After an initial flurry of interest in Governor-elect Kaine’s transportation town meetings, coverage has declined. Even with my powder dry, I think it’s a mistake to pay less attention to meetings outside the Richmond-Tidewater-NVA triangle.

Our friend who comments as subpatre attended last week’s town hall and he filed these observations, which I quote in their entirety:

Just got back from Tim Kaine’s ‘Town Hall’ in Staunton, at the center of the Valley. The Governor-elect started with a brief speech on his views, saying he had two priorities: education was first, and transportation was the next. Of the two, transportation had an “urgency” to it (effectively dismissing educational issues) and needed immediate attention.

Kaine spoke of his view favoring regionalism, brought about by his unique (for a Governor) prior position as a Mayor. Using his Richmond experience, he cited the cooperation of the city, county, state and federal jurisdictions in filling transportation needs; that roads were regional transportation and needed regional planning.

Before opening the floor to questions and comments, Mr. Kaine criticized the current transportation ‘lockbox’ funding, then offered his three criteria on making transportation decisions:

1. Improved (VDOT) performance – within budget and on schedule

2. Improved planning – “linking land use decisions with transportation”

3. Expanded transportation choices – cars, trucks, trains, bikes, air, etc.

Audience comments were roughly divided into three areas: miscellaneous (5), elected officials’ (6), but dominating the forum was concern over I-81 expansion. Star Solutions had run a huge newspaper ad; the Sierra Club and Rail Solution distributed literature before and after the event, and representatives for other special interest groups were there.

The Governor-elect used the time well and called on as many people as possible. Contrary to insinuations about other such meetings, nothing suggested any planted or staged questions. Coincidentally, I personally knew all but a couple of the Valley speakers, and there were only a few who came west over the Blue Ridge.

Tim Kaine offered no hints about his own solutions or approach to the problems. ‘Regionalism’ may be a fine solution for centrally located Richmond, but the I-81 corridor is a 325 mile long string of counties in five Planning Districts.

Of all the speakers, only the Augusta Supervisors tied into Kaine’s introduction by citing their land use and transportation decisions at the local level; using Incremental Financing for development roads. Another speaker asked that the Governor create a ‘Virtual Planning District’ and use state IT resources for elected officials to electronically meet about the corridor issue. The rest of the comments were supporters of one pre-packaged outcome or another.

Although one advocacy group had resolution support of a couple county governments, they and all the others are independent special interests. This presents the dilemma to Mr. Kaine that, although they might be regional, they aren’t officials and they’re not responsible to the public.

This highlighted another diverting feature of the forum. The Governor-elect opened with his emphasis on regional cooperation of local governments; yet almost all the speakers were urging Mr. Kaine to impose a top-down specific result on the Valley. Perhaps I’m mistaken that it’s rude to address a Virginia Governor with “We heard you, but assume you’re lying, so please do this”.

At the end, our new Governor gave no hint of either decision or of direction. No mention was made of broadband alternatives to transportation, nor did Mr. Kaine offer a clue as to what “tying land use planning to transportation” mean to him. The question remains as to whether local Valley governments will have any say in their own destiny.

Thanks to subpatre for offering this report.