Bacon's Rebellion

  • Mo’ Money for Education: How Much is Enough?

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    James A. Bacon

    The GOP transportation package has severe deficiencies that warrant chopping off its head and mounting it on a spike, but the notion purveyed by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and others that it would short-change Virginia’s school children is not one of them. The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance has produced the following chart that compares K-12 spending, adjusted for inflation, to school enrollment.


    Does anyone seriously think that dumping more money into this system will improve it? C’mon. Get real. The problem is that our educational system, like our transportation/land use system, is a relic of a past era that can not keep up with the demands of a fast-changing, globally competitive Knowledge Economy. Education, too, needs Fundamental Change.

  • Ballston on a Half Shell

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    James A. Bacon

    It just seems like common sense: If you cram more offices and housing into a place, you’ll get more people, more traffic and more congestion. That’s the sentiment animinating the opposition to increased density in Tysons Corner.

    But common sense isn’t always right. In an example of the kind of reporting we should see more of, the Washington Post illuminates the Tysons Corner debate in a Feb. 18 article by looking at the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor in Arlington. The surge in development along the Corridor, which is served by METRO, has produced relatively little extra automobile traffic. Skeptics respond that Tysons is different from Arlington: Increasing density, even if the METRO is built, will not have the same impact.

    True, Tysons is different. It may present special challenges. That just means they the County will have to work at it — just like Arlington did. The Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor did not just emerge like Venus on the half-shell. Arlington has worked tirelessly for decades to make its METRO Corridor work. Says the Post:

    It took Arlington decades, they said, to draw up plans, win support from nearby residents and then attract the kind of development they were hoping for.

    Winning local support was achieved, officials said, only after countless meetings and pledges that Arlington would stick to a “bull’s-eye” approach, limiting the tallest buildings to a quarter-mile radius from rail stations and not encroaching on neighborhoods. To keep up support over time, the county instituted parking limits and traffic-calming methods on nearby streets.

    Employees and residents in the corridor are encouraged to stay out of their cars through parking limits, transit subsidies, a county bus system, bike paths and pedestrian-friendly street designs. The county has the advantage of having control over the design of its secondary streets, an authority that in most Virginia counties is held by the state.

    “It’s not just one policy but a whole series of things,” said Dennis Leach, the county’s transportation chief. “This is not something you do overnight. Arlington’s been at this 30 years, and not everything’s perfect. We have a lot more to do.”

    There are no simple solutions. There are no painless remedies. Devising functional land use patterns and transportation systems will take unstinting effort. But the end result is a system that does work. What we have now will never work, no matter how much money we dump into it.

    (Hat tip to Nova MiddleMan for bringing this article to my attention.)

  • Knowledge is (Electric) Power

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    James A. Bacon

    Soaring demand for electricity in Northern Virginia is driving Dominion’s plans to build new transmission lines, submit to partial re-regulation, and embark upon construction of billions of dollars worth of new coal- and nuclear-powered generating plants. What would happen if future demand didn’t materialize as quickly as Dominion anticipated?

    It’s well worth scrutinizing Dominion’s forecasts of electricity consumption. Are its forecasts simple extrapolations of past trends, or do they anticipate the changing economic landscape? I ask because we cannot assume that demand, especially in high-tech Northern Virginia, will continue to increase as it has in the past.

    “Global electricity consumption by servers and ancillary equipment doubled between 2000 and 2004, estimated Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientst at Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory,” states an article in the Wall Street Journal today. But the computer sector is moving aggressively to curtail consumption. If Dominion extrapolates a continuation of the 2000-2005 trend, it may be overshooting the actual demand for electricity in the future.

    Green Grid, a tech-industry consortium from California, was created to address the increasing power consumption of server systems and the data centers that use them. (Northern Virginia has a dozen or more of these server farms.) An immediate goal is to devise standard measures of power efficiency in computer rooms, thus eliminating a major obstacle to new energy-efficiency initiatives. One industry initiative, 80 Plus, focuses on the devices that convert alternating current into the direct current used by most computing equipment. The goal is to boost efficiency from 70 percent to 80 percent. The WSJ also reports that ColdWatt inc. is announcing a line of server power supplies that generate less heat and cut total server power consumption by 30 percent. Furthermore, as noted previously on this blog, Intel is rolling out a new, energy-efficient microchip this year.

