Category: Infrastructure
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Stressed Out: Storm Water
by James A. Bacon Two years ago Clyde Cristman made a presentation to the Senate Finance Committee estimating how much it would cost to meet Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay watershed clean-up goals. Some of the costs were reasonably solid but others, he recalls, “were little better than a wild guess.” The total tab for state government,…
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Yikes! Driverless Cars in Blacksburg.
As usual, technology is evolving more rapidly than the ability of pundits, bureaucrats and politicians to absorb the implications — especially in the realm of transportation. Two more cases in point: Googleburg. Google is now testing its self-driving car on the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute’s Smart Road in Blacksburg. Reports the Roanoke Times: The technology…
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“The Missing Metric”
by James A. Bacon Here is must reading for anyone interested in the fiscal implications of Smart Growth: the August issue of Government Finance Review. In the lead article Peter Katz (profiled here) elaborates his thoughts on fiscal analytics and growth management. He starts with the argument, which I have embraced, that the fiscal impact…
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Quote of the Day: Chuck Marohn
Great minds think alike. From today’s Strong Towns blog: “Any city that wants to be financially strong and healthy needs to stop making investments that cost more over the long term to service and maintain than they generate in wealth. They need to stop accepting grant funding or “donated” infrastructure that they ultimately will not…
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Auto Revolution Update: Nissan
Japanese auto maker Nissan has joined Google in publicly pledging to develop self-driving cars over the next few years. Nissan will build a proving ground by 2014 to test its autonomous vehicle systems and aims to bring “multiple affordable, energy efficient, fully autonomous-driving vehicles to the market by 2020,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Most…
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What Happens in Detroit, Does Not Stay in Detroit
Detroit seems a long way from the Old Dominion, and its bankruptcy woes seem largely irrelevant to a state and its local governments which, whatever else their flaws, have among the strongest bond ratings in the country. But it would be a mistake for Virginians to ignore events in the Wolverine State. It looks like…
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It’s the Debt You Don’t See that Kills You
In theory, state and local governments in the United States are required to balance their budgets every year. In practice, many have been running massive deficits. Count on slippery politicians to find the loopholes. The most widely practiced trick is the under-funding of pension obligations. Another is dishing off debt to independent authorities. Another is…
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Why Do People Visit Spain, Not Virginia, to See Smart Cities in Action?
by James A. Bacon Spain’s economy is a wreck, or so we surmise from the dismal drum beat of news about the European Union. The country is in recession, unemployment is nearly 27% and central government staggers from crisis to crisis. Yet, somehow, Spanish cities manage to stay on the forefront of harnessing technology to…
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You’ve Built It. Will They Come?
by James A. Bacon The Washington Metro system is bracing for its toughest challenge since opening 37 years ago — persuading people to ride the Silver Line to Tysons. So argued Dana Hedgpeth and Scott Clement in the Washington Post yesterday. Drawing upon the results of a WaPo poll, they suggest that Northern Virginians rely…
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Oysters and Other Biological Breakwaters
Broadly speaking, there are two ways to go about buttressing Virginia’s waterfront communities from flooding, storm surges and other risks associated with rising water levels: with hard infrastructure and soft infrastructure. Hard infrastructure consists of walls, levees, berms, jetties, pipes, pumps, sand replenishment and other expensive, engineered solutions. Soft infrastructure entails building up of biological…
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PARC Tackles Parking
by James A. Bacon A couple of years ago, the creative geniuses at Xerox’s renowned Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) labs were brainstorming ways to shake up one of the stodgiest sectors of the American economy: parking. A new wave of technologies made it possible to do things never thought possible before, such as adjusting…
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Parking Libre!
by James A. Bacon City planners in the District of Columbia want to waive parking requirements for new buildings near its 40 Metro stations. A change in the city’s zoning code, part of a comprehensive overhaul, would allow developers to determine how much parking, if any, was needed, reports the Wall Street Journal. Relaxation of…
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Dulles’ Grand Plan
How is it that Northern Virginia, with some of the worst traffic headaches in the country, has embarked upon an economic development plan to bring thousands more trucks into the region? by Reed Fawell III In October 2005, the Washington Airports Task Force (WATF) got a wake-up call. Its transportation consultant reported that traffic heading east…
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McDonnell Solicits Ideas for “Air Rights” Development
The McDonnell administration is soliciting “innovative ideas” from the private sector to develop air rights at the Rosslyn Metro station in Arlington and the East Falls Church Metro station on Interstate 66. In administrative parlance, this solicitation is a “request for information,” which will gather feedback on the feasibility and types of development that could…
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No Easy Answers for American Legion Bridge
The last bridge built to span the Potomac River in the Washington region was the American Legion Memorial Bridge, part of the Capital Beltway, in 1962. The population of Montgomery and Fairfax counties, which the bridge connected, totaled about 600,000. In the intervening six decades, the combined populations now exceed 2.1 million, accounting for 36%…