Category: Infrastructure
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The Saga of HB 1774 — Bills and Buzzwords
By Carol J. Bova Virginia legislation usually follows a logical pattern in which bills lay out what they intend to do and the means by which their goals will be accomplished. This series looks at one bill introduced in the 2017 General Assembly session that missed the mark, morphing into a substitute bill that passed…
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Logging on from the Boonies
by S.E. Warwick Last December, the RUOnlineVA statewide, broadband-demand survey reported that “23 percent of respondents have no option for fixed internet access and 48 percent rely on technologies that are too slow or expensive to support critical applications.” These statistics reflect conditions not only in rural southwest Virginia, but just a few miles from…
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Dams in Virginia: How Many Are Deficient?
Speaking of deficient bridges (see previous post), how about deficient dams? The potentially disastrous erosion around the Oroville dam in California, which prompted the evacuation of 188,000 people living down river earlier this week, prompted two correspondents to raise the issue with Bacon’s Rebellion. John Butcher passed along an article noting that the Oroville dam…
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More Hidden Deficits: Bad Bridges and Bad Metro
Update on America’s hidden deficits: Nearly 56,000 bridges across the country are structurally unsound, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), as reported by USA Today. More than one in four of the bad bridges are at least 50 years old and have never had major reconstruction work, according to the ARTBA analysis.…
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Virginia Is for Lovers, Not Lobbyists
by Christopher Mitchell Pop quiz: Should the state create or remove barriers to broadband investment in rural Virginia? Trick question. The answer depends very much on who you are – an incumbent telephone company or someone living every day with poor connectivity. If you happen to be a big telephone company like CenturyLink or Frontier,…
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You’ve Heard of Unfunded Pension Liabilities. Unfunded Infrastructure Liabilities Are Huge, Too
Lafayette, La., like many other U.S. cities, is running a huge hidden deficit in the form of backlogged infrastructure maintenance. Charles Marohn, founder of the Strong Towns movement, has done a brilliant job of illuminating the time bomb ticking away in municipal budgets around the country. This week he has honed in on Lafayette, a midsize…
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FERC Finds Pipeline Impact “Less than Significant”
FERC’s pipeline impact study says proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline will have minimal lasting effects on the environment. Dominion claims the study confirms it can build the pipeline while protecting the environment and public safety. Foes contend the study ducks the question whether the pipeline is a public necessity that justifies the use of eminent domain to acquire rights of…
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Washington Metro Needs another $1 Billion… Fast
The train wreck of the Washington Metro keeps piling up higher. The Washington Post sums up the situation this way: Local governments are “alarmed” as Metro says it needs an extra $1 billion over the next three years from Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. Metro General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld has earned credibility as an…
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A Public Sector Success Story
When Richmond-area jurisdictions decided to collaborate in purchasing a region-wide radio communications system for police, fire and rescue, the project was estimated to cost about $165 million — with a chance of overruns. The final price tag: $114.7 million. Henrico County led the procurement effort, leveraging “group pricing” with other jurisdictions to negotiate a lower…
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Renewable Energy Outlook in Virginia Still Sunny
Progress toward an electric grid powered by renewable energy has been frustratingly slow to many Virginians. There have been two main obstacles to ramping up production of wind and solar power in the Old Dominion: cost and reliability. Wind still has high hurdles in Virginia. There is a limited number of on-shore locations suitable for…
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CTB Approves $4 Billion Interstate 64 Project
Wow! The Commonwealth Transportation Board approved yesterday a $4 billion plan to expand the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and widen twelve miles of Interstate 64 from four lanes to six. Said Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne after the vote: “Historic day for Hampton Roads and the state.” The Virginian-Pilot provides these details: The additional lane capacity in…
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Alexandria’s Capital Spending Problem
Alexandria City Manager Mark Jinks is right: It’s probably a good idea to put on hold the $1.4 million design work for a proposed $20 million expansion on the Chinquapin Recreation Center pool, as well as series of $25,000 “way-finding” signs. The city has massive capital spending commitments that are not so discretionary. As reported by…
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Pipelines Offer Hope, Provoke Despair
Recent articles have highlighted rural communities that stand to win and lose from proposed natural gas pipeline mega-projects crossing the state. On the hopeful side, the Daily Press reports that Isle of Wight County economic development director Tom Elder would like to build a lateral line off the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) to supply…
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Privatization, Outsourcing and Risk
In negotiating a public-private partnership for building and operating improvements to the Interstate 66 corridor outside the Beltway, Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne has created a new template for looking at privatization and outsourcing. Traditionally, when government perceives a public need — building roads, educating children, running prisons — it undertakes to do the job itself.…
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How the McAuliffe Team Saved $2.5 Billion
Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne makes a strong case that Virginia’s overhaul of the public-private partnership law made possible $2.5 billion in savings on Interstate 66. On Nov. 3, Governor Terry McAuliffe made the audacious claim that his administration had saved taxpayers $2.5 billion on the Interstate 66-outside-the-Beltway project thanks to 2015 reforms to the Public-Private…