Category: Transportation
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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…
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Stick a Fork in Virginia Beach Light Rail. It’s Done.
The vote didn’t get much attention outside of Hampton Roads, but one of the big losers in state-local elections yesterday was Virginia Beach light rail. Voters decisively renounced a proposed extension of The Tide rail from Norfolk to Virginia Beach’s Town Center in an advisory referendum: 57% opposed the project, as opposed to 43% in favor.…
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Let Tesla Open in Richmond
By Stuart C. Siegel Tesla’s electric vehicles are often described as disruptive to the motor-vehicle industry, and understandably so. The U.S.-based company’s all-electric vehicles are well designed, transparently priced and environmentally friendly, and the company is setting high standards for other car makers to follow. Tesla’s sales model is disruptive, too. The company has never…
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Tesla’s Grand Plan
Tesla Motors, which wants to expand its retail presence in Virginia, is more than a manufacturer of high-end electric vehicles. It’s part of Elon Musk’s quest to transform the electric grid. by James A. Bacon Richmond businessman Stuart Siegel loves his Tesla Model X. The SUV is loaded with luxury options and its electric motor is as quiet as…
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Where Have All the Riders Gone?
by James A. Bacon Where have all the riders gone? That’s the question transit agencies are asking nationally, but nowhere more urgently than in the Washington metropolitan area. Rail and bus ridership for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) fell 6% in the fiscal year ending July 31, a decrease of 20 million trips. Ridership…
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Embrace the Uber-Enabled Mass Transit Revolution
by James A. Bacon The Uber/Lyft revolution is beginning to transform public transportation around the country. Other than in Arlington County, where county officials are considering replacing under-utilized bus lines with subsidized Uber service, little of this dynamism seems to be seeping into Virginia, however. Too bad. We’re missing a major opportunity. Reports Spencer Woodman with The Verge: Both…
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Integrating Uber with Mass Transit
by James A. Bacon Arlington County is toying with the idea of replacing under-utilized bus lines in the northern part of the county with ride-sharing services provided by Uber Technologies Inc., and Lyft Inc. The service could offer rides to and from Metro stations at Ballston, East Falls Church and Courthouse Subsidizing the ride-sharing services would be…
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Spending Your Transportation Tax Dollars More Wisely
I had lunch the other day with Nick Donohue, Virginia’s deputy secretary of transportation, and he brought me up to speed on developments in state transportation policy that have occurred since the good ol’ days when I covered Commonwealth Transportation Board meetings. It was just a casual chat, and I wasn’t taking notes, but a couple…
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Metro Positions Itself for the Big Ask
by James A. Bacon Staring into a fiscal black hole, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Chairman Jack Evans is trying to nail down the authority’s 2018 spending plan by November, months earlier than usual. The move, suggests Washington Post writer Martine Powers, “is a signal that the transit agency is preparing to ask the District,…
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Rocky Mountain High Real Estate Values
by James A. Bacon According to a 2011 Wall Street Journal article, Aspen, Colo., could boast of having the most expensive real estate in the country. I don’t know if that’s still true, but I wouldn’t be surprised. As I sit here blogging at Ink! Coffee, looking upon a patio filled with Pellegrino umbrellas and…
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Virginia’s New Road Funding Process — Less Political but Still Opaque
by James A. Bacon In a rare bipartisan achievement, Virginia is doing something that no other state in the union is doing: basing its transportation investments on an objective scoring system. Earlier this month, the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) approved $1.7 billion to be spent on 163 projects selected through the System for the Management and Allocation…
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Uber-ization: a Painless Path to Density
by James A. Bacon Almost every square foot of Fairfax County that can be developed has been developed. If the county is to grow, there’s no place to grow but up. The county board of supervisors bowed to that inevitability yesterday, voting unanimously to change zoning rules that will allow greater density in 22 areas…
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Questions about Bidding War for FBI HQ
There’s a bidding war between Virginia and Maryland to snag a planned, 2.1 million-square-foot Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters campus. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan is in for $317 million in state and local funds, according to the Washington Business Journal. Governor Terry McAuliffe is in for $120 million. In both cases most of the money would…
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A Once-in-a-Century Opportunity to Get Transportation Right
by James A. Bacon Take the Uber revolution of summoning rides with a smart phone. Then add driverless cars, which eliminate the expense of paying someone to drive the car. Then overlay the emerging business model of Transportation As a Service, in which people pay for rides when they need them rather than buy cars that…