — and urban geographer Joel Kotkin is crowing that most of that growth is occurring in the low-density, suburban fringe of America’s metropolitan regions. In a recent blog post in New Geography,…
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“The Most Massive Tuition Increase in Virginia History”
Virginia Commonwealth University pulled a fast one last week. In announcing the tuition increases approved by the Board of Visitors Friday, the administration omitted explicit mention of a not insignificant item — the fact that the tuition and fees paid by incoming freshmen and transfer students taking a normal course load next year will be…
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Misunderstanding the Link between Taxes and Economic Development
by James A. Bacon In his latest post at the Atlantic Cities blog, Richard Florida asserts that a “lower state income tax does not spur economic development.” In support of his proposition, he argues that states with higher tax burdens are more affluent; they have higher concentrations of talent and workers in the so-called “creative”…
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Time to Get Real about Quality of Richmond’s Bicycle Infrastructure
The Richmond region has a long way to go before it can truly be considered a bicycle-friendly town. The entire region has only 18.25 miles of paved bike lanes — “sharrow” lanes marked with bicycle icons don’t count — and those lanes are fragmented, unconnected to a broader network. In 2015, hundreds of thousands of…
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Made in Virginia: Boron Nanotubes
by James A. Bacon I’ve long held a pet theory that Virginia should strive to achieve a leadership position in high-performance fibers. We’ll never wrest semiconductors and software from Silicon Valley, we’ll never replicate the biotech assets of Boston. There’s no point in chasing faddish industries. Just pick a cool but under-appreciated industry to build…
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Smarter Analytics for Smarter Roads
As information technology continues to penetrate traditional industry sectors like transportation, the innovations just keep on rolling in. The latest case in point comes from a San Francisco-based start-up, StreetLight Data, co-founded by Richmond native Laura Schewel. StreetLight Data combines a variety of data sources — wireless data, GPS navigation data, Census data — to…
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VDOT Privatizes Management of Traffic Control Centers
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell administration is tapping Serco., Inc., an English firm with international traffic management experience, to take over Virginia’s five transportation management centers. The six-year deal, announced yesterday, will be implemented as a public-private partnership in a $355 million contract. Thirty-two firms had responded to the state’s Request for Proposal. Serco…
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Cuccinelli: Promote Economic Development by Creating Level Playing Field
by James A. Bacon In a press conference this morning at a Richmond SweetFrog restaurant, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli laid out the philosophical principle that would guide his approach to economic development if he were elected governor: Create a level playing field for all businesses rather than incentives for a lucky few. He would close…
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Do Racial Set-Aside Programs Create Opportunities for Blacks? It Appears They Do.
Government set-aside programs for minorities have had a positive impact on the rate of business formation by African-Americans, conclude the authors of a new study, “Impact of City Contracting Set-Asides on Black Self-Employment and Employment,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Write the authors: “Black business ownership rates increased significantly after program initiation,…
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Still Looking for the Scandal
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s GiftGate has escalated from a minor brouhaha into a full-fledged media feeding frenzy with national overtones. The Washington Post editorial page has referred to the relationship with Star Scientific founder Jonnie R. Williams Sr. and Virginia’s two leading elected officials, Governor Bob McDonnell and Attorney General Ken Cuccinell, as “Virginia’s…