Author: James A. Bacon
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Want to Grow Jobs? Forget about “Job Creation” and Focus on Fundamentals
How can Virginia state government best help the economy adapt to the inevitable downturn in federal spending (see previous post) and the resulting squeeze on the economy? William M. Shobe, author of “Beyond the Great Recession: Preparing Virginia for Expected Cuts in Federal Spending” makes some useful observations. In the long run, argues the Weldon…
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How Badly Will Federal Spending Cuts Hurt? Not as Much as You Might Think.
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s economic growth in recent years has been fueled by a surge in federal government spending, and that surge soon will come to an end, warns William M. Shobe in the May issue of the Virginia Newsletter, “Beyond the Great Recession: Preparing Virginia for Expected Cuts in Federal Spending.” Writes Shobe:…
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Is Anyone Prepared to Tame UVa’s Bureaucracy?
by James A. Bacon Governor Bob McDonnell has delivered an ultimatum to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors: Get the Teresa Sullivan mess straightened out by Tuesday or he will replace the entire board. The governor, who long seemed disengaged from the controversy stemming from the forced resignation of the UVa president, now has…
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Addendum to the Pocahontas Parkway Post
I omitted from the original draft of the “Lessons from the Pocahontas Parkway Fiasco” one of the most important lessons learned. Having appended it to the original post, I reproduce it here for the benefit of those who might otherwise miss it: Lesson No. 4: Public-private partnerships create transparency. As a publicly traded company, Transurban…
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Lessons from the Pocahontas Parkway Fiasco
by James A. Bacon Transurban, the majority investor in the Pocahontas Parkway (Route 895) has learned the hard way that human settlement patterns hit a major inflection point during the 2007-2008 recession. Unlike most planners and politicians in Virginia, whose policy prescriptions presume that nothing fundamental has changed, the Australian infrastructure company has taken a…
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Incremental Change — or Glacial Change?
by James A. Bacon Many University of Virginia stakeholders have worked themselves into a righteous froth over the idea of privileged, out-of-touch political appointees on the Board of Visitors imposing their brand of corporate-style restructuring upon Mr. Jefferson’s University. University administrators are the best judges of how to allocate finite resources between competing academic priorities,…
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CTB Talks Tolls on Interstate 95
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) is normally a pretty docile bunch, rubber stamping everything the McDonnell administration submits to it. So, when members pushed back Wednesday on a proposal to start tolling Interstate 95, it’s an indication that the Virginia Department of Transportation has a long slog ahead. “I’ve been getting…
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CTB Agrees to Subsidize Loudoun Real Estate Venture
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved Wednesday an $80 million loan from the Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank to pay for transportation improvements relating to the 400-acre Kincora real estate development north of Washington Dulles International Airport. The proceeds will be used to extend Gloucester Parkway and Pacific Boulevard for the purpose…
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CTB Approves $80 Million Line of Credit for 460 Connector
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved Wednesday the granting of an $80 million line of credit for the U.S. 460 Connector project. That sum will be subordinate to any bonds issues to pay for the road, meaning that if toll revenues fail to meet projections, the state funds will be tapped to…
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Cville Bypass Contract Approved
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded yesterday a $135 million contract to Skanska/Branch Highways for the design and construction of the Charlottesville Bypass. Board members voted without seeing a conceptual design, asking anything about cost-benefit trade-offs made by Skanska to submit the low bid, or knowing what changes may be required by…
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MWAA Gets its $150 Million in Extra State Funds
The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved Wednesday the allocation of $150 million in state funds to the Rail-for-Dulles project in fulfillment of a financing agreement worked out with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, Fairfax County and Loudoun County last year. Of that sum, $100 million will come from old balances from Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT)…
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Exurbs in Agony
Here’s more data, as if it were needed, that the recovery of housing prices is very lumpy across the United States — not just uneven between metropolitan regions but within regions. Drawing upon the Zillow database, the Wall Street Journal plots the zip code-by-zip code disparity in changing housing prices. “The data paint a picture…
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The Higher Ed Crisis: Credentialism
by James A. Bacon Jane Jacobs is best known for her masterpiece, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” but she wrote cogently on a wide variety of economic topics before she died in 2006. In her last work, “Dark Age Ahead,” she deplored the rise of “credentialism” in higher education. Her warning, written…
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OK, Chop off My Head, I’m Defending Helen Dragas
by James A. Bacon While Teresa Sullivan’s forced resignation came as a shock and surprise to many, the process that led up to it was not sudden. As Rector Helen Dragas stated yesterday during the BoV meeting: I want to make clear that the Board had a formalized communications process with the President, involving ongoing…
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Sullivan Responds, Reiterates Defense of Business As Usual
by James A. Bacon Teresa Sullivan has spoken at last, making a statement to the Board of Visitors defending her record as president of the University of Virginia and her philosophy of incremental change. “Corporate-style, top-down leadership does not work in a great university,” she said. “Sustained change with buy-in does work.” Being an incrementalist,…