    Maybe Dominion is taking this entrepreneurial ferment into account with its forecasts, maybe it isn’t. But I am dubious that the policy makers who are rushing Dominion’s re-regulation bill into law know the answer. If Dominion’s forecasts are way off… if demand falls far short of projections… who picks up the bill under re-regulation for Dominion’s over-investment in electric capacity? The rate payers. If the people representing the rate payers aren’t probing aggressively into Dominion’s projections, they need to be. Knowledge is power.

  • The New Plan for Williamsburg: Density in the Right Places

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    James A. Bacon

    How much density in a location like the historic core of Williamsburg is the right amount? City fathers are grappling with that question as they update their comprehensive plan. Proposed changes would yield an estimated 100 to 150 new dwelling units, which would translate into the addition of some 300 new residents.

    Predictably, opposition has surfaced. Some residents are concerned that more houses will ruin the city’s appearance. I’m a big fan of downtown Williamsburg, and as a semi-frequent visitor would hate the historic district to lose its distinctive character. But I also acknowledge that communities must evolve to prosper. As long as the new buildings are not jarring or disruptive, increased density is probably a good thing.

    The Daily Press makes a good case in support of higher density:

    Density is not, in and of itself, bad. It adds energy to community life. It brings customers for local businesses, helping maintain a lively mix of restaurants and shops and services. It adds taxpayers to the local rolls. It adds the eyes and pedestrians that keep public spaces safe. It’s a more efficient way to deliver services. By clustering residents close to the services and jobs they need, it means that at least some of life’s business can be done without driving, and that cuts down on gas consumption and pollution. All those good things feed on themselves, drawing more people who want that kind of convenient, satisfying life.

    All of which can also help prevent the all-too-common bane of small towns: declining neighborhoods, shuttered business, neglected public spaces, fleeing taxpayers. And it can avert sprawl – with its consequences for the environment and the way people live.

    The danger isn’t density, but the wrong density in the wrong place – like a high-rise apartment building on Prince George Street. Or detached, single-family homes where three-story live-aboves are better suited. Or restrictions that interfere with the natural order of town life.

    Remember, the antidote to suburban sprawl (scattered, disconnected, low-density development) is not anti-growth controls in fast-growth counties, but creating the conditions for core jurisdictions to rejuvenate themselves. For every family that loves living in a cul-de-sac subdivision, there’s another family that lives there only because there aren’t enough quality urban places with character and charm, like Williamsburg, to live. The marketplace would support considerable in-fill and re-development if only local governments would let it.

  • Chairman of the RPV Hears Hampton Republicans

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    James A. Bacon

    Chairman of the RPV, Ed Gillespie, motored a long way for the Hampton Republican Committee fellowship breakfast on Sat. 24 Feb. He had to hurry home for his daughter’s basketball game. It was a long round trip to hear voices he, apparently, hasn’t heard in Richmond or NoVa.

    Mike Wade, Chairman of the Hampton Committee and the 3rd District, hosted. Sprinkled among the 50 or so folks were visitors from Va Beach, Portsmouth, Newport News and Poquoson.

    The whole time was very Tidewater. Respectful. Polite. Closing with a standing ovation. Yet, it showed some of the fault lines across the General Assembly, the Party and The People. It exposed some of the political thinking which may make the Republican Party the minority party across the Commonwealth soon enough.

    Gillespie talked about winning the ‘grand slam’ of ‘07, ‘08, ‘09 elections and controlling re-districting in ‘10. He mentioned the Virginia Republican Creed’s principles of limited government and lower taxes. Then, he praised the Republican ‘compromise’ Transportation bill as a contrast to what the Democrats would do and the absence of action from Democrat Gov. Kaine.

    Then, the questions began. No one is buying the Party line. No one in that room.

    The starkest comment was a fellow who said, essentially, “Quit threatening us with the Democrats. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to work with the voters.”

    The other comments ranged from sending a message to Sen. John Warner to support the war or don’t run again, to get the National Park Service involved in the Ft. Monroe closure issues, to how a candidate for city council in Portsmouth can build voter identity other than the ‘Republican’ guy, to a fellow from Hampton University who said quit pandering to minorities but include them on the basis of issues – and the absence of a Reagan Conservative front-runner for President.

