Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Campbell County’s Collision with Reality

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Campbell County board supervisors appear to be a step ahead of their peers in other municipalities when it comes to confronting the implications of the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform act of 2007. (Either that or the Lynchburg News & Advance is a step ahead in its local government coverage.) Quoth the newspaper:

Paying for maintenance of new roads in rural counties could get tricky in the years ahead. More than that, it could get expensive because the localities would have to maintain some of their new roads, a service now covered by the state.

How about that: Road maintenance is expensive. That lesson is sinking in now that localities can’t undertake any land use decision they want and fob off the road-maintenance consequences to the state any longer.

One of the more important changes in state regulations is a requirement for new subdivisions to have at least two connections to state roads. That would discourage “unconnected residential development,” explains the newspaper. This point requires a bit of elaboration. In the “pod” form of development that is pervasive across Virginia, many subdivisions have only one outlet to state roads. When subdivisions don’t connect with one another, there are fewer alternate routes for people to get places. The result is that all traffic funnels into a finite number of roads, the roads get crowded, and people howl for more state money to build more roads.

Supervisors aren’t happy about the regulation. They’re thinking of writing Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer. “If the roads that are needed to serve a high-density subdivision are not advantageous to other roads connecting in that area, says Concord District Supervisor Eddie Gunter., “they’re saying it will be up to the county and developers to take care of that.”

And your point is….?

But that’s not all that has Gunter disgruntled. “Road costs and road maintenance are very expensive,” he says. “If the county has to take over maintaining roads, that means we would have to set up a department like a mini-VDOT. There are a lot of counties in the state that could not do this.”

Yes, Mr. Gunter, road maintenance is expensive. Maybe you need to take that into consideration next time Campbell County updates its master plan. But, no, you don’t have to set up your own mini-VDOT. Perhaps Mr. Homer will share with you what he’s learning about “outsourcing” — something that VDOT is doing a lot more of these days.

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3 responses to “Campbell County’s Collision with Reality”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’ve been saying it for a while.

    The “let VDOT fix it” mindset is behind many a local pro-growth supervisor.

    It didn’t really matter if VDOT .. actually could “fix” it or not as long as the folks who voted for the development could evade responsibility for the traffic by blaming VDOT.

    These same miscreants would point piously to their Comp Plans that has VDOT’s 6-year plan roads in them and would assure citizens that they had no choice but to approve the development and then “wait” for VDOT to fix it.

    It was a scam.. and most of them knew it.

    Now those chickens are coming home to roost and I predict…that more than one locality is going to lobby strongly to overturn this part of the law. There won’t be any logic behind it… just get VDOT to take back responsibility even if there is no money.

    What these guys wanted all along was “cover” for their rezone votes.

  2. Michael Ryan Avatar
    Michael Ryan

    Oh, for God’s sake. When you build a subdivision just add a second entrance onto the state highways. Then, VDOT will maintain it.

    If the development is too small for that (one or two streets with a handful of houses), make the developer stub out a road that can be used to attach to future adjacent development. Once that adjacent small development is built you have a group of roads with two connections.

    This isn’t rocket science. It’s just the complacency of the county supervisors and a suspicion that they’re all in the pockets of the developers.

    If neither of these options sounds good, tell the developer that when he is done, the county won’t take it either. This is going to be treated like a “private community” like Aquia Harbor (Stafford Co.), Lake Holiday (Frederick Co.), or Keswick (Albemarle Co.).

    Next up, the supervisors will be whining because VDOT imposes minimum design and quality standards for accepting roads into the state system.

  3. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    you got it!

    Spotsylvania actually requires subdivisions to stub out second connections but what happens if that the folks who move in scream and shout that they don’t want it and the supervisors back off and accommodate them.

    Now.. the supervisors can … blame VDOT!

    I think this is totally correct. Each subdivision essentially wants it’s own enclave and own private connection to the road network so that as you drive down the road, multiple curb cuts and each subdivision wants it’s own crossover or traffic signal…

    I’m somewhat sympathetic to the parents who don’t want their kids endangered by cut-through traffic but I think the way to handle that is to use traffic calming and roundabout intersections… which is exactly what has been done for some subdivisions that already had two connections or were built on a connecting road to start with.

    re: standards. Spotsy already requires subdivisions to meet VDOT standards.

    They got to this point after years and years of rural subdivisions being built with substandard roads and then the residents telling the BOS that they pay taxes and deserve for the county to bring their roads up to specs and put into the state system.

    It’s been a long time coming.. and we make not be there quite yet.. and we may get pushed back if enough localities lobby against the new regs – but we are finally getting to the point where the local elected ARE going to be held accountable for the roads affected by THEIR land-use decisions.

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