Bacon's Rebellion

  • Putting the Squeeze on State Travel Expenses

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    James A. Bacon

    Good things are happening behind the scenes in state government. Operational review teams, chaired by members of the General Assembly and staffed by area experts in the Kaine administration, are focusing on ways to cut operational expenses of state government. These teams report to an Operational Review Oversight Committee comprised of Del. Christopher B. Saxman, R-Staunton, Sen. Emmett W. Hanger, Jr., R-Augusta, and Secretary of Finance Jody M. Wagner.

    One of the committee’s latest initiatives is scrutinizing state travel expenses (including those of state colleges and universities), which amounted to nearly $1 billion over the past four and a half years. After extensive consultation to review the practices of industry leaders, the travel team issued the following recommendations:

    • Automate the travel reimbursement process
    • Expand the use of computer-based training modules for state employees
    • Increase the use of teleconferencing for training
    • Establish stricter limits on conference travel
    • Implement a statewide travel contract to leverage state buying power

    Read the full report here.

    What’s encouraging about this approach is that it isn’t arbitrary and capricious — no 10-percent-across-the-board cuts, regardless of the consequences. The participants are looking for ways to do the business of government more efficiently. It’s also nice to know that there is a limit to partisan politics. When it comes to efficiency in government at least, some Democrats and Republicans are willing to put the public interest first.

  • Who Is Ethically Challenged Here?

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    James A. Bacon

    What is it the Mainstream Media says about bloggers — they’re not journalists, they’re careless with the facts? They don’t live up to journalism’s high ethical standards? Hmmm. An interesting case study sheds some light on MSM posturing.

    Read what Washington Post reporter Sandhya Somashekhar wrote Oct. 10:

    A state Senate candidate in Virginia has been improperly receiving a tax break on a home she owns in Northwest Washington, according to D.C. land records and interviews with city officials.

    Since 2005, city records show Jill Holtzman Vogel (R) and her husband have received a homestead deduction on the property taxes they pay on a condominium they own near Washington Circle. To get the $60,000 annual deduction, the owner must declare the home as their primary residence.

    The Post ran the story even though Vogel and her husband denied having any knowledge of the tax break and openly acknowledged that they did not live in the District. Somashekhar added an extra dig, describing Vogel as “an attorney who specializes in ‘ethics, campaign finance and tax exempt organizations,’ according to the Warrenton firm’s Web site.”

    Here’s the follow up story posted the next day:

    D.C. tax officials said yesterday that it was their fault that a state Senate candidate from Virginia got an improper tax break on her Washington Circle condominium.

    The candidate, Jill Holtzman Vogel (R), and her husband never applied for the city’s homestead deduction, said Natalie Wilson, a spokeswoman for the Office of Tax and Revenue.

    Note how the article blames the D.C. officials for the error, taking no responsibility for running the story before checking out all the facts.

    (Hat tip to Joe West.)

  • Lawsuit Filed Against Prince William Seeking Recission of Immigration Resolution

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    James A. Bacon

    Today saw the filing of the first of what will likely be many lawsuits challenging poorly conceived and largely unconstitutional local and state immigration policies being urged on cowed politicians by an increasingly vehement minority whose demands will impose significant legal and other costs on their fellow citizens without meaningful corresponding benefit.

    Here’s the press release describing today’s actions:

    Latinos in Prince William County and the Woodbridge Workers’ Committee filed a lawsuit against Prince William County, its Board of Supervisors, the County Executive and the Police Chief seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to halt its implementation and enforcement of its recently passed anti- immigrant resolution, Resolution 07-609.

    The lawsuit was filed by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), Howrey LLP, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.

    On July 10, 2007, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors passed Resolution 07-609 which grants local police broad authority to inquire into the immigration status of individuals, authorizes county-level employees to gather, maintain and share information regarding the immigration status of individuals seeking public
    benefits, and may limit county services that immigrants receive.