    The comments on what I call the ’07 Transportation Tax Panic criticized the pouring concrete that won’t reduce congestion, failure to add to the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel and several comments about unelected Regional Governments we rejected TWICE before and that the Republican bill violated the very principles Gillespie had lauded. All said kindly, but firmly.

    The Republican ‘stra-tege-ery’ emerged as this – in my words:

    The plan saves Republican seats in NoVa because the GOP did something on transportation. Now, any failure to pass a plan can be blamed on the Democrats.

    Furthermore, the bill requires the cities and counties to raise the taxes ($209m in year One in Hampton Roads), so they will be blamed for raising taxes, not Republicans. In fact, it creates an opportunity for Republicans to run Conservative candidates in cities and counties to NOT raise the taxes and create unelected, unaccountable Regional Governments the Republicans put in the compromise bill.

    (When I told my apolitical, school counselor wife this, she said, “What? Say that again.” “Okay, dear. The Republicans in Richmond put new taxes, and Regional Government – we’ve already rejected TWICE, for a plan that doesn’t decrease congestion in a law, so that Republicans can win elections in the cities and counties running against it.” She said, “Surely, they don’t think the voters are that stupid.”)

    In ’02 the Republicans – same cast of characters in the Caucus – passed the buck to the voters. In ’04 the RINOs raised taxes with the Dems. Now in ‘07, the Caucus passed the buck to the cities and counties.

    Ed Gillespie indicated he will ask the State Central Committee to vote to support the plan. That’s ironic. I was on State Central when we voted almost unanimously to ask, respectfully, the Caucus to not raise our taxes in 04. I heard how they laughed at the notion. Senators Norment and Chichester made some pointed comments about ‘gnats on the butt of an elephant’ etc. I look forward to the SCC meeting in March.

    So, the logic is this: When the State Central Committee, the Party, asks the Caucus to honor the principles of the Virginia Republican Creed they are ignored by the Caucus. Yet, when the Caucus passes legislation directly in violation of Republican principles, they demand the Party support them.

    It shows the fundamental relationship of power and divisions across the Commonwealth. The Party doesn’t deliver the money or the votes that gets politicians elected. Party discipline is a wet noodle (see what the 28th State District decides on Monday about His Lordship Sir John Chichester). The Party faithful who are useful fools and loyal eunuchs are patronized with the modest petting they require to prop up politicians at election time.

    Meanwhile, the different political sub-cultures of NoVa and RoVa ignore state politics until election time. The RINOs can serve the special interests who support them financially with few consequences. Except, as my wife suggested, the voters aren’t that stupid.

    When a Republican candidate says, “Liberal! Liberal!”, and the Democrats and MSM say not so (the truth doesn’t matter) – and the Republican doesn’t provide reasons to vote FOR him, then the GOP loses. When the GOP raises taxes or insults the voters by not listening to their NO votes on Regional Governments, etc. the base of loyal Party voters bleeds.

    When the Democrats make inroads in ’07 and, maybe, carry Virginia in ’08, don’t look to those 50 people in Hampton. They, as activists, can produce almost 10,000 votes. But, when they can’t or don’t try – look to Richmond. There’s trouble in River City

  • FURTHER RESPONSE TO BUBBERELLA

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    James A. Bacon

    In further response to Bubberella’s question under the Saturday 24 February post “Billions for Transportation – But How Much for Congestion Relief?”

    It should be clear that the positions held by frequent BaconsRebellion contributors cover a broad range, and do not represent just one perspective. Here is a quick review:

    EMR admits to holding down the True Conservative / Conservation / Science-Based Reality end of the spectrum.

    Moving away from this anchor are more traditional conservation-oriented positions held by those who agree on many of the basic realities but fear that strongly advocating the transformations needed to achieve Fundamental Change will require them to give up some or all of what they have inherited and/or worked hard to achieve.

    Next come a range of Centrists who see a stronger roll for government actions to achieve Balanced Communities in sustainable New Urban Regions.

    These three categories represent the interests of about 80 percent of the population. See the 20% / 60% / 20% Guideline.

    Beyond the Centrists are the Left WingNuts who vacation in Cuba and have recently bought stock in Citco.

    Beyond the Left WingNuts near the bleeding edge are the Right WingNuts.

