Category: Infrastructure
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You’ve Heard of Unfunded Pension Liabilities. Unfunded Infrastructure Liabilities Are Huge, Too
Lafayette, La., like many other U.S. cities, is running a huge hidden deficit in the form of backlogged infrastructure maintenance. Charles Marohn, founder of the Strong Towns movement, has done a brilliant job of illuminating the time bomb ticking away in municipal budgets around the country. This week he has honed in on Lafayette, a midsize…
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FERC Finds Pipeline Impact “Less than Significant”
FERC’s pipeline impact study says proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline will have minimal lasting effects on the environment. Dominion claims the study confirms it can build the pipeline while protecting the environment and public safety. Foes contend the study ducks the question whether the pipeline is a public necessity that justifies the use of eminent domain to acquire rights of…
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Washington Metro Needs another $1 Billion… Fast
The train wreck of the Washington Metro keeps piling up higher. The Washington Post sums up the situation this way: Local governments are “alarmed” as Metro says it needs an extra $1 billion over the next three years from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld has earned credibility as an…
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A Public Sector Success Story
When Richmond-area jurisdictions decided to collaborate in purchasing a region-wide radio communications system for police, fire and rescue, the project was estimated to cost about $165 million — with a chance of overruns. The final price tag: $114.7 million. Henrico County led the procurement effort, leveraging “group pricing” with other jurisdictions to negotiate a lower…
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Renewable Energy Outlook in Virginia Still Sunny
Progress toward an electric grid powered by renewable energy has been frustratingly slow to many Virginians. There have been two main obstacles to ramping up production of wind and solar power in the Old Dominion: cost and reliability. Wind still has high hurdles in Virginia. There is a limited number of on-shore locations suitable for…
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CTB Approves $4 Billion Interstate 64 Project
Wow! The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved yesterday a $4 billion plan to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and widen twelve miles of Interstate 64 from four lanes to six. Said Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne after the vote: “Historic day for Hampton Roads and the state.” The Virginian-Pilot provides these details: The additional lane capacity in…
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Alexandria’s Capital Spending Problem
Alexandria City Manager Mark Jinks is right: It’s probably a good idea to put on hold the $1.4 million design work for a proposed $20 million expansion on the Chinquapin Recreation Center pool, as well as series of $25,000 “way-finding” signs. The city has massive capital spending commitments that are not so discretionary. As reported by…
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Pipelines Offer Hope, Provoke Despair
Recent articles have highlighted rural communities that stand to win and lose from proposed natural gas pipeline mega-projects crossing the state. On the hopeful side, the Daily Press reports that Isle of Wight County economic development director Tom Elder would like to build a lateral line off the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to supply…
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Privatization, Outsourcing and Risk
In negotiating a public-private partnership for building and operating improvements to the Interstate 66 corridor outside the Beltway, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne has created a new template for looking at privatization and outsourcing. Traditionally, when government perceives a public need — building roads, educating children, running prisons — it undertakes to do the job itself.…
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How the McAuliffe Team Saved $2.5 Billion
Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne makes a strong case that Virginia’s overhaul of the public-private partnership law made possible $2.5 billion in savings on Interstate 66. On Nov. 3, Governor Terry McAuliffe made the audacious claim that his administration had saved taxpayers $2.5 billion on the Interstate 66-outside-the-Beltway project thanks to 2015 reforms to the Public-Private…
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CIT Maps Highlight Gaps in Virginia Bandwidth
The Center for Innovative Technology has announced an upgrade to its Virginia Broadband Availability Map, which allows users to search by address or zip code where broadband services are available and to overlay the broadband data with other data such as population and vertical assets. I have given the map a quick spin and have…
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Rocky Forge Wind Turbines Not a Threat to Aviation
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ruled that 549-foot wind turbines, as tall as the Washington Monument, will not pose a danger to passing aircraft, thus putting Apex Clean Energy one step closer to building Virginia’s first commercial wind farm. As proposed, the Rocky Forge Wind project would string 25 turbines along a ridge line in Botetourt…
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A Sinking Feeling at Naval Station Norfolk
The concrete piers at the Naval Station Norfolk are a lot more complex than the rickety wooden structures lining the waterfront down at the Rivah. Electric lines and steam pipes on the underbelly of the piers conduct power to the giant warships at dock. When water levels rise high enough, propelled by tides, storm surges…
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The Peninsula’s Infrastructure Bottleneck
by James A. Bacon I don’t envy the poor blokes in charge of economic development for the Virginia Peninsula. The Newport News-Hampton-Williamsburg area has major infrastructure issues — constrained electricity, water and gas capacity — that are hindering economic growth. Any one of these deficiencies would put the 500,000-person sub-region of Hampton Roads at a competitive disadvantage…
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Storm Surge
by James A. Bacon Jeffrey A. Hutchinson, manager of Dominion Virginia Power’s central operations center, first took note of Hurricane Matthew a month ago when it was a storm forming off Africa. Keeping tabs through the company’s two meteorologists and subscription weather services, he tracked its progress across the Atlantic Ocean. He felt relieved when the…