    The lawsuit, filed today in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, claims violations of the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and the laws of Virginia and requests declaratory and injunctive relief to halt its implementation and enforcement. The complaint was brought on behalf of 16 individuals and their minor children as well as the Woodbridge Workers’ Committee. The complaint alleges that the Resolution is an unconstitutional attempt to circumvent the federal government’s authority to regulate immigration and that it enacts a discriminatory scheme in violation of the Equal Protection Clause to the United States Constitution.

    “This ordinance, which expresses the worst instincts of a few in the county, is destroying the basic fabric of community life,” said Cesar Perales, PRLDEF President and General Counsel. “Latino children should be taught to trust police. Not to fear they might take their parents away.”

    Howrey LLP is one of Washington, DC’s top firms noted for its strong litigation practice. Partners John Nields, former President of the DC Bar and Christina Guerola Sarchio, incoming Vice President for External Affairs of the Hispanic National Bar Association and immediate Past President of the DC Hispanic Bar, will lead the effort.

    Commenting on the case, Sarchio said, “the governing body of Prince William County has taken it upon itself to devise a way to handle immigrants in their community in a way that goes against the U.S. Constitution and federal law. It infringes upon Congress’ power to regulate immigration, a power unquestionably reserved to the Federal government. Putting aside the fact that all of our ancestors were immigrants at one point, the action the PWC Board of Supervisors has taken here is discriminatory and illegal.”

    “This Resolution demonstrates a disturbing animus toward immigrants that contradicts what America is, a nation of immigrants,,” said Laura E. Varela, Director of the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. “The Resolution promotes racial profiling and is causing a great deal of fear and unrest among both U.S. citizens and immigrant residents who live in Prince William County.”

    The Washington Lawyers’ Committee, which joins Howrey in the suit, has for more than 35 years provided legal services to address issues of discrimination in the areas of equal employment, fair housing, public accommodations, public education, asylum and refugee rights, and disability rights. The Committee often teams with Howrey on community matters.

    PRLDEF has previously brought legal challenges to such legislative acts and ordinances based on violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, and, long-standing federal preemption principles.

    Almost every lawsuit brought to date challenging such local ordinances and resolutions has ended in a decision against the locality (or a settlement) that cost tax payers substantial sums in legal fees.

    All of these localities,including Prince William, would have done better to put money spent on lawyers into lobbying Congress for meaningful immigration reform and hiring additional staff to increase code enforcement for housing violations, increase culturally competent community policing and other actions designed actually to address the problems identified by some of their local citizens as adversely affecting their quality of life.

    Instead, they’ve embarked on a course which is nothing more than a lawyers’ full employment policy and a prescription for community division that has done little more than earn them a reputation for ethnic hostility that will haunt them for decades to come in our increasingly diverse 21st century America.

  • Watch Out for the “Fully Funding Our Schools” Ploy

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    James A. Bacon

    The debate over this year’s $641 budget shortfall may be a mere prelude to a bigger budget wrangle next year over education spending. Timothy M. Kaine has stumped all over the state for a modest expansion of pre-K programs in Virginia, but that’s chump change compared to the real driver of educational spending: the Standards of Quality.

    Hints of the debate to come can be gleaned from a recent letter from House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong, D-Martinsville, to House Speaker William J. Howell.

    “Next year,” Armstrong wrote, “we will have to re-benchmark the Standards of Quality to ensure that our primary and secondary schools remain fully funded. Prominent members of your caucus have said they are opposed to the re-benchmarking of the SOQs, which would significantly jeopardize our schools and childrens’ future.”

    Later in the letter, he wrote: “I am asking that you pledge that we do not shortchange our children’s future by cutting primary and secondary education and that we will fully fund our schools.”

    Refresher course: The SOQs, or standards of quality, are the auto-pilot mechanism by which the standards for educational inputs (student-teacher ratios, number of guidance counselors, that sort of thing) are relentlessly ratcheted higher, and also by which $5.8 billion in state aid to K-12 education program is used to redistribute wealth from Virginia’s wealthy municipalities to its poorer municipalities. (See my treatment of this cost driver in “The ABCs of SOQs.”

