Tag: Commonwealth Transportation Board
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At Last: Objective Criteria for Scoring Transportation Projects
by James A. Bacon After lengthy study, the Commonwealth Transportation Board yesterday approved new metrics for prioritizing transportation funding in Virginia. The new metrics are designed to create objective criteria for evaluating the selection of road and rail projects. It remains to be seen how the metrics will be applied in practice, but in theory they represent a big step…
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Coping with Risk in Highway Megaprojects
by James A. Bacon As Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne has had more time to dig into his job, he has developed an ever more nuanced appreciation of how things went wrong with the U.S. 460 Connector. There was more to the fiasco, which could cost the Commonwealth up to $300 million, than a simple failure to acquire…
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More Transparency, Please, Asks CTB
by James A. Bacon Overlooked in the hoopla over the $1.4 billion Route 460 controversy, it appears that the Commonwealth Transportation Board has made an important bid to inject more transparency into decision-making affecting public-private partnerships (P3s). Desiring a “more robust discussion” of such projects, the board has asked the director of the Office of Transportation Public Private Partnerships…
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LaRock Targets MWAA, Dulles Rail, Mass Transit
by James A. Bacon Del. David A. LaRock, R-Hamilton, the man who beat legislative veteran Joe May in the Republican primary last year, comes to the General Assembly promising to represent conservative values and principles. Judging by the bills he has submitted so far, he will be true to his word. Aside from one bill…
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Hugo Proposes to Restructure the CTB
A bill submitted by Del. Tim Hugo, R-Centreville, would expand the Commonwealth Transportation Board from 18 members to 24 by adding three members of the Virginia Senate and three members of the House of Delegates. I have not talked to Hugo about his reasoning, but I can conjecture. The bill represents an effort to make the…
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Our Way or the Highway
by James A. Bacon James E. Rich has resigned from his position at the Commonwealth Transportation Board under pressure from the McDonnell administration. The Culpeper transportation district representative had opposed funding of the controversial Charlottesville Bypass and then had tried repeatedly, without success, to get the decision overturned. One of the board’s more outspoken members,…
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McDonnell Pitches Tax Plan
by James A. Bacon Addressing a friendly audience this afternoon at the Commonwealth Transportation Board, Governor Bob McDonnell plugged his transportation financing plan, arguing that it was “economically sound, politically viable” and will “fix the problem.” “Our problem is a math problem,” the governor said. “Revenues are on a downward path and the cost of…
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Kings of the Road?
Who really establishes transportation policy for Virginia, the Commonwealth Transportation Board or the McDonnell administration?
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An Expanded CTB Board: Long Overdue. But Nothing Will Change.
James A. Bacon Del. Thomas Rust, R-Fairfax, has introduced a bill, HB 2409, that would expand the representation of urban areas in the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the board charged with setting transportation policy and allocating transportation revenues. The Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia transportation districts each would expand the number of seats from one…
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CTB Errata…
Odds and ends from this morning’s meeting of the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB): Sequestration is a non-event… for transportation. Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton told CTB members that federal transportation payments to Virginia should be insulated from sequestration should Congress fail to reach a budget compromise by January 1. Federal transportation dollars are allocated by formula,…
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Uh, Oh, CTB Representatives Acting Feisty
by James A. Bacon It was a routine matter that came before the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) this morning: The Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) was asking the CTB to approve allocations from the state’s industrial rail access fund. The sums of money were small and the projects were uncontroversial — $450,000 to…
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Thinking the Big Thoughts about Transportation Planning
by James A. Bacon Under the auspices of updating the VTrans 2035 transportation plan, the McDonnell administration is executing a far-reaching overhaul of Virginia’s strategic planning process. The new approach would use performance metrics for such criteria as safety, congestion, the economy and the environment to create a data-driven system for prioritizing transportation projects. The…
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Concrete Exec Advocates “Two Pavement” Road System
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) spends only 7.6% of its paving dollars on concrete, as opposed to asphalt, and the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the American Concrete Paving Association wants a bigger piece of the action. Pitching the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) Wednesday, Executive Director Robert R. Long Jr., outlined four “opportunities” for the state…
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McDonnell Team Pushes New Transit-Funding Scheme
by James A. Bacon Virginia should overhaul its funding formulas to reward local transit companies for superior productivity and performance, argued Thelma Drake, director of the Department of Rail and Public Transportation (DRPT) during a presentation yesterday of the McDonnell administration’s funding reform plan to the Commonwealth Transportation Board. “The current system dates back to…
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CTB Advances $1.4 Billion U.S. 460 Project
With a new financing plan, the interstate-grade U.S. 460 Connector is a go as the McDonnell administration touts the highway’s economic development potential.