Category: Transportation
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The Lessons of the 2013 General Assembly
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in Business and Economy, Consumer Protection, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, 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, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka If there’s any good news from the 2013 General Assembly session, it is that the hard right’s strange hold on taxation has been broken. Republicans can start acting like responsible adults once again instead of dogmatic shills or spoiled children. Gov. Robert F. Donnell and legislators found a way to raise badly…
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A Dismaying Turn of Events
Wow, the General Assembly agreed Saturday to expand the Medicaid program and debauch transportation funding in a grand compromise agreement. Politics and statism triumphed. Free-market principles and liberty lost. All in a state with a Republican governor, a Republican House of Delegates and a Senate split between Rs and Ds. Does the Republican brand mean…
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What Will We Get for that Transportation Tax Increase?
by James A. Bacon So much nonsense, so little time… Let us now take a close look at Governor Bob McDonnell’s argument that Virginia needs to raise tax revenues so we can construct new transportation projects… so we can ameliorate horrendous congestion costs that are costing Virginians billions of dollars per year. Here’s what the…
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The Crumbling Argument about Crumbling Highways
by James A. Bacon As legislators fret about how to resolve the transportation funding dilemma — the latest wrinkle is that Democrats are threatening to withhold their support for increasing transportation taxes unless Governor Bob McDonnell caves on Medicaid expansion — they would be well advised to consult a new Reason Foundation report, “Are Highways…
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The Smart (Growth) Crowd Weighs In
My smart growth buddies have issued a critique of the compromise transportation-funding deal. Among the highlights in the press release issued jointly today by the Coalition for Smarter Growth and the Piedmont Environmental Council: Cutting gas taxes by up to one-third reduces the tie between transportation use and funding. “Transportation, unlike our schools, is like…
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Cuccinelli Withhholds Judgment on Transportation Package
Guess which member of the Republican Party establishment is not yet jumping on board the legislative compromise crafted to restructure Virginia’s transformation funding mix… Ken Cuccinelli, attorney general and presumed Republican candidate for governor. While applauding Governor Bob McDonnell and the General Assembly for taking action to address Virginia’s serious transportation issues, Cuccinelli did not…
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A Pernicious New Doctrine
by James A. Bacon Governor Bob McDonnell may be a Republican, and he may deem himself a conservative, but he has single-handedly accomplished what two previous Democratic governors never did, and that is expand the scope of government in a way never before contemplated in Virginia. His contribution to the philosophical pollution of governance is…
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Legislators Cobble together Transportation Funding Compromise
House and Senate negotiators agreed upon a transportation funding package that will raise $860 million a year for roads, bridges, rail and mass transit when fully implemented. Governor Bob McDonnell hailed the agreement, implying that he would sign the legislation if approved by the both legislative bodies. The package includes the following key elements: Elimination…
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Another Step toward Smarter Highways
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has issued a $34 million contract to Pennsylvania-based TransCore to design and build an active traffic management system for Interstate 66. The contract will cover 34 miles of highway from Washington, D.C., to Gainesville, at the intersection of U.S. 29. Reports ITS International: The active traffic management system will…
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An Ignorant Vote on a Good Bicycle Bill
What’s with General Assembly Republicans? They’re willing to raise taxes to fund automobile and mass-transit projects but they’re not willing to support a bill that would make bicycling safer without costing the state a dime. The House version of a bill submitted by Sen. Chap Peterson, D-Fairfax, was defeated yesterday in a tie vote in…
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More Evidence for the Decline in Automobility
by James A. Bacon NewGeography is the thinking man’s blog for people who don’t like “smart growth.” It is relentlessly skeptical of smart-growth prescriptions for urban renewal such as higher densities, mixed-use development, mass transit and the like. Its writers tend to be big fans of automobility and American suburbs. So, when a contributor to…
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Wealth-Destroying Streets
Dan Burden, executive director of the Walkable and Livable Communities Institute, looks like an aging hippie — long white hair, a broomstick of a moustache, a twinkle in his eye — and, for all I know, he is one. But his presentation Friday at the New Partners for Smarter Growth focused on wealth creation. No,…
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Smart Growth for Everyone
by James A. Bacon I’m back from the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Kansas City, where I learned a lot, met some really bright people and, oh, by the way, gave a speech to the biggest audience of my career. As a bonus, I experienced a first — my speech was live-tweeted! You…
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Tell Us What You Really Think, Jim
by James A. Bacon A month after getting the sack from the Commonwealth Transportation Board, James E. Rich, former Culpeper District representative, has unloaded on the $245 million Charlottesville Bypass and Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton in far harsher terms than he did immediately after his resignation. (See “Our Way or the Highway.”) “Despite the contrary…
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Can We Have a Reality Check, Please?
In a potentially useful coincidence, the General Assembly was madly amending Governor Bob McDonnell’s transportation tax plan yesterday just as the Texas Transportation Institute prepared to release its 2012 Urban Mobility Report (UMR), the nation’s most authoritative assessment of the cost of traffic congestion. Let us hope that Virginia legislators pause from their frenetic activity…