    Each “re-benchmarking” according to the dictates of an all-but-indecipherable formula raises the mandated level of funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. Supporters of the educational status quo run around squealing that schools aren’t “fully funded” and that “the children” are being short-changed, creating political pressure for ever-higher, and utterly unaccountable spending.

    Any increase in K-12 funding next year should be tied to a reform of the funding system. Lil Tuttle with the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, has argued for a new, transparent formula for allocating state aid to public education. The state would provide one “Student Funding Allotment” (SFA) for each student, weighting the allotments for special needs, as follows:

    1.9 SFA for severely disabled
    1.2 SFA for poverty
    1.2 for limited English
    1.2 for learning disabled

    Such a system would help local school systems cope with lots of poor, disabled and foreign-language kids without the auto-escalator effect of the current formula. What’s more, it’s so transparent that anyone can understand it. That’s precisely why the political class will never change the formula. But it’s nice to know that some one in the General Assembly appears to be taking a closer look.

  • Green Roofs Take Root in Virginia

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    James A. Bacon

    The green roof movement in Virginia is spreading. Plant-covered roofs are popping up in Richmond, Charlottesville, Norfolk and Northern Virginia, reports Carlos Santos for the Times-Dispatch. Virginia is hardly in the forefront of the international trend, but at least it’s taking part in it.

    Green roofs seem to be a case where marketplace economics and environmental sensitivities dovetail nicely. Green roofs generally cost twice as much as conventional roofs to install: They require additional layers of root barrier, gravel, topsoil and, of course, the ground cover. But they do provide a financial payback. The roofs last twice as long, and they reduce roof temperatures as much as 40 degrees from the ambient air temperature, which eases the strain on air conditioners and cuts electric bills. As a side benefit, the roofs help insulate against outside noise.

    The social benefits are significant, too. Green roofs don’t just mean cooler rooftops, they also help reduce the urban “heat island” effect. In effect, each green roof makes a tiny contribution to lower temperatures for everyone. Even more meaningful, the plants and topsoil help manage storm water run-off by absorbing thousands of gallons of rainwater. Water that filters through plants and soil tends to be cleaner than water that runs off normal roofs, down downspouts and across parking lots. Water filtered through green roofs also is cooler, with less disruptive impact on aquatic life in streams.

    How can Virginia accelerate the building and retro-fitting of green roofs? I’m not a big believer in income tax credits — our tax code is riddled with too many holes as it is. But I do think that buildings with green roofs should receive some kind of credit on its water-sewer bill to reflect their beneficial impact on storm water drainage. Perhaps the General Assembly could pass enabling legislation that allows municipalities to extend such a credit.

    (Photo credit: Richmond Times-Dispatch. Photo shows a lower-level roof top of the SunTrust Bank building in downtown Richmond.)

  • House Spots $170 Million in Unspent Balances

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    James A. Bacon

    The House of Delegates leadership has identified $170 million in unspent balances by state agencies, calling further into question the necessity of tapping the state’s Rainy Day Fund to address $641 million in revenue shortfalls this year.

    Stated House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, and Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, at a press conference today:

    “It took just 30 days for the Kaine Administration to identify nearly $100 million in efficiency measures – things we should have been doing all along – to address slower, but still growing state revenues,” declared [House Finance] Chairman Callahan. “Shortly after the Governor announced his savings proposal last week, House Appropriations and Senate Finance Committee staff learned that the Administration’s plans did not reflect an additional $170 million in unspent balances, most of which will revert back to the General Fund.”

    “These unspent balances – coupled with the as-announced $300 million in immediately curtailed spending already approved by the Governor – produce approximately $470 million in identified savings against the anticipated $641 million revenue shortfall. With each passing day, it is becoming more evident that using the Rainy Day Fund at this time and in this circumstance is clearly unwarranted.”

    The House leadership simultaneously attacked on another front: noting that the Rainy Day fund “protects Virginia’s AAA bond rating.” Tapping the reserve fund for a couple hundred million won’t come close to jeopardizing the state’s gold-gilded bond rating this year, but it is an interesting rhetorical gambit. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine joined former Gov. Mark R. Warner and other Democrats in using the pretext of a bond rating downgrade to justify a tax increase in 2004. If the AAA bond rating was sacrosanct then, how come it isn’t now?

