Category: Transportation
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Work at Home and the Transportation Revolution
by James A. Bacon It may be time for a major re-think of transportation policy. Alan Pisarski, a Northern Virginia transportation consultant, argues that the states should refrain for now from expanding the transportation system and dedicate funds to properly maintaining the transportation assets they have. New technologies and business models, some accelerated by the…
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Updates: PPP, PIPP, Dominion’s School Buses
by Steve Haner Tax on Paycheck Protection Program Grants The General Assembly session deadlines require final decisions on various revenue bills before the final budget bill is adopted, in theory keeping the two issues separate. What is good tax policy should not be driven by the need or greed of the appropriators.
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Should Virginia Rebuff the HUF?
by Bill Tracy There’s a new Virginia tax called a HUF — for Highway Use Fee. Who knew? Not me — until I had to pay it. If you renew your Virginia vehicle registration, and your car exceeds a 25 miles-per-gallon EPA rating, you will be politely advised that you are underpaying pump taxes, and…
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Dominion Electric Bus Scheme Back, With More
by Steve Haner First published this morning by Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The ultimate goal of the Transportation and Climate Initiative with its tax and rationing scheme is to eliminate fossil fuels for transportation and get us into electric vehicles. That is something advocates have admitted and critics have pointed out. While Virginia…
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Is It Time to Say Goodbye to Virginia Coal Exports??
By Peter Galuszka Oilprice.com, a petroleum trade newsletter, has a story that could spell more bad news for the faltering Virginia coal industry. For many years, the most valuable product from Virginia’s coal fields was coking or metallurgical coal that is exported to other countries for use in steel making. China has been a crucial…
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CO2 Taxes, Gas Rationing Poll Badly With Voters
By Steve Haner The Transportation and Climate Initiative plan to tax and ration motor fuels suffered a major setback just before Christmas, when eight of the eleven states considering it decided not to move forward in 2021. Less than two weeks earlier, advocates had released polling that claimed to show overwhelming popularity for the idea.
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$50 Million to Extend Amtrak Service to Christiansburg?
by James A. Bacon In his proposed budget unveiled yesterday, Governor Ralph Northam provides $50 million to extend Amtrak passenger rail service from Roanoke to the New River Valley. The money would go to “right-of-way and easement acquisitions and anything that would help reduce bottlenecks to make way for a passenger train in the New…
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Bacon Bits: Stream-of-Consciousness Edition
New sparkplug for Colonial Williamsburg. Carly Fiorina, former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, unsuccessful candidate for president and Virginia resident since 2011, has joined the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Board of Trustees as chairwoman. It is gratifying to see Fiorina, a truly dynamic individual, apply her talents to a Virginia enterprise. Colonial Williamsburg has suffered a long-term decline…
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The Virginia Green Car Buyer’s Blues
by Bill Tracy Let me tell you a sad yarn about buying green cars in Virginia. Due to a dead hybrid battery after 14 years and 192,000 miles, we recently traded in our classic 2006 Toyota Prius for a new Toyota RAV4 Hybrid LE, the cheapest green RAV4. Had we lived in a different Blue…
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TCI: Taxing the Poor to Benefit the Rich
By Steve Haner “I think TCI is just taxing poor people so that we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.” So said New Jersey’s Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy for the Ironbound Community Corporation. She was speaking during an online seminar September 29 organized by Transportation and Climate Initiative advocates. That particular comment…
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The Coming Push for Electric Vehicles in Virginia
by James A. Bacon Now that Virginia is committed to a 100% renewable electric grid by 2050, the push is on to decarbonize the transportation sector. In a word, that means persuading Virginians to switch from cars with internal combustion engines to electric vehicles (EVs). In an early sign of what’s to come, a Charlottesville-based…
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3% Subsidy Cap for Washington Mass Transit “Appears” to Help Virginia Taxpayers
by James A. Bacon A 3% cap on annual state contributions to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) “appears to be a useful tool” for managing runaway subsidies for the Washington-area transit agency, finds a report recently published by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC). The main benefit cited by the report, required by…
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Northam’s Tax Hikes Keeping Virginia Budget Afloat
This column was published originally in the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy newsletter. Steve normally re-publishes it on Bacon’s Rebellion himself, but he is volunteering at the polls today, so I am posting for him. — JAB by Steve Haner One quarter into the new fiscal year, despite the ongoing COVID-19 recession, Virginia state…
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Enjoy Driving at Night Without Headlights? You’re in Luck!
by Kerry Dougherty Oh my. This really is special. Virginia’s General Assembly – in the midst of an expensive special session with no end in sight – just passed a bill that, if signed by the governor, will forbid police officers from stopping a car that is being driven at night without headlights, tail lights…