Category: Transportation
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Express Lanes as Precursors to Ubiquitous Road Pricing
by James A. Bacon After years of anticipation, 95 Express Lanes opened its Interstate 95 HOT lane system to the public Sunday. Drivers get to use the lanes for free outside of rush hour, when the lanes remain restricted to high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs). Tolls will go into effect around the end of the month. The nearly…
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Big Energy’s Conspiracy with Attorneys General
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka What seems to be strong opposition to a host of initiatives by President Barack Obama and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to curtail carbon and other forms of pollution is no mere coincidence. According to a deeply reported story in Sunday’s New York Times, some state attorneys general, most of them Republicans,…
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Suddenly, It’s Raining Gas Projects and Tax Breaks
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Property rights, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka Suddenly it seems to be raining natural gas pipelines and snowing millions of dollars in tax breaks and incentives for rich electric utilities. Dominion Resources, the powerful and politically well-connected Richmond-based utility, apparently is getting $30 million in public money from the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Revitalization Commission without apparently asking for…
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Freeways, New and Improved!
by Michael Brown Urban freeways provided unprecedented mobility for decades, and helped the United States sustain a strong economy throughout those decades. But their success eventually became their demise. They enabled far-flung lifestyles, which induced demand and congested them faster than we expected. At first it was cheap and easy to convert medians and shoulders to…
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Virginia’s Very Own Keystone XL
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, Uncategorized, Water-waste waterBy Peter Galuszka The rise of natural gas keeps raising more questions about the proper future of Virginia’s and the nation’s energy policies. What just a little while ago seemed a benign source of energy has gushed into a mass of controversy and advantage. One focus of the conflict – good and bad – is the…
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The Airport that Rent Seeking Built
by James A. Bacon The Washington Post has taken notice of the fact that Washington Dulles International Airport, widely regarded as an economic engine of Northern Virginia, is in trouble. Sometime next year, notes Lori Aratani, more passengers will be traveling through Reagan National Airport in Arlington, than through Dulles, an airport with fourteen times the…
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Dulles Gets High Scores in at Least One Metric — Frustration
by James A. Bacon Washington Dulles International Airport is the Brazil of U.S. airports — it’s the airport of the future… and always will be. Unfortunately, that future is looking further and further off as both passenger and freight traffic decline precipitously. Peaking at 27 million in 2005, the number of passengers declined to 22 million…
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Arlington Scraps Streetcar Projects
by James A. Bacon Arlington County’s surprise decision yesterday to cancel proposed streetcar projects for Columbia Pike and Crystal City should not be seen as a rejection of the concept of streetcars but a rejection of the funding mechanism chosen by the board that asked taxpayers to bear the fiscal risks while property owners enjoyed the…
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Optimism Bias and Risk in Public Private Partnerships
by James A. Bacon Randy Salzman, a free-lance Charlottesville writer, has spent the last couple of years trying to understand how Public Private Partnerships (P3s) work in Virginia. If the private sector is supposed to be so much more efficient than government, he asks, how come so many big P3 transportation projects in Virginia and across…
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The Statewide Implications of the Vihstadt Election
by James A. Bacon The election of John Vihstadt to the Arlington County Board in the general election last week, which has gotten very little play downstate, is rocking the Democratic political establishment in Virginia’s most liberal jurisdiction. Electorally speaking, Arlington is bluer than the sky on a clear October day — Obama won 69%…
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Virginia’s Political Class and the Chaos of Road Funding
The General Assembly is reconvening today to consider a number of issues, most prominently budgetary ones. There are two pieces of the situation that I understand with some clarity. First, the commonwealth is facing a revenue shortfall of some $1.55 billion in the current biennium. Second, Congress failed to pass an Internet tax that the…
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Which Calls for More Regulation, Sprawl or Smart Growth?
by James A. Bacon One of the more potent criticisms of the Smart Growth movement is that smart growthers implement policies that restrict development, create housing shortages and make housing unaffordable for the poor and working class. The critics present ample evidence that metro regions with the tightest restrictions on development and re-development have higher…
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Bringing Transparency to Transportation Project Selection
I have concrete reasons to bitch and moan about the new prioritization process for Virginia transportation projects under House Bill 2. A major project near my home — $14 million in improvements to the hellish intersection of Patterson Ave. and Parham Road — was scheduled for 2019 but has been put on hold to be subjected to…
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Loudoun’s Broken Development Model
by James A. Bacon Office workers need less space than they once did. Over the years businesses’ space needs per office employee have shrunk from approximately 250 square feet to less than 190 square feet, says Ben Keddie, vice president of Coldwell Banker Commercial Elite, as quoted in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. Office space is expensive, and…
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Women Flex their Biking Muscles
by Amy George Riding a bicycle can be transformative to physical and mental well being, to families, to neighborhoods, and beyond. As cycling becomes more popular, more women and girls are enjoying its effects. However, representation among cyclists still tips male — 76% as measured per-ride in the U.S. Yet recent surveys show women overwhelmingly…