Category: Transportation
-
Snow Day in April: Something in the Water
by Kerry Dougherty When the first Something in the Water Festival came to Virginia Beach in 2019, some lemon-sucking locals balked at allowing school buses to be used to transport revelers from satellite parking to the resort area. How will bus drivers be able to drive festival goers until 11 p.m. on Sunday and be…
-
Planes, Planes, Planes, and Some Space Ships
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Friday afternoon I visited the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport, officially known as National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. It has been on my list of places to visit for a long time. If you haven’t been, I heartily recommend it. As with anything the…
-
Maglev & Light Rail: Once-Shiny Objects Now Tarnished By Reality
by Kerry Dougherty Gosh. It isn’t often the local newspaper provides two examples of “shiny object stupidity” in one week. But The Virginian-Pilot delivered. On Wednesday the newspaper quietly reported on the absolute demise of the failed maglev system at Old Dominion University. That’s magnetic levitation technology for those of you who weren’t around here…
-
Virginia Rail Safety Inspections
by James C. Sherlock After the Ohio disaster, it is timely to review rail safety in Virginia. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation is the federal rail safety regulator in cooperation with state authorities. FRA’s Office of Railroad Safety employs 400 railway inspectors. Federal safety management teams are organized by…
-
Coal in Virginia
by James C. Sherlock When we talk of coal today, which is seldom, it is usually not treated well. It is easy to forget (if some even know) that coal powered the industrial revolution, made America the richest nation in the world and fueled American war production that supported allied victories in both world wars…
-
Potpourri
WEAPONS AT AIRPORTS It has long amazed and puzzled me that people think they can get away with taking guns and other weapons onto airplane flights. On Monday, a woman was caught at the Richmond airport with a loaded .380 caliber handgun in her carry-on bag. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) reports that, as of…
-
Is This a Wise Expenditure or Not?
A news release from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission touts the the fact that it’s Commuter Choice transit program, funded by tolls on the Interstate 66, Interstate 94 and Interstate 395 corridors, has eliminated 3.5 million single-occupancy vehicle trips over five years. Wow, 3.5 million trips sounds significant. But, wait. That’s only 700,000 trips per…
-
A Tale Of Two Bridge Projects
by Kerry Dougherty Some would say it’s not fair to compare the rapid repairs to a hurricane-damaged bridge in Florida to the desultory progress of the Laskin Road bridge project in Virginia Beach. I don’t care. For those of us getting our cars realigned every few months and learning to zigzag as we attempt to…
-
The Greens, Their Quiet Partners, and Trains
by James C. Sherlock I love trains. Always have. Took my first train ride at a very young age with my mother and brother from D.C. to Birmingham to visit mom’s family. After the Navy, my private sector work was based in McLean. I had regular business in New York I took Amtrak whenever feasible.…
-
Last Passenger on the Titanic
by James A. Bacon The good news regarding the Silver Line extension of the Washington Metro rail system to Washington Dulles International Airport is that the service is fiiinnaally scheduled to commence in October after four years of construction delays. The bad news is that Metro might not have enough rail cars in service to…
-
Great Moments in the Annals of Virginia Transportation
by James A. Bacon Two recent news nuggets provide a juxtaposition that calls into question the sanity of Virginia’s transportation policy. Item #1: The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) will pay the lead contractor on the long-delayed Silver Line rail extension $207 million more as part of an agreement reached in July, reports The Washington…
-
Will Virginia Be Ruled from Sacramento?
by Kerry Dougherty Turns out former Gov. Ralph Northam is the gift that keeps on giving. Not only do Virginia’s school children continue to suffer academically because of Northam’s hasty, hysterical and prolonged school closures, but most of us were shocked this week to learn that California’s boneheaded new rules regarding a draconian move to…
-
Too Much Money for Roads?!?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Although gas prices have receded substantially from the levels that sent everyone into a tizzy earlier this year, Governor Youngkin has not given up on his proposal to lower gas taxes. Now, however, his rationale for the cut is different. According to veteran reporter Dave Ress, in an article that appeared in…
-
Bacon Bits: Your Tax Dollars at Work
The Big Dig ain’t got nothing on us. The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) board has approved $250 million in additional funding to pay for cost overruns on Phase II of the Silver Line rail project, which, incidentally, was supposed to begin service in 2018, and Metro officials now hope will begin this fall. Fairfax…