    Right WingNuts are very vocal and occupy the majority of the space on most open fora. Here are some of their favorite positions:

    Right WingNuts favor small government unless governmental expansion comes during Elephant Clan administrations. Most favor no government action except that which benefits the very wealthy.

    Right WingNuts believe that accelerating Capital Accumulation for the benefit of a few does not threaten democracy and a market economy. They do what they can to support Mass Over-Consumption and thus hasten the slide toward entropy and Collapse.

    Right WingNuts take positions favoring Business-As-Usual because they benefit, hope to benefit or recognize that fellow Right WingNuts and other Business-As-Usual advocates make the majority of the contributions supporting the current political party Duopoly.

    Right Wing Nuts love to win and do not believe there is a need for a balance between personal rights and public responsibilities to maintain a democracy with a market economy.

    Some Right WingNuts are said to hunt small animals with assault weapons. That fascination with firepower is reflected in their posts.

    Finally there is one last group: The True WingNuts who have no moral or philosophical rudder right or left. This is a small fraction of participants but they devalue everyone’s views.

    True WingNuts live under the assumption that “I live in a human settlement pattern and so I am an expert.” They structure their posts to obscure their true intent, what ever that is.

    True WingNuts have no compunction about insulting the intelligence of readers by twisting comments and using misleading words to make what seem like rational points. We cite two examples from the above noted string which are the reason for posting this comment:

    “… but the best evidence we have is that transit really works cost efficiently (and envirionmentally (sic) efficiently) for only around 2% of the population.”

    The 2 percent is a low ball figure for the number of vehicle trips in a region that are taken on shared-vehicles vis private vehicles. If one considers peak hour vehicle trips the number goes up by a factor of 5 in regions with threshold shared-vehicle system efficiency.

    If one considers the number of peak-hour trips where the origin and destination of the trip is within walking distance of a shared-vehicle station the number goes up by a factor of 4 more.

    If one understands that the role of shared-vehicle systems is to support settlement patterns where citizens do not need to resort to any vehicle to access many of the elements of a quality life, the numbers are overwhelming in favor of implementation of shared-vehicle systems to provide citizens with mobility and access.

    Or try this:

    “since shared vehicle systems have an average speed half of that supported by the automobile.”

    If one considers Autonomobile travel times in origin and destination rich places served by an efficient transit system the statement is absurd.

    On a region-wide basis for the average 10 trips per household per day we know of no data that supports this assumption. The only data we have seen is that a careful cataloguing of trip speed for intra-New Urban Region travel puts the Autonomobile very close to shared-vehicle speed even in areas where there is little or no congestion.

    Just as there are no Alpha Communities in the US of A, there are not New Urban Regions with a pattern and density of land use that would support efficient use of a creative mix of shared vehicle systems.

    The amazing thing is that in some True WingNut comments two out of three sentences contain this sort of misinformation. One out of three is well founded or congratulates another poster to gain support for unfounded positions.

    EMR

  • Three Reasons Not to Slit Our Wrists

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    James A. Bacon

    While I am despondent about the passage of the GOP transportation-financing package, there are shreds of consolation from the General Assembly, and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has enumerated three of them in a Saturday press release touting his legislative successes. They are:

    SB1181: Subdivision Streets
    Patron: Martin E. Williams, R-Newport News
    Strengthens standards for accepting subdivision streets into the state system by increasing connectivity standards for roads and subdivisions. Basic connectivity enhances the overall capacity and efficiency of the transportation network and reduces congestion on major arterials by providing alternative routes for local trips.

    HB 2228, SB 1312: Access Management
    Patrons: Del. Leo C. Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach, Sen. Charles B. Hawkins, R-Chatham
    Promotes traffic flow and interconnectivity on the state’s road system, ensuring that new and existing roadways are not degraded by the creation of too many and poorly spaced intersections, turn lanes, median breaks, and other impediments.

    HB2163, SB1144: Incident Management
    Patrons: Del. Shannon R. Valentine, D-Lynchburg, Sen. Frank W. Wagner, R-Virginia Beach
    Allows VDOT vehicles to participate in clearing cars and restoring traffic flow after an accident, improving response time.

    Each of these bills is worthwhile, and each will make an incremental improvement to ameliorating traffic congestion. They constitute worthwhile first steps down the long road to land use reform. Let us hope, however, that lawmakers don’t declare victory and move on.

