Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Update to “Bedeviled and Becalmed”

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by

James A. Bacon
in ,

Alert reader “Too Many Taxes” brings to my attention the sponsorship of House Bill 1198  by Del. James M. LeMunyon, R-Chantilly, in the past session of the General Assembly. The bill would have required state transportation agencies to “evaluate all significant transportation projects in and near the Northern Virginia Transportation District, including both highway and mass transit projects, and provide an objective, quantitative rating for each project according to (i) the total amount of reduction in traffic congestion regionally and, separately, (ii) the amount of reduction in traffic congestion expected to be achieved per dollar cost of the project.”

The bill would have been even more useful if it had applied the requirement statewide to all projects over a certain size, and if it had required the state to document the impact of transportation projects on accidents, economic development, the environment and public safety. According to TMT, the bill sailed through the House but died in the Senate Finance Committee.

If someone knows why, please let us know — post a comment!

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16 responses to “Update to “Bedeviled and Becalmed””

  1. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    Rumors circulating up here say that Janet Howell and Dick Saslaw opposed the bill from within the committee.

    Might be worth a call to those two epic geniuses to see what they say. Might be worth hearing Howell’s opponent – Patrick Forrest’s take on the matter.

    Only person I can find on the record about the matter is Scott Surovall – who opposed in the house. He felt some of the parameters to be used as inputs to the ROI model were ill defined and subject to manipulation.

    Big issue is the procedure in the Clown Show. A bill that gets 85% support in the house is killed in the Finance Committee (apparently without a public vote).

    If Janet Howell and Dick Saslaw really opposed the bill then they should have shown the minimal courage to put themselves on the record by voting against it.

    But that’s not how the Clown Show works. Unlimited campaign contributions, secret killing of bills, etc, etc.

  2. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    …. ” parameters to be used as inputs to the ROI model were ill defined and subject to manipulation.”

    Northern Va ha it’s own transportation authority and is a member of MWCOG/TPB and both of these entities do have prioritization schemes…

    the basic problem here is do you prioritize BEFORE you allocate state funds to regions and localities or is allocation based on other factors like trying NOT to allocate more money to any one district than they roughly bring in in gas taxes.

    You’ll never ever get RoVa to agree to any prioritization scheme where they could conceivably end up with no money and all of it is going to NoVa or Tidewater.

    that’s why Groveton’s retort that they’ll not do anything about transportation as long as they are afraid they’ll lose their existing share is so amusing…

    It’s not like Fairfax … Prince William have not already had transportation referenda… the Fairfax Parkway was approved by voters…

    nope.. the problem is that some of the projects that NoVa might want are far, far too big for NoVa taxpayers to finance … so they want the “clown show” to do it…

    same old. same old. Hampton Roads plays the same game… ” we’re Va ports and all you other localities should help fund our tunnels and roads.

    In both HR/TW and NoVa the assertion that they need more roads funded by RoVa so they can be even more “economic” is ludicrous when you realize that the vast, vast problem in NoVa and HR/TW is simply this – too many folks who want to drive a SOLO vehicle – at rush hour.

    that’s the problem.. there is no economic activity that is directly harmed by a lack of transportation funding.. it’s simply that too many people driving solo at rush hour have gridlocked the roads…

    the question is – who should pay to give solo drivers more road at rush hour.

    When you pose that question to RoVa . they know the answer but it’s not the one that NoVa wants… so then NoVa says ” we fund your schools” so you have to fund our transportation… or else….

    there you have it.. Balkanization on steroids…

  3. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    We’ll never know why the Clown Show killed a bill that passed one chamber with 85% support.

    And that, LarryG, is the problem.

    The Clown Show is opaque, incompetent and corrupt. Recent examples:

    Opaque: HB1998, passed with 85% support in House, killed by fewer than a dozen politicians in committee with no record of the committee meeting nor any vote. This happens all the time. Hundreds of times per GA session.

    Incompetent: Voting for a massive transportation bill that was immediately and unanimously found to be unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court.

    Corrupt: Claiming a budget surplus by under-funding the state pension plan.

    Those are just a few examples. There are many, many more.

