Category: Transportation
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How Walkable Urbanism and the Talent Pipeline Won the Amazon Deal
More information is coming out about the wheeling and dealing behind Virginia’s incentive package that coaxed Amazon, Inc., to locate a $2.5 billion campus in Northern Virginia. It turns out that many of the key pieces in Virginia’s incentive package were initiatives that had been in the works for years. Virginia is putting resources into…
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Decriminalizing Metro Fare Jumping
Wow. Just as a white knight in the form of Amazon, Inc., rides in to help salvage the floundering Washington Metro mass transit system, Washington, D.C., City Council pulls a bone-headed move that could undo everything. Amazon HQ2 will plop down a massive activity center near the Crystal City and Potomac Yard Metro stations, catalyze the development…
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Dissecting Virginia’s Amazon Deal
Virginia has committed to investing a sum unprecedented for an economic development deal in the Commonwealth — roughly $2.5 billion in state and local dollars to bring Amazon, Inc. to Northern Virginia. In a presentation to the House Appropriations Committee yesterday, Stephen Moret, CEO of the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) provided a detailed account…
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Scooter Dudes
My wife and I visited downtown Washington, D.C., over the weekend and marveled at the sight of so many people using scooters. Nearly all of them were young men. When young men are involved, it should come as no surprise that some traveled at what struck me as excessive rates of speed. Scooters are too…
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Bacon Bits: Rails, Roads, Hurricanes and Rainbows
Still off the tracks. Despite promising efforts by top-level management, the Washington Metro corporate culture is still dysfunctional. An audit of $1.9 million in blanket purchase agreements found missing and incomplete documents, reports the Washington Times. “Auditors found that Metro employees failed to record $845,000 as BPAs in their accounting software, a problem the inspector general attributed…
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Bacon Bits: As Virginia Slowly Unravels
Yes, it’s OK to panic. Norfolk Southern Corp., the beneficiary of local incentives a year or two ago when it moved jobs from Roanoke to Norfolk, now is said to be close to announcing the relocation of its headquarters to Atlanta. “A deal has already been struck,” Norfolk Mayor Kenny Alexander told the Virginian-Pilot. It appears that…
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Shocker: Positive Signs from Washington Metro
I have relentlessly criticized the Washington Metro system for years, but I have to give credit to management under General Manager Paul J. Wiedefeld for trying to steer the dysfunctional mass transit system in a fiscally sustainable direction. Today’s media reports highlight two straws in the wind. First, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (MWATA)…
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Looks like a Taking, Feels like a Taking
The parallel struck me early in the meeting – this is like the pipeline process. The people who want this bike lane are not deterred by what it does to the people and businesses directly on the route and disregard all concerns as unfounded. Of course, the property owners along Richmond’s Brook Road do not…
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Metro’s Other Funding Crisis
Washingtonians are finally showing top-of-mind awareness of the looming pension crisis at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. The Metro’s nearly $3 billion in unfunded retirement and health care costs “threaten its future operating position, potentially hampering its ability to provide service,” reports the Washington Post, citing a Government Accountability Organization report. Coverage of the Metro’s…
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Bacon Bits: A.P. Hill R.I.P., Tax Cuts, Bike Lanes
This statue does have to go The tomb of Confederate General A.P. Hill in Northside Richmond is the latest to be vandalized by red paint or some similar substance, but in this case the argument to move the statute and the grave beneath it should focus on its status as a major traffic hazard. The…
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Richmond Squats on Scooters
Bird Rides, Inc., a California startup, tried introducing electric scooters to Richmond’s transportation mix, scattering the two-wheelers around Virginia Commonwealth University and the downtown area. Anyone downloading an app could ride them at a cost of $1 to unlock and 20 cents per minute to ride. Workers with the city’s Department of Public Works began…
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Tasty Bacon Morsels of the Day…
Lots of updates to stories we have been following here on Bacon’s Rebellion: How to lose in a landslide. The media was all over the story about racist posts by a Corey Stewart campaign consultant. Here’s the lead from the Richmond Times-Dispatch: “Republican Senate candidate Corey Stewart has paid more than $100,000 to a campaign…
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Will the New Mobility Revolution Make Congestion Worse?
As ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft have steadily gained market share, urbanists have been asking themselves, is this a good thing or bad thing? Will the increasing patronage of ride-hailing companies induce people to sell their cars? Siphon riders away from mass transit? Increase or reduce vehicle miles traveled? Make traffic congestion better or worse?…
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An Unfortunate Turn in Bike Lane Debate
As almost always seems to happen in Richmond — and it’s disappointing — a neighborhood debate in Northside over a planned dedicated bicycle lane may turn into something else. “Given the economic environment, the needs of people, anything that limits access to more affordable transportation options does everyone a disservice, but particularly people of color,”…
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As Metro Union Articulates Demands, Virginia Needs to Prepare for Strike
The Washington Metro’s largest union has sent letters to political leaders in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. outlining the contract issues behind the union’s veiled threats to conduct an illegal strike. The demands, according to the Washington Post: Roll back a policy reassigning hundreds of custodians to Metro stations and outsourcing some of the work;…