Jim makes some good points re the work of Philip Shucet the former VDOT commissioner who now works for a private developmer.
However, before we move to canonize Shucet let us recall that:
The role of government is to provide service, not to cut costs.
Cutting costs are fine but how about measures of performance?
During Shucet’s term VMT continued to grow faster than drivers, cars or population. Congestion got worse every year in every region of the state.
There is still not one major VDOT project that is designed to improve the pattern and density of land use.
There is also not one major project that is designed to serve the exiting land use, zoned land use and planned land use in the corridor. See “Anatomy of a Bottleneck” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com
That bottleneck summary was first written in 2000 and rewritten in 2003. We just looked it over and the only up date is that there is now some money now available to do some of the roadway and safety work near and east of the Gainesville Interchange on I-66. However, there is also more of the formerly “zoned and planned land uses” now under development, construction and occupied than the new capacity can accommodate.
There may be some sour grapes but there is more to what Ken Anderson says than Shucet admits in his response that Jim posted.
Let us keep in mind that it is easier to cut back when you are building less. We have not noted Virginia getting any awards for the quality of maintenance which is what a lot of those District office staff do. In the Culpeper and “Northern Virginia” Districts we have seen few sign so improvement. Is not the terrible condition of the existing system one of the reasons we need to raise Billions?
When VDOT’s own forces took months to lengthen the left turn lane at the US Route 29/US Route 15 Intersection we were reminded of Ada Louise Huxtable’s famous The New Yorker story “Will They Ever Complete Bruckner Boulevard?”
The lowball contract for widening of I-66 west of 234 does not provide for adequate maintenance of capacity. This has resulted in years of cumulative delay time (we call it “person slaughter” in The Shape of the Future). Now the contractor plans to shut down first the eastbound lanes and then the westbound lanes every evening for a month each for “repaving.” That is a way to cut costs of construction but not a good way to provide access and mobility.
Did not George Allen already get the all time prize for reducing VDOT staff? That sure helped mobility and access.
When he left office Shucet sent a memo out that, according to a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, said in part: “There is no indication that automobile use will decline in coming generations–even considering the increased cost of gasoline”
That statement alone should condemn him to the opposite alternative of canonization. “Generations” is 50 years. What was he thinking?
Perhaps about his next job. A lot of people who do a good job in the public sector have been hired by the private sector. They are hired not because the job they did looking out for the public interest but because of their contacts or their abilities that will make money for the private enterprise. That is the way the competitive environment works but it is not the basis for sainthood nor, apparently, the path to mobility and access.
EMR