Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Rural Virginia Fights Back

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by

James A. Bacon
in

It’s interesting to see the line of argument developing in rural Virginia regarding the GOP’s transportation funding plan: There’s not enough money in the plan for non-metro areas. And Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is pushing the angle hard.

How can rural Virginia justify demanding more, when it already benefits disproportionately from the allocation of state highway dollars? It’s all about safety. Read this article in the Martinsville Bulletin.

Rural Virginia would get about one-fourth of the money the legislative transportation plan would yield, even though 61 percent of the state’s traffic fatalities from 2000 through 2005 occurred on rural roads, according to federal highway safety data. …

During a stopover in Stuart last week on his “listening tour” to gather input on the proposed $2.5 billion transportation bill, Kaine criticized the bill for its omission of significant help to rural areas. “What’s in this (bill) for rural Virginia?” Kaine asked, adding that the one-fourth earmarked for rural Virginia could only be spent on primary roads and interstates, under the current wording of the bill.

Of the 5,593 people killed in Virginia car crashes from 2000 through 2005, more than three-fifths — 3,398 — died on roads U.S. Department of Transportation highway accident data classifies as rural, according to a computer analysis by The Associated Press.

Crashes in rural areas are more often lethal because drivers reach greater speeds on the open roads, said Ray Pethtel, associate director of the Center for Transportation Research at Virginia Tech. Driver distractions, which cause most crashes, occur in rural areas and urban ones, Pethtel said. … “You don’t have on the rural roads the same safe design characteristics that you do on major arterials like interstates,” he said.

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14 responses to “Rural Virginia Fights Back”

  1. Norman Leahy Avatar
    Norman Leahy

    I suggest you read this too, Jim.

    The Governor is looking for whatever wedge he can lay his hands on right now. But you don’t have to go out very far to find people who just don’t care about the transpo bill. Even in our own Henrico, are people upset about it? Talking about it? Even know anything about it?

    Maybe I live in a cave to close to the tracks, but I haven’t heard a peep about this bill from anyone who isn’t either a lobbyist, a candidate, or a VDOT employee.

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I thought it curious that the bond money proceeds would be confined to Primary roads and not secondary roads.

    I don’t think I’ve read anywhere the “why” behind this.

    But you know… it’s sorta lying there like a dead fish… stinking and the Conservatives – by not explaining their grand plan – have left themselves open to Kaine coming along.. and local leaders urban and rural alike – all pointing to the source of the stink and asking Kaine to fix it.

    I don’t see this as a case of Kaine being such a world-class strategizer… but rather just enough of an “on task” person who recognizes silver platter opportunities when placed in front of them…. by his Conservative Brethren.

    I guess the other thought was that perhaps the R’s were planning all along to no longer fund rural roads from State funds… and chose not to discuss it….

    .. but then that ultimately leads to the dead fish scenario…anyhow…

  3. Roll Tide Avatar
    Roll Tide

    Mr. Bacon,
    I find it interesting that you see that rural Virginia receives it disproportionate share and that Mr. Leahy claim the problems in rural areas as wedge issues.

    What no one seems to understand that regardless of the area of the state, there is a significant deficit in the road maintenance budget of about $450 million. Since maintenace comes off the top by law, then the money has to come from new construction.

    Nothing the General Assembly has done will fix that problem. So, in order to repair the roads in Fairfax or Wise, money is taken from new construction everywhere.

    By reading various newspapers around the state, you can get a flavor to the problem. This is from the Emporia paper:

    “Double-digit increases in the prices of cement, asphalt and diesel fuel—the building blocks of road construction—are expected to cost the Virginia Department of Transportation an additional $180 million this year for maintenance and construction projects. And that is why fewer upgrades are planned for Greensville County roads. Only three roads are on Greensville County’s six-year-plan, including the $340,000 Quarry Road project, a dirt road that will be constructed from a different pot of money. Only the top 3 priorities made the six-year plan, which supervisors adopted at their March 5 meeting. While the cost to pave a mile of roadway costs $1 million, the county receives only about $500,000 annually for regular road construction, he said.”