    LarryG – all of your yammering about SOLO drivers is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that our state legislature (as an organization) is opaque, incompetent and corrupt.

    The problem is the state legislature, not SOLO drivers or balkanization or any other such nonsense. Until you fix the governing body all discussion of the challenges which the governing body must face is wasted time. You might as well start pondering your navel.

  4. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    But … just as an aside, do you really think that people in Staunton or Roanoke or Millersville drive in car pools? Don’t they also drive SOLO?

    So, LarryG – why aren’t the roads in Staunton, Roanoke or Millersville congested?

    Because the infrastructure was overbuilt with public funds?

  5. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Hampton Roads is worse than NoVa. they have HOV-2 and even at rush hour, the lanes are little used.

    most places in Va drive solo and have rush hours with solo cars a large part of the rush hour.

    the question is why should Staunton or Williamburg give up their gas taxes to build more solo car rush hour infrastructure for NoVa or HR/TW?

    what I’m pointing out is that the claims that the economy of NoVa is choking from a lack of infrastructure is … hilarious.

    have you looked around in NoVa lately…?? the roads are everywhere… I don’t even know where you’d put more roads without having to tear down existing business and/or residential.

    what’s choking your economy is not – not enough roads – but the roads you have are basically overrun with solo autos.

    they have the same problem in Staunton and Williamsburg but not on the same scale.

    the reason you are building Metro to Dulles is because your roads are so full of solo cars that people can no longer get to Dulles some times of the day… so basically you’re have to pour billions of dollars in METRO basically to overcome the effect of solo cars…

    and hey… don’t take my word for it… take VDOT and FHWA – who decided the only reasonable solution was … you guessed it.. HOT Lanes…

    and … the folks building Metro to Dulles also don’t seem to have a problem taxing the bejesus out of solo cars to fund their rail…either.. right?

    and you blame this on the clown show in Richmond..

    well.. did the clown show in Richmond decide to put HOT Lanes in NoVa as a kind of “punishment”… or what?

    🙂

    yeah.. I’m rattling Grovetons cage… here… 🙂

  6. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    tell you what.. if someone has numbers and can show that there are significantly less road (lane) miles per capita in NoVa than RoVa… I’ll admit to the “over built in RoVa” assertion.. but first you gotta prove it.

  7. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    Clueless, the bunch of you. Solo makes little difference, because the alternative is so expensive. The state could not afford the studies needed to solve this problem. The location of the sources of funding makes little difference, as long as the amount is grossly insufficient.

  8. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    studies? you just need one number – the percent of solo cars during rush hour.

    not just a NoVa problem for sure – but in many urbanized areas…

    across the country, we ran out of money trying to add more lanes – not because we had trucks full of merchandise waiting at the ramps…

    nope… people who make the same point A to point B trip – every day – at rush hour.

    there are no cities in Virginia or the US that have the money that it would take to add more lanes for rush hour.

    …otherwise known as “you can’t build your way..”.. well you could.. if you had enough money but as rich as NoVa is – it does not have enough money – and it wants to blame RoVa …. or Richmond … whoever…

    but the clown show in Richmond is no more responsible that the state capital clown show for all 50 states who have pretty much the same problem.

    so.. when VDOT/FHWA proposed HOT Lanes – the clown show said “fine .. just stay out of RoVa”..

    I guess we’re gonna find out how many who said they had no choice but to drive SOLO at rush hour – … changed their minds… after the price went up.

    😉

  9. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “but the clown show in Richmond is no more responsible that the state capital clown show for all 50 states who have pretty much the same problem.”.

    All 50 states do not have the worst congestion in the country.

    “tell you what.. if someone has numbers and can show that there are significantly less road (lane) miles per capita in NoVa than RoVa… I’ll admit to the “over built in RoVa” assertion.. but first you gotta prove it.”.

    The only people with those numbers are the Clown Show. And they ain’t talking.

    See: Opaque, Incompetent and Corrupt.

  10. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    ” The nation’s capital is the most congested metropolitan area in the USA, a new report says.”

