Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Three Reasons Not to Slit Our Wrists

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by

James A. Bacon
in

While I am despondent about the passage of the GOP transportation-financing package, there are shreds of consolation from the General Assembly, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has enumerated three of them in a Saturday press release touting his legislative successes. They are:

SB1181: Subdivision Streets
Patron: Martin E. Williams, R-Newport News
Strengthens standards for accepting subdivision streets into the state system by increasing connectivity standards for roads and subdivisions. Basic connectivity enhances the overall capacity and efficiency of the transportation network and reduces congestion on major arterials by providing alternative routes for local trips.

HB 2228, SB 1312: Access Management
Patrons: Del. Leo C. Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach, Sen. Charles B. Hawkins, R-Chatham
Promotes traffic flow and interconnectivity on the state’s road system, ensuring that new and existing roadways are not degraded by the creation of too many and poorly spaced intersections, turn lanes, median breaks, and other impediments.

HB2163, SB1144: Incident Management
Patrons: Del. Shannon R. Valentine, D-Lynchburg, Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach
Allows VDOT vehicles to participate in clearing cars and restoring traffic flow after an accident, improving response time.

Each of these bills is worthwhile, and each will make an incremental improvement to ameliorating traffic congestion. They constitute worthwhile first steps down the long road to land use reform. Let us hope, however, that lawmakers don’t declare victory and move on.

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5 responses to “Three Reasons Not to Slit Our Wrists”

  1. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Shannon Valentine is a Democrat. If she were a Republican, Lynchburg would have gotten its combined sewer overflow funds last year.

    Boy you are scraping, Jim. Nobody will see an impact from those bills in their daily lives. Brochure bills, all three.

  2. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    I’m curious why these things have to be laws instead of policy regs.

    Is it because the way that Virginia Law works or is it because it’s the only way to get VDOT to do these things.

    I think these kinds of bills are the reason why we have HUNDREDs of bills each session instead of just a few important ones – like transportation.

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Anonymous, Thanks for the heads up regarding Del. Valentine. I’ve corrected my original post.

    I disagree with you about the import of the three bills. They all address real problems. Will they solve traffic congestion by themselves? Not by a long shot. But enither will all the new money being dumped into the transportation system. Virginia needs to make a wide range of changes, both large and small, to evolve to a more effective transportation system. These three measures are all necessary, if incomplete.

    The problem, as I posted, occurs if the legislators “declare victory and move on” to other issues. With these measures, they’ve pulled up a seat to the table and put their napkins on their lap — they’ve not even dug into the first course of all the work that needs to be done.

  4. MassBile Avatar
    MassBile

    Very good article…infomational for sure…looking forward to reading some more posts placed on this topic…will be checking this page again..have saved in favorites and bookmarked…thanks

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  5. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    Wait a danged minute.

    We have to have the GA do laws that ought to be implemented POLICY?

    No wonder we have thousands of bills in the GA!

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