Category: Transportation
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A Dystopic Future of Road-Clogging Robot Cars?
by James A. Bacon Whether we’re ready for them or not, the United States will be flooded with self-driving cars (SDCs) within 10 to 15 years. Envisioning a future in which people subscribe to driverless-car sharing services, some urbanists look to the future with equanimity: When people don’t need to own cars outright, they’re more likely to take…
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Save Lives: Treat City Streets Like City Streets
by James A. Bacon In the decade between 2003 and 2012, more than 42,000 pedestrians died on American streets and roads. That’s more than 16 times the number that died in earthquakes, floods, hurricanes and tornadoes. While natural disasters attract national attention, pedestrian fatalities are buried in the back pages, if they’re noted at all, even…
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Krumbach’s Creative Bus Shelters
Arlington County is so affluent these days that downsizing million-dollar bus stops to mere half million-dollar bus stops is seen as an act of fiscal contrition. But the county — and every other jurisdiction in Virginia, for that matter — could learn a lesson from tiny Krumbach, Austria. Aiming to put the hamlet on the tourism…
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Mo’ Money for a Broken System?
by James A. Bacon The nation’s roads and bridges have a feevah and Josh Voorhees has a cure: mo’ money for the federal Highway Trust Fund. Writing in Slate, Voorhees highlights Congress’ inability to find new revenue sources to replenish the fund, which faces an $18-billion-a-year shortfall every year over the next decade. “Current tax rates—18.4 cents per gallon…
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Where the Parking Is Easy
San Francisco’s smart parking experiment — setting prices for on-street parking based on supply and demand — has brought lower average charges, made it easier to find a space and reduced parking-related anxiety. By James A. Bacon San Francisco has a reputation in many parts of the country as a bastion of left-wing politics. Haight-Ashbury…
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How the Feds Are Detroitifying the Country
by James A. Bacon Richard Ravitch worries that more “Detroits” are in America’s fiscal future. Co-author with former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Paul Volker of the “Report of the State Budget Crisis Task Force,” Ravitch argues in the Wall Street Journal today that state and local governments have major fiscal problems, that those problems are structural in…
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U.S. 460: Now We Know What Happened, We Just Don’t Know Who Was Responsible
by James A. Bacon Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne gave yesterday a detailed timeline of the events leading up to the suspension of work on the U.S. 460 Connector after the expenditure of nearly $300 million. “From a taxpayer standpoint, there is no good explanation for why we are here today,” he told the Commonwealth Transportation…
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Oops. Arlington Adds another $100 Million to Streetcar Cost
by James A. Bacon Want to know why Virginians are so suspicious of big-ticket transportation projects? Voters feel like public officials are masters of the ol’ bait-and-switch: The governing class sucks the public into supporting an infrastructure project with a low-ball estimate, builds political support and institutional momentum, and then reveals massively higher cost estimates…
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Richmond’s Incredible Blindness
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in Business and Economy, Demographics, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government workers and pensions, Health Care, Housing, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Following up on Richmond Opening Its Kimono post from Monday, I note some significant news developments and points: First, the Richmond City Council has restored $10.6 million of the $13.6 million Mayor Dwight Jones wanted to keep his plan to build a new baseball stadium, slavery museum and mixed use development worth…
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Map of the Day: Cycling to Work
The number of U.S. workers who traveled to work by bicycle increased from about 488,000 in 2000 to about 786,000 in 2008-2012, the largest percentage increase of any transportation mode, according to a new report issued by the U.S. Census Bureau based upon its annual American Community Survey. Fully one percent of the population in…
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Map of the Day: Where the Cyclists Are
Strava Labs maintains a database of where runners and cyclists using its smart-phone fitness app are running and riding. The data set includes nearly 77 million rides and 20 million runs. The heat map above shows where cycling activity is the most intense across the state. (Sorry about cutting off Southwest Virginia and the Virginia…
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The Internet-of-Things Steamroller and the Economic Competitiveness of Cities
by James A. Bacon Well, I’m a steamroller, baby, I’m bound to roll all over you. Yes, I’m a steamroller now, baby, I’m bound to roll all over you. … — James Taylor “Steamroller The words to James Taylor’s blues classic “Steamroller” have been churning through my mind during the 2014 Niagara Summit hosted by Richmond-based…
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Where In the World Is Jim Bacon?
Nowhere as exciting as the places Matt Lauer goes… but pretty exciting for Jim Bacon. The spouse and I stopped here on the way to our final destination for one evening to help a friend celebrate her 60th birthday. I could not visit without snapping at least one photo pertaining to transportation and human settlement…
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Feet-to-the-Fire Time for Layne, Kilpatrick
by James A. Bacon Virginia taxpayers will have to suck up a $400 million to $500 million loss if the U.S. 460 upgrade between Petersburg and Suffolk never gets built, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne told the House Appropriations Committee yesterday. “If everything totally went south, we … may end up with $500 [million] left of the…
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Planners Say Yes to Shockoe Bottom Condo
by James A. Bacon Libbie Hill Park sits on the crest of a hill overlooking the James River. On that spot in 1737 William Byrd II famously looked upon the turn in the river, was struck by its resemblance to Richmond-upon-Thames outside London, and decided to give the new city founded nearby the name of…