    Kaine can probably provide a plausible explanation of how “it’s different this time,” but the House’s rhetorical thrust does put him on the defensive. It will be interesting to see how he responds to the House’s latest sally.

    Update: As promised, here is Kaine’s response, through his spokesman Delacey Skinner (as reported by Warren Fiske with the Virginian-Pilot). Skinner called the Republican charges spurious, concocted to create an issue for the Nov. 6 legislative elections.

    “If they had been paying attention to the budget instead of being so focused on campaigning and hurling political grenades, they would have heard that these balances are already part of the governor’s plan,” she said.

    Skinner said Kaine counted on carrying over $166 million from the last budget year to this one. Kaine said in a news release last week that he planned to use “unspent balances” to help address the shortfall, but did not put a dollar amount on them.

  • Invest More in Smart Traffic Lights

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    James A. Bacon

    Traffic lights are stupid things. We’ve all encountered thoroughfares that create stop-and-go traffic by throwing up one red light after another. We’ve all sat at a late-night intersection, waiting for a red light to change, irritation mounting as we observe that no cars whatsoever are using the cross street. Surely, we’ve all thought, there has to be a better way.

    It turns out that the National Transportation Operations Coalition agrees. A new study, the “National Traffic Signal Report Card” concludes that improper signal timing accounts for 5 to 10 percent of all traffic delays, and could be significantly improved for an investment of less than $1 billion annually. (Examiner.com has a brief story here, which I’ve based this blog post on. I could not access the Report Card itself, available here, this morning, probably due to heavy traffic.) Reports Examiner.com:

    Some of the biggest problems cited are those that each of us experience on a regular basis, including: (1) signal sequences where drivers pass through a green light at one intersection only to find a red light at the next intersection. (2) making drivers stop at intersections where there are no vehicles and no pedestrians at the cross street. (3) intersections where drivers must sit through more than one green cycle of lights. …

    The coalition says that management of traffic signals on a national level rates at “D-,” the operation of individual signals gets a “C” but the coordination among traffic signal systems gets a “D.” The worst grade of all goes to traffic monitoring and data collection, which gets an “F.”

    The key to creating “smart” traffic lights is setting up sensors and monitors that can track traffic speeds and the number of cars backed up behind a light, and then adusting the length of traffic signals dynamically — either through human operators at a central station or through artificial intelligence. It’s certainly not a cure-all. But, then, neither is building building more roads. The problem, of course, is that the traffic light lobby isn’t as powerful as the construction lobby, so only pennies are spent where dollars are needed.

  • Throwing Rocks at Big Stone Gap

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    James A. Bacon

    Does this stink, or what? The little town of Big Stone Gap in the heart of Virginia’s Appalachian coalfields finally has a shot at national recognition. New Yorker Adriana Trigiani, who grew up in the old coal mining town, has written a series of novels set there. And now, Storefront Pictures wants to make a movie, “Big Stone Gap,” which Trigiani would direct. And where will the movie be filmed?

    South Carolina!

    Explains the “Film Big Stone Gap in the Gap” website:

    Production developments could shift the filming to another state, except for the shooting of a few local scenes. The problem centers around generous financial incentives offered by the state of South Carolina, which is aggressively seeking to expand its attraction as a site for film making, versus modest incentives offered by the Commonwealth of Virginia through the Virginia Film Office.

    A flurry of publicity occurred about a year ago — and I missed it. No one in the Richmond media appears to have picked up on it. At the beginning of the year, coalfield politicians were mobilizing to raise money to best South Carolina’s offer. The Tobacco Commission approved a $300,000 grant, and the Wise County board of supervisors beseeched the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority to kick in another $500,000. Del. Brian Moran, D-Alexandria, promised to do what he could to help.

    Big Stone Gap is unique. I have vivid memories of the place, which I drove through often during my stint covering the coalfields for the Roanoke Times. I can’t imagine that any site in South Carolina would do it justice. But, then, I’m not really sure that subsidizing the film production to the tune of $1 million is the best way to invest scarce economic development dollars for the coalfield region.