  • What’s Tim Kaine’s Next Move?

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    James A. Bacon

    So… the GOP compromise on transportation has won approval in both the Senate and House of Delegates. The bill now goes to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who has expressed major reservations about it. In a press release yesterday, he stated:

    When the final conference report on a long-term revenue package for transportation was developed, too few people were involved, and as a result, the bill on its way to my desk is not only insufficient to address Virginia’s needs, but contains numerous issues to address. I will use the 30 days between now and the reconvened session on April 4 to consult with legislators, local elected officials, and other stakeholders to fix the problems in the bill and reach a comprehensive, long-term, and statewide transportation solution.

    I’m not familiar enough with the legislative process to know what leverage, other than threatening to veto the bill, the Governor has to tinker with the legislation at this point.

    Whatever procedural influence he may have, it seems clear that the Governor has lost much of his political leverage. His call earlier this year to take the transportation issue to the people in the fall elections now rings hollow. Despite long odds, Republicans shed their differences to pass a far-reaching piece of legislation. Between taxes, fees, bonds and penalties, they will throw even more money at transportation than Kaine would have in $1 billion-a-year plan. Furthermore, GOP passed their bill with a measure of bipartisan support. While six Republicans in both chambers voted against it, 13 Democrats voted in favor.

    If Kaine vetoes the transportation financing bill, he will be the obstructionist. He will be the one who prevented what Speaker William J. Howell calls Virginia’s “best chance” to address the transportation crisis. Kaine can point out all sorts of problems with the bill, but his job in persuading the public, which is not particularly attentive to arcane policy details, will be rendered far more difficult.

    Is the financing piece of the GOP compromise an abomination? In my mind, it certainly is. Is the idea of empowering opaque and unaccountable regional authorities a potential disaster in the making? Absolutely. But the GOP has the “Big Mo” now. I will be most interested to see what the Governor’s next move is.

  • Billions for Transportation — but How Much for Congestion Relief?

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    James A. Bacon

    The Hampton Roads chapter of the Axis of Taxes is riding the wave of public frustration with traffic congestion to generate public support for higher regional taxes and big regional road projects. But two of the biggest projects topping the list of regional priorities — the Third Crossing and the U.S. 460 upgrade — won’t address traffic congestion at all: They are economic development projects. The purpose of this post is not to denigrate the economic development potential of either project — that’s an entirely separate issue — but to point out that many citizens in Hampton Roads are likely to be quite unhappy if they find themselves $200 million a year lighter in their wallets and still stuck in traffic.

    A number of this blog’s readers have been making that very argument in the comments section. But the point was really driven home by numbers cited in a press release issued by the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Describing the U.S. 460 project as “a symbol of waste and misplaced priorities in our transportation program,” Executive Director Stewart Schwartz writes:

    Route 460 would be a new 55-mile interstate equivalent highway between Suffolk and Petersburg. The cost of the road is currently estimated at $1.5 billion, but some estimates go to $1.9 billion. The state’s taxpayers would have to pay at least $1 billion toward a project that VDOT wants private toll-road builders to construct under the Public-Private Transportation Act.

    The PPTA isn’t living up to the promises made by its boosters. This amounts to a substantial public subsidy…

    Remarkably, the existing Route 460 is predicted in VDOT’s Environmental Impact Study to be at Level of Service A (free-flowing) in 2030, except in small towns with traffic lights. Today, the highway carries fewer than 10,000 vehicles per day compared to average daily traffic volumes on I-64 on the Peninsula of 43,000 to 80,000 vehicles per day in the Williamsburg area.

    Says Schwartz: “Roads like 460 have been pushed through the [Commonwealth Transportation Board] process by VDOT and would make an early claim to both the $2 billion in bond funding and the increases in fees, taxes and tolls in the Hampton Roads region. This will siphon money away from real congestion problems within the metropolitan areas of the state.”

  • There’s a New Tax-and-Spend Party in Town

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    James A. Bacon

    The House and Senate conferees have pounded out their final compromise on the transportation package. There are two more obstacles to go: The Senate must approve the final version, which may or may not happen: Democrats and a handful of Republicans are still unhappy with key elements of the plan. And then the package goes to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, who also has expressed his displeasure.