    This scene has been repeated all over the state. One should be able to see that it is not that rural roads are receiving a disproportionate share of the construction money and thus, starving Northern Virginia. It is that maintenance state-wide is the villain.

  4. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    • In Virginia during 2005, 322 persons were killed in alcohol-related crashes, a 6.12-percent decrease from
    2004.1
    • Over the last three years (since the 2002 debut of Virginia’s Checkpoint Strikeforce campaign), Virginia
    has seen more than a 14-percent (14.13%) decline (375 in 2002; 361 in 2003; 343 in 2004; and 322 in
    2005) in drunk driving deaths.2
    • 7,512 persons were injured in alcohol-related crashes in 2005, a five-percent (5.04%) decrease from 2004
    and a more than eleven-percent (11.25%) decrease over the past three years (8,465 injured in 2002).3
    • 25,283 persons were tested with blood alcohol content (BAC) of .08 percent or greater in 2005. The
    average BAC of tested drinking drivers has increased from 2000 to 2005 and now averages .1411 BAC.4
    • There are still more persons annually convicted of DUI in Virginia (28,070 in 2005) than reside in Vienna,
    Williamsburg city and Tappahannock…combined.

    http://www.wrap.org/strikeforce/06checkpoint_va_factsheet.pdf

  5. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    The problem with this discussion is that there are no “rural” areas, no “rural” roads and almost no “rural” citizens in the Commonweath of Virginia.

    There is a lot of low-density urban area in the Commonwealth — about 90% of the state where 30% of the population live. A substantial part of that low-density area is within the Countryside that is part of the three New Urban Regions.

    There are a lot of badly designed, low-capacity roadways in Virginia where urban citizens carrying out urban activities run into one another and into trees and guardrails.

    About 4% of the citizens of the Commonwealth are engaged in nonurban economic activities but almost none of them live nonurban (aka, “rural”) lifestyles. Even the John Davis’ of Virginia are not “rural.”

    This is more than semantics.

    It is best to always replace “rural” with what is really meant. Then the discussion will be on the road to having real meaning.

    EMR

  6. E M Risse Avatar
    E M Risse

    One other thing:

    We know Autonomobility does not work in New Urban Regions but there are alternatives, especailly inside the Clear Edge.

    The larger problem is that Autonomobility does not work in lower density area and no one has a clue how mobility and access can be provided for a grossly disaggregated settlement pattern of urban activties.

    EMR

  7. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    There are a lot of badly-designed, low-capacity drivers, too. If we made a drivers license as difficult to get as, say, a pilots license we would have fewer drivers and more people would choose areas where they don’t need to have one. This might be a self selecting road to urban poverty, but it beats the heck out of sudden rural death.

    If you want to tackle roadway deaths tackle the whole system.

    Or we can do nothing and continue to mark the places guardrails should go with little flowered crosses.

    ———————————————————–

    “About 4% of the citizens of the Commonwealth are engaged in nonurban economic activities but almost none of them live nonurban (aka, “rural”) lifestyles. Even the John Davis’ of Virginia are not “rural.””

    I don’t see the point in this. Why does it matter what they are doing when they smack into a tree? Why does whether it is urban or non urban according to your definition? If 4% make their living in nonurban activities, why should they want to live a rural lifestyle, whatever that is. Does that mean sitting by the wood-stove with a corn-cob pipe, reading by a coal-oil lamp? Or does it mean downloading genetics data to pick out your next herd-sire and have the semen flown in?

    If we have too many people getting killed, then let’s work on that, and do it the most efficient way wiyhout getting sidetracked into value judgements.

    I don’t have the numbers to prove it, but it often seems as if there are more urban drivers on my local country road on two weekend days than there are rural or rural/urban drivers all week. If that is truly the case, then the roads still need to be fixed, whether anyone lives a rural lifestyle here or not.