    Is anyone up to speed on this project? Where does it stand?

    By the way, Big Hollywood movie producers, whatever happened to artistic integrity?

  • It’s Not the Heat, It’s the Humidity

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    James A. Bacon

    There’s a lot of nonsense spouted about Global Warming. The globe may, in fact, be getting warmer on average. But GW theory suggests that the warming will be most notable in areas with the lowest humidity — the polar regions and the deserts. The impact will be least noticeable in places like Virginia with lots of moisture in the air to absorb the sun’s energy. But every time we have a heat wave — like the one we’re experiencing right now — people start saying, “That’s global warming for you.”

    If the GW “consensus” (or “orthodoxy,” take your pick) is correct, we do need to worry about the impact on the Arctic and Antarctic ice packs, the resulting release of massive quantities of water into the oceans, and the ensuing rise in sea levels. But let’s not get our tighty-whities all knotted up over the prospect of endless summers here in the Old Dominion.

    Let’s take a look at the historical data for the city of Richmond published by the Wakefield office of the National Weather Service — an organization, incidentally, that has no connection to the controversial former state climatologist, Patrick Michaels.

    Do you see a long-term pattern? I don’t. (Click on images for clearer resolution.)

    The main departure from the norm was the 1960s, when temperatures took a big dip. That’s back when people started worrying about the onset of a new ice age. After that, we’ve returned to a pattern that appears remarkably stable over a long time. If the average temperature has risen at all, the increase has been very small indeed.

    That’s the average temperature, you say. How about temperature extremes? Here’s the data for years ranked by the number of days with temperatures over 90. This doesn’t include the last three years, so it’s likely that 2007 would make the list. The only other comparably hot year in recent history was 2002. But look — 2000 had among the fewest hot days.

    Moral of the story: There are lots of good reasons stemming from national security, the economy and pollution from fossil fuel combustion to support the causes of conservation, energy efficiency and renewable fuels. I worry that people are getting so caught up in the Global Warming thing that, if the bubble is ever punctured, the cause of conservation could be discredited as well. And that would be a genuine catastrophe: With Global Warming or without it, energy conservation is a good idea.

  • Mass Transit’s Biggest Enemy: Public Transit Monopolies

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    James A. Bacon

    In many parts of Virginia, the greatest enemy to mass transit is… the local mass transit monopoly. In Lynchburg, the Lynchburg Transit Co., a local monopoly, seems to be turning the corner after a series of articles detailing the company’s failings, reports the News & Advance. According to the newspaper, here’s how bad things got:

    For years, riders had complained of buses that didn’t show up at stops on time, buses that broke down, buses that had no air-conditioning. The system was hemorrhaging money. Buses were being poorly serviced, if at all. Liberty University had been begging officials to talk about service to the campus and its growing student body. But no one seemed to care.

    No wonder mass transit ridership is down!

    In Lynchburg, the situation does seem to be improving, however. Liberty University is getting bus service — and contributing $75,000 a month to the bus system. The company has purchased new buses, including smaller, mini-buses to serve low-traffic routes. Perhaps most significantly, the company has started holding public forums where riders and other members of the public could have input.

    I’m not saying that all bus services have deteriorated to the point that Lynchburg Transit apparently did — indeed, it’s my impression that Virginia has some of the better-run transit systems in the country. But this story serves as a reminder that making mass transit a viable alternative to the one-man-one-car syndrome in Virginia requires more than dumping money into failed transit systems. It requires revitalizing transit companies: making them more flexible and responsive to the needs of riders. More money might be part of the solution, in that many companies could benefit from being recapitalized. But money for Business As Usual is a waste and a delusion.

    At the risk of sounding like a broken record… If Virginia wants mass transit to be a meaningful contributor to the transportation solution, we need new transit business models. In many cities, the tired, old public monopolies have failed. Continued subsidies — at the state and local level — of failed businesses is fiscally irresponsible. Elected officials prattle about investing in public transit as an alterative to building more roads, but I hear nothing about reforming transit to make sure the money is well spent.