    …. ” That’s the case in most big metro areas that saw congestion worsen last year over 2009″

    ” The American Road & Transportation Builders Association, a co-sponsor of the report, cited that delay. “Members of Congress are fooling themselves if they think traffic gridlock is going to solve itself,”

    oh oh .. the phase “conflict of interest” comes to mind here…

    ” “In an era of fiscal restraint, it’s irresponsible for Congress to do nothing about the $100 billion traffic congestion tax.””

    aka – the “other” “clown show”… eh?

    ” but Lomax says voters approved several local transportation projects in November. “When you get … an agency that’s doing a good job, that’s willing to be accountable to the public and using the fee or tax for specific projects, you see two-thirds to three-fourths of these elections passing,” he says”

    http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2011-09-27/worst-traffic-congestion-city/50561310/1

    Earth to NoVa – Earth to Groveton – whilst worrying about “clown shows” in Richmond and Washington – don’t forget NoVa too.

  11. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    The Great NoVa Conundrum – ” If you don’t help us we’re going to kill ourselves with congestion”..

    REALLY? is this the NoVa equivalent of threatening to hold their breath until the parents give in?

    😉

  12. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    across the country, we ran out of money trying to add more lanes –

    ==================================================

    So we are adding HOT lanes which will REDUCE the number of car pools.

    This argument is precisesly the clueless kind of argument that is the antithesis of trying to figure out the best and most workable and least expensive way to solve the problem. We simply declare that the “problem” is solo drivers, and assume the best solution is whatever prevents that.

    It might be that solo drivers are the problem, but it might also be any number of other things, like too many with the same destination. If you could find a sloution that handled all those solo drivers by redistributing them to other destinations (more places), then you would have proven that solo drivers are not THE issue, but might be part of many issues that combine to result in traffic congestion.

    At that point it becomes a matter or priorities and price. But a systematic look at this problem that starts and ends with a rant about solo drivers is a clueless approach to a systems problem.

  13. Hydra Avatar
    Hydra

    the folks building Metro to Dulles also don’t seem to have a problem taxing the bejesus out of solo cars

    ===============================================
    Well, they cannot very well continue to do this AND claim that autos are not paying their full share.

    Beides which they are backing themselves into the same problem the rest of METRO has: it DEPENDS on autos to make much of its budget. METRO is the biggest provider of parking in the Metro area.

    And that is why we have to stop thinking of this as “Us against them” , “transit vs auto” or “solo vs carpool” and start thinking of it as a total transportation SYSTEM, in which the goal is to allow the most people to go to the most places, in the shortest time possible, at the lowest expense.

  14. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    LarryG:

    There are many political circuses in the United States and each one has a clown show.

    Until Virginia loses its zeal for Dillon’s Rule, the clown show in Richmond trumps the clown show in Fairfax.

    In addition, I can monitor the clown show in Fairfax a whole lot better than I can monitor the clown show in Richmond. For example, I can personally attend government meetings, drive and see what the county is doing. Etc, etc.

    Therefore, I prefer the clowns I can keep the closest tabs on.

    So should you.

    Only those engaged in corruption would want less visible, less accountable, less local government.

  15. larryg Avatar
    larryg

    Oh.. I totally agree that we want maximum transparency and accountability – at all levels… the trick is how to get it…

    that’s why I SUPPORT citizen-initiated referenda as the way to achieve that.

    re: “us against them” and “figuring out what the best approach is”

    NoVa has the Northern Va Transportation Authority and they have a CRAPLOAD of “priorities” that have been vetted by NoVa leaders.

    the only problem is they don’t have any money to build them…

    …. and they want someone else to give them the money to build them..

    in terms of transparency and accountability – that ought to be JOB 1 for NoVa citizens and their “close” elected.

    when the clown show in NoVa is more responsive and receptive to the clown show in Richmond rather than NoVa voters.. that’s not a RoVa problem.. or even a Richmond problem.. that’s a NOVA problem.

  16. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    The are two clown shows in NoVa. The subset of the clowns from the Clown Show in Richmond and the County Clown Show.

    I have some hope that my neighbors and I can reform the County Clown Show. I have no such hope for the Clown Show in Richmond.

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