Everyone loves trolleys. Some people actually ride them. But riders never pay close to what the trolleys cost to operate. The latest foolishness comes from Virginia Beach, where city officials are studying what to do with the money-losing trolley system, the VB Wave, that serves the beachfront resort area. Reports Richard Quinn with the Virginian-Pilot:…

What is to be done with U.S. 460? The Times-Dispatch ran dueling op-eds this morning. Pierce Homer, secretary of transportation, makes the case for building a divided, four-lane highway between Suffolk and Petersburg, financing the improvements with tolls and public funds. Virginia needs an upgraded U.S. 460, Homer argues, for four main reasons: (1) to…

Luis Padilla, the Cargill employee in Harrisonburg who was fired for posting a sign — “Please Vote for Marriage on November 7th” — in his pickup truck, has been given his job back. According to DNR Online: The company is … expected to issue a new policy on employee expression on Monday that will allow…

Ozone levels in Richmond and Hampton Roads has improved so much, reports Rex Springston with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that the Environmental Protection Agency will drop both regions from the national list of smoggy areas.

The popping of the real estate bubble is hitting with a vengeance in Northern Virginia, according to the latest numbers compiled by the Virginia Association of Realtors. The average sales price for a home in Northern Virginia was $512,00, down $31,100 from the year before. Long-time homeowners should escape unscathed — their property values rose…

Illegal immigrants get most of the attention in the immigration debate. We know, or think we know, who they are — overwhelmingly Hispanics from Latin America. But what is the origin of the major legal immigrants to Virginia? Drawing upon 2004 figures, a Virginia Association of Realtors research report lists the following: Of a total…

It won’t be easy upgrading Virginia’s educational system if we don’t know what needs upgrading. Everyone agrees, for instance, that the high school drop-out rate is too high. But ask them, “how high,” and they can’t give you a meaningful answer. The reason is that public school systems use different formulas to calculate the number.…

As the calendar peels away before the election, Virginians still support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages by a wide margin. The latest poll, by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, shows Virginians favoring the amendment 52 percent to 42 percent. That represents a shift of four percentage points against the amendment since late July, but amendment…

The HOT lane proposal for Interstates 395/95 is moving ahead. The Virginia Department of Transportation has signed an interim agreement with Fluor Virginia and Transurban USA, agreeing to split the $53 million cost of the engineering/study phase. Fluor/Transurban propose adding a third lane to the existing HOV corridor that would allow high-occupancy vehicles to drive…

Jumping aboard the bullet-fast Virginia blog train, Phyllis Randall offers up her entry, called A Moderate Voice. With a tagline as “The place where people from all political affiliations can discuss, learn, and laugh,” Randall describes her ideology by saying that, “Conservatives call me liberal, liberals call me conservative; depending on the issue, either characterization…

Jim Bacon raises a lot of good points in his recent article “The Devolution Solution” but “devolution” is not a “solution” by any stretch. It will be an important part of the “solution” only when there is Fundamental Change in governance structure. Any devolution (or assection) of power and responsibilty must go to a level…

Wiley Mitchell and Trip Pollard give a thumbs up to the Commonwealth Transportation Board for its decisions regarding proposed $13 billion proposal to upgrade Interstate 81. Writing in the Times-Dispatch, they laud the more limited plan that targets specific bottlenecks and safety hazards. The new plan, they say: Places a priority on identifying and improving…

Bart Hinkle at the Richmond Times-Dispatch strikes again, demonstrating once more that he’s one of the few editorial writers in Virginia with an interest in broadening the transportation debate beyond the taxes-or-no taxes dead end. Today he starts with the question: “From 1985 to 2004, the number of cell phone subscribers in America rose 5,300…

Ken Anderson, of Blacksburg, has forwarded to me a 2003 study, “Highways and Sprawl in North Carolina,” by David T. Hartgen, professor of transportation studies at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte and written for the John Locke Foundation. Clearly, the Tarheels are asking many of the same questions that we are in Virginia. For this…

A private-sector plan to add four HOT lanes to the Virginia portion of the I-495 Beltway has become so expensive, reports Eric Weiss with the Washington Post, that it may require up to $100 million in public money to make it work. Turns out that the projected cost of the improvements has increased 30 percent…