Category: Transportation
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How the Buy-America Mandate Hurts U.S. Transit
by James A. Bacon Why do bus lines so consistently lose money? One reason is that transit companies, out of concern for the poor, keep fares too low. Another is that politics dictate that money-losing bus routes stay open. A third reason is that federal regulations effectively require transit companies to purchase American-manufactured buses that…
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Virginia’s Behind-the-Scenes Transportation Planning Revolution
by James A. Bacon The McAuliffe administration is generating big headlines by re-thinking mega-projects like the Charlottesville Bypass and the U.S. 460 Connector favored by the previous administration. Those projects came to the fore because federal regulatory authorities made it clear they had major problems with them, leaving Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne scrambling to keep…
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Picking up the Pieces of the U.S. 460 Fiasco
by James A. Bacon Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne said today he suspended work on the U.S. 460 Connector project because he didn’t want to run the risk of paying the contractor millions of dollars for work on a project that might be radically revised. The state of Virginia has spent $300 million already on the proposed…
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VDOT Seeks New Solution to Charlottesville Congestion
by James A. Bacon Effectively pulling the plug on the proposed Charlottesville Bypass, the McAuliffe administration has set up an advisory panel to recommend improvements to the U.S. 29 corridor north of Charlottesville. Lead by former Virginia Department of Transportation Commissioner Philip Shucet, the group must submit recommendations by May 14 — less than two…
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Busy Day at the CTB
Many meaty stories from the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting today. It will take me a long time to do them all justice, so, for the moment, I will settle for whetting your appetite with the highlights. The Charlottesville Bypass is dead. It may not be buried — a few ritual oblations remains — but it…
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If Not for Government, Who Would Build the Roads?
A couple of blog posts over on Smart Growth for Conservatives shed light on some of the controversies raging within the comments section of Bacon’s Rebellion… Emily Washington asks in “Urbanism without Government,” if not for the government, who would build the roads? She points to the example of Elfreth’s Alley in Philadelphia, built around…
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U.S. 460 Project Implodes: State Suspends Spending
by James A. Bacon Having spent $300 million on the U.S. 460 upgrade between Petersburg and Suffolk, the state is suspending contract and permit work on the project until a critical environmental review by the Army Corps of Engineers can be completed. Secretary of Transportation Aubrey Layne made the announcement yesterday. The Corps has given…
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Uh, oh, McAuliffe Might Help Fund Light Rail for the Beach
by James A. Bacon Governor Terry McAuliffe has committed to provide state support for a proposed $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion project to extend Norfolk’s light rail line, the Tide, to the Virginia Beach ocean front, according to Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms. During his state of the city address, Sessoms claimed that the McAuliffe…
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America’s (and Virginia’s) Road-Maintenance Deficit
by James A. Bacon State transportation departments across the country are spending billions of dollars to build new roads and highways even as they fail to maintain the road networks they already have, according to a new report by Smart Growth America and Taxpayers for Common Sense. Between 2009 and 2011, the most recent years…
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Cars, User Fees and the Intransigence of Human Nature
by James A. Bacon Bern Grush has been promoting Mileage Based User Fees (MBUFs) as a mechanism for financing roads and highways since 2002 or so. The Toronto native was one of the earliest evangelists of the concept of charging trucks and cars by the mile to raise money to build and maintain roads. The…
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How to Cut Auto Usage without Social Engineering
Emily Badger, a perceptive writer for the Atlantic Cities blog, makes a number of excellent points in a commentary published today but manages to confirm conservatives’ worst fears that liberals and progressives are engaged in a war against cars. The libs may say they are “pro-transit,” “pro-bicycle” and “pro-transportation choice,” but when you scratch the surface, their…
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Fixing Our Compromised Interstates and Highways
Over on Strong Towns Chuck Marohn is running a five-part series on how to restructure transportation policy in his home state of Minnesota. Despite a different state/local government structure and different spheres of authority for the two states’ transportation departments, many of his proposals carry over to Virginia. In today’s missive, he tackles three issues…
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Bacon Bits: Bicycles and Baseball Stadiums
The Easy Out. Writing in Henrico Monthly John Gerner, a Richmond-based leisure industry consultant, takes Richmond City Hall’s assumption that building a new baseball stadium requires public funding. Ballparks are often built with little or no public funding, he writes: Greensboro’s privately financed ballpark that was built to accommodate a AA minor league baseball team,…
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Value Capture vs. Slush Funds as Transportation Funding Tool
by James A. Bacon Charles Marohn at Strong Towns has penned a fascinating piece comparing the financing of America’s railroad system in the 19th century with the construction of the nation’s Interstate highway system in the 20th. (Read the essay on the Smart Growth for Conservatives blog.) The railroads used a form of “value capture,”…
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Roanoke Experiments with Paid Parking
by James A. Bacon In 1999 the City of Roanoke went socialist with its on-street parking downtown — it removed the last of its parking meters with the idea of making downtown more “hospitable” to visitors. Fifteen years later, city officials are planning to experiment with free markets and actually use price as a rationing…