Category: Transportation
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A Whole Lot of Commuting Going On
The Governing magazine blog has published some fascinating U.S. census data on commuting patterns in the U.S., and though the author did not pick up on this particular angle, the data shows Virginia as a real outlier. The chart above, extracted from the census data, shows Virginia counties with populations of 60,000 or more. There…
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No Excuses Left!
Now that Governor Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly have restructured transportation taxes away from a user-pays system to an everybody-pays system, they have (perhaps unwittingly) undermined the justification for short-changing funding for bicycle routes. Cycling advocates Tom Bowden and Champe Burnley drive home the point in a Times-Dispatch op-ed today. Now our streets and…
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The Staples Mill Station: An Opportunity Gone Begging
by James A. Bacon Here’s the good news about the Amtrak Station at Staples Mill in Henrico County: The number of passengers increased 8% last year to 345,000, making it the busiest rail station in the South. Here’s the bad news: The suburban station’s 288-space parking lot is totally swamped. On any given day, as…
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Traffic Management Contract to Save $47 Million
by James A. Bacon Outsourcing management of Virginia’s five traffic operations centers will save about $47 million over the life of the six-year contract and accelerate the adoption of state-of-the-art technology and best management practices. So says Dean Gustafson, state operations engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation. In a presentation yesterday, Gustafson briefed the…
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How Seriously Should We Take the Dulles-Air Cargo Hype?
There’s an apocryphal story about a big corporation that assigned its scientists and nutritionists to concoct the healthiest dog food they could devise. After great effort, they unveiled the product. This dog food, they announced, would keep dogs fit and slender. It would give them thick, smooth hair. It would take away their bad breath.…
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Governor Bob as King George?
This quote from Del. Bob Marshall, R-Manassas, at the Commonwealth Transportation Board was just too good to bury in the longer news story I filed last night…. Here’s the context: Marshall was making the argument that the Virginia Department of Transportation and McDonnell administration had provided insufficient transparency to the approval process for the Bi-County…
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A Bump in the Road
Under withering criticism for a lack of transparency, the Commonwealth Transportation Board has agreed to a one-month delay before formally endorsing the McDonnell administration’s vision for the North-South Corridor.
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A Grand Unified Vision for Richmond’s Future
by James A. Bacon By 2035 the Richmond region will grow by roughly 200,000 households (435,000 people) and 200,000 new jobs. That’s a mind-numbing number for a metropolitan region with barely more than 1 million inhabitants today. But, assuming the forecast is valid, where those people wind up living and working will have a dramatic…
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Do American Households Really Prefer “Sprawl” Development?
by James A. Bacon The United States appears to be experiencing another building boom — it’s amazing what 3% mortgage rates will d0 — and urban geographer Joel Kotkin is crowing that most of that growth is occurring in the low-density, suburban fringe of America’s metropolitan regions. In a recent blog post in New Geography,…
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Time to Get Real about Quality of Richmond’s Bicycle Infrastructure
The Richmond region has a long way to go before it can truly be considered a bicycle-friendly town. The entire region has only 18.25 miles of paved bike lanes — “sharrow” lanes marked with bicycle icons don’t count — and those lanes are fragmented, unconnected to a broader network. In 2015, hundreds of thousands of…
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Smarter Analytics for Smarter Roads
As information technology continues to penetrate traditional industry sectors like transportation, the innovations just keep on rolling in. The latest case in point comes from a San Francisco-based start-up, StreetLight Data, co-founded by Richmond native Laura Schewel. StreetLight Data combines a variety of data sources — wireless data, GPS navigation data, Census data — to…
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VDOT Privatizes Management of Traffic Control Centers
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell administration is tapping Serco., Inc., an English firm with international traffic management experience, to take over Virginia’s five transportation management centers. The six-year deal, announced yesterday, will be implemented as a public-private partnership in a $355 million contract. Thirty-two firms had responded to the state’s Request for Proposal. Serco…
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Cuccinelli: Promote Economic Development by Creating Level Playing Field
by James A. Bacon In a press conference this morning at a Richmond SweetFrog restaurant, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli laid out the philosophical principle that would guide his approach to economic development if he were elected governor: Create a level playing field for all businesses rather than incentives for a lucky few. He would close…
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Damned with Faint Praise: Virginia Ranks Tops in South for Bicycle Friendliness
Virginia ranks 16th nationally in the just-published League of American Bicyclists’ “Bicycle Friendly States” ranking, and No. 1 in the South. The state of Washington took the top spot, with Colorado nailing down No. 2. Colorado cycling has come on strong in recent years as the business community has mobilized around the goal of making…
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Only Two Words Suffice: Holy Moly! Make that Three Words: Holy Friggin’ Moly!
Portsmouth Circuit Court Judge James A. Cales Jr. ruled Wedesday that the state’s $2.1 billion public-private partnership deal for the Downtown-Midtown Tunnel project is unconstitutional. Reports the Virginian-Pilot: Cales said in his ruling that the General Assembly exceeded its authority in giving VDOT “unfettered power” to set toll rates under the 1995 Public-Private Transportation Act.…