  • The Most Intelligent Campaign Debate of 2007

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    James A. Bacon

    Most of the debate emanating from the General Assembly campaigns this fall is depressingly ignorant and simplistic. But there is one race where the level of discourse on the critical issues of transportation and land use is remarkably thoughtful and well informed. In a solid piece of reporting, Chelyen Davis with the Free Lance-Star compares the thinking of Republican Richard Stuart and Democrat Albert Pollard Jr., who are contesting the 28th district Senate seat in the Fredericksburg area now occupied by John Chichester.

    The two candidates have much the same vision for growth in the fast-developing district. As Davis writes, “Both advocate improving VRE service, controlling growth, extending HOV lanes south through Stafford, requiring developers to pay for more of the infrastructure that growth requires, and expanding commuter lots.” They just disagree on the details of how to implement it.

    The most marked disagreement is over the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance. Pollard says that a locality “should have the ability to turn down developments if there are not adequate roads, schools in place.” Stuart worries that the ordinance would allow for too much subjectivity. He favors “requiring landowners to go through the zoning process so localities can control what’s done.”

    Otherwise, the two candidates sound a lot alike. Pollard believes that growth should be “compact and contiguous.” He likes the idea of using Transferable Development Rights to create a market-based mechanism for both preserving open space and concentrating growth in areas served by infrastructure and transportation. And here’s a fresh idea that I haven’t seen anywhere else: Pollard also wants to get rid of “stale zoning” — subdivisions that were platted 10 or more years ago and are still on the books, but were never built.

    Stuart, too, supports compact development that utilizes infrastructure more efficiently, but he emphasizes cluster development that concentrates houses in a smaller area, leaving more open space, and the end of “by right” development in which farmland can be converted into subdivisions without going through the zoning process. Says Stuart: “You can’t undo what’s already been done, but you can avoid the future sprawl by concentrating growth and requiring necessary infrastructure be built to accommodate it. And you do that through zoning.”

    I agree with some aspects of the candidates’ logic and disagree with others. What I most appreciate, however, is the prospect of a debate between two candidates who have thought extensively about the issues. Whoever wins the election, the new senator from the 28th district will elevate the level of senatorial discourse about trasnsportation and land use in 2008.

  • SUNDAY READING

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    James A. Bacon

    News from WaPo:

    Finally a Front Page headline that gets one of the Core Confusing Words right!

    “In the World’s Rural Outposts, A Shortwave Channel to God.”

    This is a story about listening to sermons broadcast over shortwave radio filed from Homoine in southern Mozambique. There are some “rural” outposts in some parts of Africa such as Mozambique and in South America, Central Asia, New Guinea and other isolated places.

    When we first traveled in the remote corners of the Caribbean there were rural places there too, but not any more. There are a lot of low density urban places and some nonurban places where human live and work but there are no “rural” places in the US of A and few (yes, Larry some close to the Arctic Circle but nowhere near where tourists go) in North America. For a full discussion of “rural” and other Core Confusing Words see GLOSSARY.

    For those who have not read Bjorn Lomborg’s perceptions of Climate Change the front page of Outlook has a nice photo of two Polar Bears and a short item by Lomborg. Interesting perspectives but he, and most others, miss the settlement pattern issue. The only way for humans to protect themselves from future Climate Change – up or down – and other impacts of natural reality is to shrink the ecological footprint of human activity.

    That means, over time, fewer people each consuming less. Even more important is that humans need to consume less in all their joint economic, social and physical activities that are carried out at the Household thru the Inter Continental scales – that includes all six of scales in between the Household and the Inter Continental scales. Transport, heating and cooling – and most other forms of resource consumption vary by settlement patterns. More on this in our next column.

    By the way, it seems pretty warm today.

    Finally for those who think the US of A is doing just fine compared to our primary economic competition, Steven Hill has a nice item “5 Myths About Sick Old Europe” on page 5 of Outlook.

    Happy reading and thinking.

