By Peter Galuszka
The McDonnell Administration is taking a chain saw to policies that promote smarter, more efficient growth by axing reforms to make neighborhoods connected and pushing design contracts that fast-track road construction and discourage public input.
Such are the conclusions drawn from two blog postings by David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington and Jim Bacon, publisher of this blog.
They detail how Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton are throttling reform-minded policies that recently put Virginia at the forefront of good planning. They are using the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB), a 17-member panel appointed by the governor, as the spearhead to push their ideas on how subdivisions and roads should be built.
According to the Alpert blog, the CTB recently got rid of policies enacted in 2009 that would encourage to build new subdivisions that connect easily to secondary and primary roads. Up until then, planning in Virginia was of the usual 1950s model that erected countless cul de sacs without only a few roads outside the development.
The result forced people into a lifestyle dominated by automobiles that wasted time and gasoline as residents traveled to shop or work and caused more trouble for emergency workers such as police, fire or ambulance drivers trying to respond to a crisis.
Under former Gov. Tim Kaine, the CTB changed the rules in a way that put Virginia ahead of other states in planning concepts by adopting the connectivity policy. The CTB under McDonnell and Connaughton recently dumped the 2009 reforms. Why? My guess is to boost the interests of developers since McDonnell wants to be identified as “pro-business.”
The Bacon post is an investigative look at the controversial bypass of U.S. 29 in Charlottesville. His work was funded in part by the Piedmont Environmental Council but they did not edit the article. Bypass proposals have been contentious because they would tend to exacerbate traffic congestion on what is already the most crowded road in the university city. Business interests, notably manufacturers in cities such as Lynchburg and Danville, want the bypass to improve truck deliveries.
Connaughton’s goal is hastening development of the bypass. So, he pushed a “design-build” contract that is opposed to the way the state usually does construction project. In “design-build,” the contractor is also the designer and designs parts of the project as works goes along. The practice was once considered unethical by professional associations but it is has become widely adopted throughout the country. It can save money and quicken a project’s completion, but it can also lead to overruns and tends to limit public say about how a project looks.
The CTB bought the “design build” idea for the bypass, but according to the Bacon report, Connaughton did not mention that engineers at his own Department of Transportation had serious doubts about the $244 million cost estimates, believing they would run much higher. Their concerns were not reflected in information given to the board which approved the project.
The two excellent blog postings raise serious questions about exactly what McDonnell and Connaughton are doing. The state has just raised billions on the bond market for highway construction and is floating ideas for public-private roads such as a replacement for U.S. 460 in southeastern Virginia.
Connaughton is steamrolling the U.S. 460 highway just as he is on the U.S. 29 bypass. His concept took a hit recently when The Virginian-Pilot reported that a group of Tidewater politicians and business executives lobbied Connaughton to slow down on the road from Suffolk to Petersburg in favor of a third crossing in Hampton Roads, which they believe will do more to alleviate the water-locked region’s notorious congestion. Conaughton responded that the third crossing will cost twice as much as his pet road. There are problems with either plan. A third crossing would only dump traffic on clogged Interstate 64. Replacing U.S. 460 would create more exurban sprawl west of Suffolk, which has been the state’s fastest-growing city.
Playing it both ways as free-spenders and cost cutters, McDonnell and Connaughton are refusing to provide funding for the D.C. Metro Silver Line Phase II project which would help alleviate traffic congestion. And, Connaughton has shown his bare-knuckles management style by firing nearly the entire board of the Virginia Ports Authority in one quick putsch.
McDonnell, however, doesn’t have that much time in office left. What’s behind all of this?
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