Category: Transportation
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Screwing Workers On Safety and Liability
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in Bacon and Pigs, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Economic development, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Government Finance, Health Care, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka At 4:30 a.m. on April 27, about 100 workers of the Greater Richmond Transit Company — half of the total – failed to show up for work. Worried about the health of its membership, Local 1220 of the International Amalgamated Transit Union demanded additional safety measures such as full personal protection equipment,…
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Mass Transit Reacts to COVID-19 Menace
by James A. Bacon Another data point in the ongoing debate over cars versus mass transit… The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has asked riders to stay home and not to travel, as the agency prepared to cut service Wednesday, reports the Washington Times. Ridership has already fallen 70%. Metro, which operates buses and commuter…
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Sweet 16 (Tax Bills) Will Cost Virginians Billions
By Steve Haner What will this year’s General Assembly cost you in taxes? Here are at least 16 bills approved by the 2020 General Assembly that create or raise taxes on Virginians or authorize a local government to do so. No one told Virginians at the start of session that major tax increases were coming,…
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COVID-19 as Boost to Telework, Distance Learning
by James A. Bacon The COVID-19 virus may change our lives in ways we can only begin to imagine. Believe it or not, some of them might even be positive. Consider the impact of today’s stories upon Virginia’s higher-ed and transportation systems. A boost to distance learning. The University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, and James…
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Electric Yellow School Buses? Pure Green Grease
By Steve Haner Having voted to give Dominion Energy Virginia a blank check to spend billions of your money on offshore wind turbines, the Virginia House of Delegates will vote today to provide hundreds of millions more from your pockets for electric school buses. Last week the House defeated a similar bill, twice. It received…
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Bacon Bits: The Madness Continues…
Yes, Virginia, our long statewide nightmare is almost over. Lawmakers in the General Assembly are scheduled to go home next week. In the meantime, life goes on, and we get news like this… Silver Line looking tarnished. Phase 2 of the Silver Line, which extends the Washington Metro commuter rail to Washington Dulles International Airport,…
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How Are Those Inside-the-Beltway Toll Roads Working Out?
by James A. Bacon In late 2017, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) installed tolled express lanes on the congested inside-the-Beltway segment of Interstate 66. Planners hoped the tolls would discourage commuters from driving solo, and surplus toll revenues would be used to expand bus and rail alternatives. There was a frenzy of media coverage…
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Moderation? Senate Holds Back House On Issues
By Steve Haner With two weeks remaining in the 2020 General Assembly session, the tendency to procrastinate (and perhaps some buyer’s remorse) has several key issues still pending. Here is an update on some previously discussed on Bacon’s Rebellion. The moderating impact of the narrow 21-19 split in the Virginia Senate, with several of those…
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Richmond’s Pulse Stimulates Mid-Rise Development
by James A. Bacon Sometimes it seems like the City of Richmond can’t do anything right. City Council just nixed a $1.5 billion redevelopment plan for the Navy Hill district in downtown. And no one can figure out where, or how, to build a new minor league baseball stadium. But the city has hit a…
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A Series of Hidden Tax Hikes In the Bag
By Steve Haner Politicians hate taxes that voters pay by check and love taxes that are buried deep on invoices or fully invisible. The 2020 General Assembly is raising taxes right and left (mostly left) but focused on that second method. These will be tax increases most people will never spot. Governor Ralph Northam’s record…
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Deer, Cars, Wildlife Corridors… and Coyotes
by James A. Bacon Egads! Vehicle collisions with deer accounted for 61,000 traffic accidents, in Virginia in the year ending June 30, 2016, according to the Virginia Transportation Research Council. The hoofed critters contributed to one in six of all accident claims. And, judging by the number of deer carcass removals, the number of accidents…
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All Aboard!
Governor Northam has proposed a major long-range expansion of passenger rail service in the Commonwealth. The broad outline was released last December and the means to implement it are included in the administration’s omnibus transportation bill (HB 1414 and SB 890). The Plan The details of the plan are too extensive to set out in…
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Highway Safety Provisions Embedded in Omnibus Bill
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Included in the Governor’s omnibus transportation bill, discussed earlier here, are some major highway safety proposals that have proved controversial in the past. The administration probably thought the chance of passage would improve if these proposals were wrapped up in a big package with lots of other stuff. The items are the…
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Chart of the Day: I-95 Congestion Bottlenecks
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is getting more sophisticated in how it analyzes and presents data. The chart above comes from a VDOT study looking at average northbound speeds on Interstate 95 to determine where to focus traffic-relief efforts, according to Inside NoVa. The department will develop a similar study for the Interstate 64…
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Bacon Bits: In Non Gun-Related News…
In the Virginia political world, everyone’s attention is riveted today upon the gun-rights rally in Richmond. We are all hoping that everyone behaves himself and the event remains peaceful. But other things of interest are happening around the Commonwealth. Washington Metro ridership back up. The years-long downward slide in Washington Metro ridership reversed itself in…