    EMR

  • Volt: Another Nail in the Coffin of the Gasoline Tax

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    James A. Bacon

    General Motors soon will roll out an interesting variant on the hybrid car, the Volt, which runs on electricity and employs a small motor to recharge its electric battery, reports USA Today. GM says that the small, sporty car can run up to 40 miles on the on-board electric battery. The battery can be recharged in six hours — either at home at night, presumably, or in a specially equipped parking place.

    It’s not clear from the article how far the car can run on the battery and gas-powered engine, but it’s clearly a lot farther than conventional electric cars. Although the article is silent on the point, I surmise that the Volt will be cheaper to fuel than hybrid vehicles because electricity, which is roughly one third the cost of gasoline, would be the dominant fuel.

    The Volt is just another example of how the automobile industry is serious about bridging the gap between gasoline-powered and electric-powered vehicles. The car will go into production in 2010, with an SUV version in 2011.

    Within a decade, I predict, a majority of new cars sold will be one variation or another of hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles. That’s wonderful news for anyone who values energy independence and cleaner air. But it’s bad news for the gasoline tax. As more and more people shift to electric power for their automobiles, the burden of paying for roadway maintenance and construction will fall on an ever-smaller number of drivers. Revenues will decline precipitously, sparking a road funding crisis.

    Virginia needs to start planning now for a migration from the gasoline tax to a Vehicle Miles Driven user fee. The shift is all but inevitable. The failure to plan for it is unforgivable.

    (Hat tip: Larry Gross)

    (Photo credit: GM-volt.com)

  • From Google Maps to Google Traffic

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    James A. Bacon

    File this under: Cool but primitive. Google Maps is now displaying traffic congestion data for major thoroughfares. Zoom in on an Interstate highway, click on the “traffic” button, and Google displays red, yellow and green over the highway to show traffic conditions. I captured the image here, of the core Richmond region, around 8:40 this morning.

    Although Google is famous for its easy, intuitive interface, the company stumbled a bit on this one. I can’t find anything that translates the color code. I presume that green stands for free-flowing conditions, yellow for mildly congested and red for severely congested. But what are the gray lines? Stretches of highway that have no camera or radar monitors? I expect that Google will improve the product with time.

    Whatever the case, traffic-flow data is making it into the mainstream. This is an indispensable component for increasing the efficiency of our transportation system. This kind of information makes it easier for people to avoid congestion by adjusting their time schedules — I, for one, plan to make it a habit to check Google Maps before venturing into Northern Virginia! When Interstate 95 and the Washington Beltway offer congestion-priced HOT lanes, the info will arm consumers/drivers with information they can use when deciding which routes to take.

    The inevitable next step is downloading the traffic-flow info to the navigation systems in cars so drivers can access the information while en route. Even better, we can hope that the Virginia Department of Transporation, and/or local governments, will expand the use of traffic monitors beyond the Interstates to other major thoroughfares.
    To sound a familiar refrain, this innovation by itself won’t solve traffic congestion. But it is one piece of the puzzle that must fall into place.
    (Hat tip: Lyle Solla-Yates.)

  • Travesty! Historic Jamestowne Credibility in the Dumpster

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    James A. Bacon

    Get this — Historic Jamestowne has canceled the annual observance of the anniversary of Bacon’s Rebellion scheduled to take place at Jamestown Island this weekend, reports the Daily Press. Can you believe it? The most important event in Colonial Virginia history between the founding of Jamestown and the Revolutionary War, and they cancel it — just like that!

    The two-day schedule of living history programs and evening walking tours “commemorates the 1676 insurrection of colonists led by Nathaniel Bacon. Under Bacon’s command, the rebels seized Jamestown Island and burned the capital there before being turned back and defeated by forces loyal to Gov. William Berkeley.”

    And whyyyyy was it canceled? Because of the “recent departure of a park staff member responsible for organizing the event.” How lame is that? One guy leaves, and the whole thing goes down the drain? Next thing you know, we’ll be shutting down recognition of the Civil War when somebody sneezes! Unbelievable. What’s our society coming to?

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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