    Providing we can afford it. If we decide we can’t afford it, then we have just put one data point on the list of prices for a human life. Maybe the thing to do is drop down the list and save the ones that are cheapest and easiest first; whether they are urban or rural, whether they are drivers or not.

  8. Roll Tide Avatar
    Roll Tide

    More evidence that it is not the rural areas that are taking construction money from Northern Virginia. This is from Chesterfield County:

    “The amount provided [by VDOT] for Chesterfield County for 2007, $7 million, is not enough to reconstruct one mile of two-lane road. Moreover, counties are experiencing an average 25 % cut in their Fiscal 2007 state secondary road allocation.”

    “Chesterfield County is not alone. No county in Virginia is receiving more state secondary road construction funds in 2007 than it did in 1997. In fact, VDOT will transfer more than $400 million from its construction budget to address its Fiscal 2007 maintenance deficit.”

    Again, it is not new roads in Wise or Sussex that are penalizing Fairfax. No legislation, no where is addressing the maintenance deficit. And because of this deficit, much of the “new” money will be spent on maintenance rather than new construction.

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Did you know that Virginia has a Safety Plan?

    Check it out here…

    http://virginiadot.org/info/hwysafetyplan.asp

    “Over the past decade, there
    have been 1.4 million crashes causing 805,000 injuries and 9,200 deaths with an annual
    cost estimated at $5.5 billion.2 For the decade, there were more deaths than the
    populations in any one of the following cities or towns: Norton, Emporia, Bedford,
    Covington, Buena Vista, Galax, Lexington, or Franklin.”

  10. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “More evidence that it is not the rural areas that are taking construction money from Northern Virginia.”

    That’s what is amusing about this.

    NoVa is still focused on what they feel is an unfair allocation formula – rather than the fact that there is no more money to argue about anyhow….

    .. rather than responding to the question about whether they want to regionally self-fund their needs or not.

    The question AND the answer to regional self-funding actually renders moot – allocation issues – because it stops the allocation outflow of funds from NoVa to RoVa but yet .. some still continue to focus on past wrongs rather than look to how the NoVa region will focus on dealing with it’s congestion.

    And of course, if that were not enough – an obvious question is what exactly would NoVa do with more money anyhow… if the EPA has nixed new roads except those of the TOLL/HOV variety?

    Methinks.. some of NoVa really is not about solutions but who to blame…. and of course blaming RoVa feels better than accepting responsibility….

    Congestion Pricing – implemented in NoVA, I believe, would not only be an active response to congestion but would also have the potential to generate needed transportation funds without having to raise taxes.

    Congestion pricing is a positive way to go forward and if it falls on it’s face – the fall back is no worse than what we already have so why not give it a shot?

  11. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “Congestion Pricing – implemented in NoVA, I believe, would not only be an active response to congestion but would also have the potential to generate needed transportation funds without having to raise taxes.”

    It would only raise taxes on those subjected to congestion pricing. In this case your phrasing makes it clear that it is an attempt to tax the other guy, in this case, NOVA.

    As you say, an obvious question is what exactly would NoVa do with more money anyhow. Which implies that a) NOVA is built out, and b) the money is going wind up going someplace else anyway.

    Whether you are taxing ROVA or NOVA there is no way you can collect as much money as if you collect frol ALLVA. Wherever we get the money, we still need to decide whwer it will be spent, and how it will benefit those who sent it.

  12. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “In this case your phrasing makes it clear that it is an attempt to tax the other guy, in this case, NOVA.”

    You’ll have to explain this to me.

    taxing THE guy who is part and parcel of the congestion is not taxing the “other” guy.

    NoVa congestion is THE GUY. right?

    and yes.. money from congestion pricing could be used to provide for things like Bus Rapid Transit with dedicated lanes and multi-modal transfer points.

    The point is NoVa has in it’s hands – options – to address its own congestion and potential for funds that could be used to do some common sense things to reduce congestion.

    These options are independent of RoVa.

    No muss… no fuss.. do your own regional thing.. get your own house in order.. stop worrying about RoVa…

    use your regional options to deal with your own regional destiny.

    what a concept.

