Category: Transportation
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Maps of the Day: Condition of Virginia Roads and Bridges
Citing data provided by the White House as President Barack Obama makes the case for more federal transportation funding, the Wall Street Journal has produced these interactive maps showing how the condition of roads and bridges varies widely by state. Virginia’s roads are in relatively good shape (only 12% rated poor) but its bridges are…
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Who Wants to Be a Billionaire? Embrace Congestion Pricing
by Michael Brown This is the second part of a four-part series. Part 1 ◊ Part 2 Part 3 ◊ Part 4 As I contended in my last post, Americans can do mountains of good for sustainability by using free-market pricing tools to solve traffic congestion. In this…
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Waiting for Uber
by James A. Bacon The Richmond metropolitan area has a modest but growing taxi fleet. The Henrico County Police Division, which manages the bulk of taxi regulation in the region, issued 834 tax permits last year. Unlike some cities, which restrict the issuance of taxi permits — in New York City, taxi medallions can cost upwards…
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More Defense Cuts Plague Virginia
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Politics, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Transportation, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka Virginia continues to see painful military spending cuts in the aftermath of the years’- long U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the latest news is that the Army may cut 3,600 jobs at Ft. Lee, ironically the site of a recent and large expansion, by 2020. That could result in a…
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For Sustainability, Convert Freeways to Fastways
by Michael Brown This is the first part of a four-part series. Part 1 ◊ Part 2 Part 3 ◊ Part 4 By many peoples’ reckoning, faster-running, free-flowing freeways are the enemy of environmental sustainability. But what if I told you of a strategy that would: Result in…
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The Great U.S. 460 Swamp
VDOT had loads of warning that wetlands could kill the U.S. 460 project but the state charged ahead with a design-build contract that everyone knew could explode.
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Some Answers, More Questions about the 460 Fiasco
by James A. Bacon If you’re new to the U.S. 460 Connector controversy and need a primer to bring you up to speed, I’d recommend you read the new Virginia Business cover story written by Paula Squires. She provides an digestible overview of a complex story and advances public understanding with some fresh reporting. In particular,…
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Public-Private Partnerships and the Allocation of Risk
by James A. Bacon It’s easy to whack Virginia’s public-private partnership law for failing to meet expectations for transparency and public involvement. (I have done so repeatedly.) There are important issues that the legislature needs to deal with, as the controversy over the U.S. 460 Connector has made abundantly clear. But there are virtues to public-private partnerships…
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Virginia Is Right to Stand up to Uber and Lyft
By Robbie Werth The proliferation of so-called “ridesharing” companies has spread to over 130 cities across the world. In each city, the story is the same. Uber and Lyft force themselves on cities by doing two things: ignoring existing transportation laws and instilling fear among government and elected officials. The fear that these companies attempt…
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More Transparency, Please, Asks CTB
by James A. Bacon Overlooked in the hoopla over the $1.4 billion Route 460 controversy, it appears that the Commonwealth Transportation Board has made an important bid to inject more transparency into decision-making affecting public-private partnerships (P3s). Desiring a “more robust discussion” of such projects, the board has asked the director of the Office of Transportation Public Private Partnerships…
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The First to Join the Luddite Parade
by James A. Bacon Upstart transportation companies Uber and Lyft, which link drivers and passengers by means of a smart phone, have run into resistance from taxicab companies and municipal regulators around the country. But Virginia is the first state to crack down on the two companies, contends Ken Cuccinelli, former attorney general, in a Sunday…
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U.S. 460: Peeling Back the Onion
by James A. Bacon Structuring the U.S. 460 Connector as a public-private partnership (P3) shielded the $1.4 billion project from much of the oversight required for conventional Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) projects, found a confidential report by VDOT’s Assurance Compliance Division and the Office of the State Inspector General. As a consequence, the McDonnell administration…
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Virginia Transportation in the Slow Lane
by James A. Bacon Alvin and Heidi Toffler once wrote about the mismatch in speeds at which private corporations and governments evolve in response to social, economic and technological change. Nowhere is that differential more obvious than the automobile sector. The automobile industry is a Ferrari blazing down the Interstate at 120 miles per hour while government is…
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Coming up: Car-Lite Burbs
A California developer is teaming with Daimler AG to bring buses, shuttles and ride sharing to an Orange County community — with no government subsidies.
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Mobility vs. Access, Chesterfield vs. Manhattan
by James A. Bacon Luke Juday, writing in his personal blog, “Mapping the Commonwealth,” picks up the cudgel against a recent Wendell Cox essay that I inveighed against in, “Subsidize It, and They Will Come.” While I focused on the idea that a metropolitan strategy of building your way out of congestion is fiscal folly,…