    As compromise has succeeded compromise, and amendment has piled upon amendment, the legislation, to my mind, has gotten worse and worse. The most significant change in this latest iteration, according to a press release from the Speaker’s Office is that it relies even less upon the General Fund than previous versions to pay for roads. Total General Fund revenues amount to “consistently less than 1 percent in any given year – and actually declines as a percentage over time.”

    In other words, the legislation requires increased taxes, levies, fines and fees from other sources. Here’s how it the new revenues stack up: (1) a statewide revenue stream reaching $600 million per year; (2) regional taxes of more than $400 million per year for Northern Virginia; (3) regional taxes of more than $200 million for Hampton Roads; and (4) a sweetener of $2.5 billion in bonds issued over an eight-year period.

    We started the General Assembly session arguing whether Gov. Kaine’s proposal to increase statewide taxes by $1 billion revenue was too much. Now the putatively “anti-tax” Republicans are patting themselves on the back for a package of state and regional taxes, fees and fines totaling about $1.2 billion a year — and that’s before taking on $2.5 billion in debt. No wonder Kaine has been sitting quietly and “contributing nothing” throughout this process. The more the Republicans have talked, the richer they’ve made the tax-and-spend elements of the legislation.

    I can only imagine that Republican legislators are so close to the process that they have lost all perspective. They haven’t noticed that they’ve moved backward, not forward. They may be able to insulate themselves against charges of “doing nothing” on transportation, but they also have to deal with the utter dismay of their small government constituents. Maybe there’s something I’m missing, but based on the documents provided by the Speaker’s Office itself, I am absolutely apalled.

    HB 3202 does contain a couple of useful VDOT and land use reforms, but they only tinker on the margins of the problem. They don’t begin to un-do the damage created by the incoherent mix of tax revenues, or the shoveling of money into unaccountable regional transportation authorities. This entire process has wound up worse than I could ever imagine.

    J.R. Hoeft over at BearingPoint, a solidly Republican blog, doesn’t sound any more enthusiastic than I am. If there are any Republicans out there who want to defend this legislation on the grounds of conservative/free market principles, as opposed to a panicky bid to save their nexts in the next election, I would like to hear from them.

  • WWTD

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    James A. Bacon

    What Would Tim Do? About Transportation in Virginia.

    Rumor from Richmond is that Governor Tim Kaine will offer a “Democratic Plan for Transportation”. That seems a bit far-fetched so late in the GA session. The more likely course is the word our Democrat Governor will do everything he can to kill whatever comes of conference committee so there is NO transportation bill. Nothing produced from two sessions of the majority Repubican-controlled GA.

    More power to our Governor. This Republican isn’t kidding. The bad parts of the Transportation compromise of Republican and Conservative principles are so terrible that Virginia is better off with nothing. The bad far ouweighs the good reforms and innovations.

    Best wishes, Gov. Kaine, on stopping bad legislation on behalf of all Virginians.

  • Republican vs. Republican

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    James A. Bacon

    The great news today is that Sen. Russell Potts (RINO-27) is retiring. He is quitting in the face of two primary challengers.

    Which leads us to His Lordship Sir John Chichester (RINO-28). He has from Feb. 27th to March 27th to declare how he wants to be re-nominated. Except the recent court decision said the Party can select the means (not a direct quote) if there is a disagreement. So, the all politics is local adage boils down to one person at the meeting of the Republican 28th Senate Legislative District meeting on Monday in Stafford.

    The Legislative Committee, consisting of the unit chairs for every city and county in the 28th District, is considering the Resolution shown below. If they vote ‘Yes’, then His Lordship will face whatever they like – probably a convention. If they vote ‘No’ then Chichester gets to see how many Democrats and Independents he can get to an open primary.

    Since Stafford is 58% of the district, the Stafford Chairman, Bob Hunt, has 58% of the vote. His yea or nay will determine if the RPV in the 28th District holds its elected officials accountable for violating the Virginia Republican Creed and betraying the trust of the People and Party of his nomination and caucus, or not.

    If you are a Stafford Republican, you might want to chat with Bob Hunt about his vote.

