Peter Baque with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, who attended the Virginia Light Rail Symposium Friday, provides a quick environmental scan of light rail projects across Virginia. Everybody loves light rail, it appears — they just don’t like paying for it. There’s a reason we don’t see a lot of light rail projects:. They’re expensive. They require…

There has been considerable discussion on this blog on the viability of the $4 billion estimate for building the Rail to Dulles project. The issue became all the more urgent, to my mind, when private-sector proposals to build a new U.S. 460 between Suffolk and Petersburg came in hundreds of millions of dollars higher than…

Here’s a cost that doesn’t get cranked into the usual calculations of traffic congestion: First responders are increasingly using helicopters to get patients to the hospital quickly. Reports Ari Cetron with The Connection Newspapers: The number of helicopter trips made by Aircare Medevac has more than doubled in just one year. In 2005, the company’s…

City officials in Virginia Beach, where scattered, disconnected development has long epitomized everything wrong with suburban sprawl, shows signs that they really get it. On Monday, reports the Virginian-Pilot, the city Planning Commission will hear a proposal for more mixed-use, higher-density housing along Virginia Beach Boulevard. A voluntary program would allow developers to build “workforce”…

After a contentious debate, Hanover County has approved a mixed-use (MX) district that will permit buildings to contain multiple uses. Such structures are normally found only in intensely developed urban areas, which struck a number of Hanover County citizens the wrong way. Many want to preserve the county’s low-density ambience. The MX district will be…

Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, one of the grandees of the state Senate, explained his thinking about transportation issues at a monthly meeting of the Goochland Republican committee. As reported by S.E. Warwick with The Goochland Courier, he noted quite correctly that the gas tax can’t keep up with the cost of maintaining state roads. Maintenance…

Gov. Tim Kaine and House Speaker Bill Howell are tussling again over the budget, this time over Kaine’s decision to use $3.7 million in surplus state funds to bail out a Fairfax County day care program. As Washington Post reporter Bill Turque explains the background: For the past several years, Virginia has used state and…

I am distressed to read that Chad Dotson, one of the bloggers who inspired me to launch the Bacon’s Rebellion blog, will stop making daily posts on Commonwealth Conservative. The demands of his job and obligations to his family make it impossible to keep up the pace. Chad says he will continue participating in the…

I came into this world as a Republican, and I still veer to the red side of international issues: Although I believe there is much to appreciate about and learn from other societies, I’m an unabashed American-firster. But when it comes to domestic issues and building prosperous communities in a globally competitive, knowledge-intensive economy, I…

Little Poquoson on The Peninsula is the first or second most Republican voting city of 134 cities and counties in the Commonwealth. In recent elections Poquoson keeps one of the top three highest per cent voter turn outs. Our voter turn out was 62.44% (5270 voting out of 8440). Well above the State average. We…

I haven’t kept up with this story as I promised, but it looks like Greenvest LC’s push for greater development densities in the Dulles South area of Loudoun County is heading for defeat. According to Dusty Smith with Leesburg2day: The board of supervisors last night signaled the defeat of a proposal to increase the residential…

As of 8:15 a.m. today, it looks like Jim Webb will be the next U.S. Senator from Virginia, assuming that he holds his razor-thin lead after a recount. When Virginia elects Democrats to the Senate, it elects conservative Democrats — at least they’re conservative by the standards of the national Democratic Party. Somehow, I’m not…

It was just a matter of time before someone made this connection: The rising incidence of obesity in the United States doesn’t just lead to diabetes, high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol, it also increases fuel consumption in passenger vehicles, according to a study by Virginia Commonwealth University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.…

An interesting experiment in the sensitivity of motorists to increases in toll charges is taking place in the Dulles Greenway. For the first three quarters of 2006, traffic is down 6.6 percent, despite soaring population growth in Loudoun County, in the aftermath of a $.30 toll increase. “The 2006 traffic drop is likely a real…

Kudos to Bart Hinkle for the most brilliant, hysterically funny political parody of the year: “The Tragicall Historie of George and Jim: A Comedie in Several Acts.” (Sadly, the rhyme loses its impact because someone republished Hinkle’s poetry without differnetiating between lines of verse. Someone deserves to be flayed! But read it anyway.)