    I’m betting there is where Kaine is going for both NoVa and HR/TW… but I’m curious what he has in mind for RoVa and/or how much of it might come out of RoVa’s hide.

  13. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    “use your regional options to deal with your own regional destiny.”

    I don’t have any problem with that, as long as it applies equally. In this case, what happens is that the old inequities continue, and ON TOP OF THAT, nova gets to deal with its own regional destiny. At least part of that “destiny” is the result of a)the previous inequities and b) previous bad land use planning. For this, I agree that nova should take responsibility.

    These options are not independent as long as ROVA wants it’s share of NOVA. I am completely ambivalent. Either we can have regional funding and each region can bite it’s own particular poison pill, or we can agree that we ALL do better if we ALL throw our money in the pot and then spend it where it is needed most. What I am not ambivalent about is hybrid regional funding which combines the worst of both worlds and without even a tip of the hat to previous inequities, after years of them have apparently contributed to the current problem.

    (I concede, that the actual existence of these inequities is still in doubt, due to a lack of agreed upon metrics. Then there is the problem of the (false) schism between the general fund and the transportation fund.)

    As I understand it, you are in F’burg or thereabouts so, from my perspective, NOVA is the “other guy” to you, personally, since you will not be personally affected by the taxes or congestion charges.

    Being on the far fringes of (what I understand to be) NOVA, my position leans toward being the same as yours, and for the same reasons.

    Unlike yourself, I am still faced with the (potential) problem of having to go into the city (or near fringe) to work. At the same time, I have to ask myself, what would have happened to us if NOVA had followed sensible land use policies instead of allowing congestion to develop and become entrenched?

    Marshall might be today’s Centreville and F’burg might be today’s Springfield. You and I might already have been forced to retreat to Arkansas or some other low cost space under the combined onslaught of taxes and speculators.

    But, we’d have plenty of money.

    Well, at least you would. I would still be stuck here, providing scenery at below cost, and surrounded by a wilderness of conservation easements, once thought to be impervious to the laws of economics.

  14. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    “What I am not ambivalent about is hybrid regional funding which combines the worst of both worlds and without even a tip of the hat to previous inequities, after years of them have apparently contributed to the current problem.”

    First – it’s water under the bridge.

    Second – the “problem” is that the more roads that are built – the more it costs to maintain them and that gets even worse with inflation. The “problem” is not RoVA – the problem is that the gas tax is not indexed to deal with inflation.

    It’s futile and unproductive for NoVa to continue to focus blame elsewhere for past wrong practices… when there is plenty in it’s own house to deal with.

    They NOW have a choice between – addressing their own issues – or NOT.

    Continuing to grouse about prior ungair practices will not move them forward.

    ” As I understand it, you are in F’burg or thereabouts so, from my perspective, NOVA is the “other guy” to you, personally, since you will not be personally affected by the taxes or congestion charges.”

    Not me personally – I made choices to NOT commute to a job in NoVa AND further, the commute I chose – included a 4-person carpool.

    and I know two kinds of folks in Fredericksburg – those that ride in buses, van pools and VRE and those that choose not to.

    However, for all those folks who DID choose to live in Fredericksburg and SOLO car commute to NoVA – they SHOULD pay their legitimate commute costs that are currently actually borne by NoVa jurisdictions.

    If NoVa wants to focus on inequities that THEY CAN have some control over – it would be the out-of-jurisdiction commuters – the ones that help max out the roads at rush hour that don’t actually live in NoVa.

    Think about this. WHERE does the gas tax revenue go that is generated in the Fredericksburg Area by NoVa job commuters?

    Do you think that money goes to NoVa?

    You keep saying.. raise the gas tax. In that scenario, wouldn’t that result in MORE money for Fredericksburg coming from those that commute on NoVa roads?

    Let’s be straight – the “guy behind the tree” is the guy who DOES NOT drive NoVa roads SOLO at rush hour.

    The guy/gal who DOES drive NoVa roads SOLO at rush hour is a legitimate focus of paying his/her fair share.

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