    RESOLUTION OF THE

    28TH SENATORIAL DISTRICT REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE

    WHEREAS, despite substantial disagreement between this Committee and the incumbent State Senator representing the District on matters of fundamental Republican principles, the Committee prefers not to remove the Senator from the Party; and

    WHEREAS, the Committee has been advised that the State Board of Elections has adopted the position in pending federal litigation that disassociation by the Party of an incumbent legislator of the Party is the only means by which the Committee can avoid being forced by operation of Virginia statutes to have an open primary in which Democrats and others obviously hostile to the Party’s principles, goals and policies are allowed to participate; and

    WHEREAS, an open primary is prohibited under the Plan of Organization of the Republican Party of Virginia and would infringe upon the First Amendment right of free association guaranteed by the United States Constitution enjoyed by both the Party and its individual members and adherents.

    WHEREAS, the Chairman of the Committee has asked the incumbent State Senator to advise the Committee whether he will foreswear his statutory prerogative under Va. Code § 24.2-509(B) to select the method of Party nomination in 2007 and allow the Party to select the nomination method, thereby avoiding any further reason for Committee consideration of the disassociation option; and

    WHEREAS, the incumbent State Senator has not provided that commitment; and

    WHEREAS, the only course available to the Committee by which it can comply with the Plan of Organization of the Republican Party of Virginia and protect the First Amendment rights of the Party and its members is disassociation of the incumbent State Senator; now, therefore, be it

    RESOLVED, That the 28th Senatorial District Republican Committee reluctantly and regretfully disassociates itself from the incumbent State Senator in the District and also disassociates the incumbent State Senator from the Republican Party; and, be it

    RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Committee adopts as a rule and regulation that any candidate for the Republican nomination must adhere to Section A.1. of the Plan of Organization of the Republican Party of Virginia and assure, to the extent he is legally able, that the Party and its committees, including this Committee, are not forced by operation of Virginia statute to accept in Republican Party nomination processes voters who are not in accord with the principles of the Republican Party of Virginia; and, be it

    RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Secretary of this Committee is directed to send a copy of this Resolution to the incumbent State Senator, the State Board of Election and the Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia.

  • Has the House Caved?

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    James A. Bacon

    This cryptic passage appears in an e-mailed press release issued around 9 a.m. today by Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, one of the conferees working on revisions to the state budget (my italics):

    Based on the continuing constructive discussions between budget conferees for the House and Senate, I am confident that a budget agreement acceptable to both houses will be reached in advance of our regularly scheduled adjournment on Saturday, February 24.

    The recent action by the conferees for the House on House Bill 3202, acceding to the Senate position on the amount of additional funding for transportation in the current budget – at least $500 million – removed what everyone recognized was the chief obstacle to a swift budget resolution. I concur with the widely reported sentiments of both conference committee chairmen – Senator Chichester and Delegate Callahan – that we are now in a far better posture to sort out any unresolved issues and achieve a timely budget compromise.

    I’m not clear what this means. Does the $500 million constitute entirely new revenue? Is the General Fund off limits for transportation funding? If it turns out that the House has caved again, after already compromising once, the extremely loud noise you hear emanating from western Henrico County will not be a nuclear weapon or a volcanic eruption — it will be my head exploding.

    Update: Chelyen Davis with the Free Lance-Star explains the significance of this development in her story yesterday. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t represent a terribly large shift in the House’s position. It eliminates one stumbling block in the transportation negotiations, but there are other issues to resolve.

    Update II: Paul Nardo, on the Speaker’s staff, says the House did not “cave” but made a tactical concession to keep the negotiations moving, while preserving core budgetary goals. For priorities, click on “comments” and scroll to the third comment.

  • SOLs for Roads

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    James A. Bacon

    While the MSM cyclops focuses its monomoniacal eye on the absolute level of transportation funding — will legislators raise another $1.2 billion a year, or only $1 billion — quiet progress is being made in other areas: in particular, the prioritization of funding.

    As Peter Galuszka reports for the Road to Ruin project, there is increasing support for creating performance standards for roads — comparable in ways to the Standards of Learning for schools. These standards would measure outputs, not inputs: rating transportation projects on the extent to which they contribute to key goals like safety, congestion mitigation and economic development.

    Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has already appointed, by executive order, a transportation accountability commission to recommend performance standards. And House Bill 3202, the GOP compromise bill, also contains language that would create a Joint Commission on Transportation Accountability to do much the same thing. