Category: Transportation
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A Series of Hidden Tax Hikes In the Bag
By Steve Haner Politicians hate taxes that voters pay by check and love taxes that are buried deep on invoices or fully invisible. The 2020 General Assembly is raising taxes right and left (mostly left) but focused on that second method. These will be tax increases most people will never spot. Governor Ralph Northam’s record…
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Deer, Cars, Wildlife Corridors… and Coyotes
by James A. Bacon Egads! Vehicle collisions with deer accounted for 61,000 traffic accidents, in Virginia in the year ending June 30, 2016, according to the Virginia Transportation Research Council. The hoofed critters contributed to one in six of all accident claims. And, judging by the number of deer carcass removals, the number of accidents…
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All Aboard!
Governor Northam has proposed a major long-range expansion of passenger rail service in the Commonwealth. The broad outline was released last December and the means to implement it are included in the administration’s omnibus transportation bill (HB 1414 and SB 890). The Plan The details of the plan are too extensive to set out in…
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Highway Safety Provisions Embedded in Omnibus Bill
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Included in the Governor’s omnibus transportation bill, discussed earlier here, are some major highway safety proposals that have proved controversial in the past. The administration probably thought the chance of passage would improve if these proposals were wrapped up in a big package with lots of other stuff. The items are the…
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Chart of the Day: I-95 Congestion Bottlenecks
The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) is getting more sophisticated in how it analyzes and presents data. The chart above comes from a VDOT study looking at average northbound speeds on Interstate 95 to determine where to focus traffic-relief efforts, according to Inside NoVa. The department will develop a similar study for the Interstate 64…
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Bacon Bits: In Non Gun-Related News…
In the Virginia political world, everyone’s attention is riveted today upon the gun-rights rally in Richmond. We are all hoping that everyone behaves himself and the event remains peaceful. But other things of interest are happening around the Commonwealth. Washington Metro ridership back up. The years-long downward slide in Washington Metro ridership reversed itself in…
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Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
As the Richmond Times-Dispatch recently reported and summarized, the Northam administration has introduced a comprehensive bill covering a wide range of transportation issues. The proposal is being carried in the House by S[eaker Eileen Fuller-Corn (HB 1414) and in the Senate by Sen. Saslaw of Fairfax (SB 890). This bill (the introduced House and Senate…
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Yet Another Tax Increase Proposal
Del. Delores McQuinn, D-Richmond, has submitted a bill, HB 1541, that would raise taxes in Central Virginia by 2.1% on wholesale fuels (about 7.6 cents per gallon of gasoline) and 0.7% on the sales and use tax to fund regional transportation projects. The taxes would raise an estimated $168 million a year. Fifty percent would…
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2020 Assembly May Not Vote on Carbon Car Tax
By Steve Haner It now seems unlikely the 2020 General Assembly will act directly on Virginia’s membership in the proposed Transportation and Climate Initiative, an interstate compact to cap, tax and then start to ration fossil fuels that add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Virginia would be the southernmost member. While six pieces of pending…
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Will Charlottesville Regulations Kill the Scooter Market?
by James A. Bacon Of all the places in Virginia to favor “dockless micro-mobility devices” — e.g. scooters and bicycles — you’d expect Charlottesville to be at the top of the list. After all, the city is home to thousands of University of Virginia students who could benefit from the boost to mobility, and local…
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At Last: Zoning Restrictions on “Middle Housing” Are Coming Under Scrutiny
by James A. Bacon Arlington County plans to study the “missing middle” in its housing market: homes that fall between apartment-sized units and single-family dwellings — in its housing market. Ninety percent of the county’s residential land is zoned for detached, single-family houses. The median housing price in the county falls between $530,000 and $640,000,…
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Can a Cap-and-Trade Tax Salvage Mass Transit?
by James A. Bacon While social engineers plot ways to increase the cost of driving single-occupancy vehicles and push people into low-carbon transportation alternatives like bicycles and mass transit (see the previous post by Steve Haner about the Transportation & Climate Initiative), Virginians stubbornly stick to their cars. Mass transit ridership is down sharply across…
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The Carbon Car Tax Nobody Is Discussing
By Steve Haner So far there appear to be about six schemes before the 2020 General Assembly to save the Earth and its inhabitants from the fiery holocaust of climate catastrophe. The one that is going to cost you the most money in the shortest period of time is still missing in action. Finally we…
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Keep the Inspections
Tucked into the Governor’s transportation package is a relatively little item that is shortsighted. He is proposing to eliminate the requirement for an annual vehicle inspection. This idea has been floated before, but defeated. One justification offered is financial. The argument seems to be that the elimination of this requirement will result in savings for…
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Bacon Bits: Guns, Tolls, Evictions
You’ll have to pry my gun from… More than 90 governing bodies in Virginia have voted to declare themselves Second Amendment sanctuaries, reports WDBJ. Ninety! Unbelievable. Thousands of citizens have appeared at board meetings across the state to demonstrate their support for the resolutions. Virginia Citizens Defense League President Philip Van Cleave said the sanctuary…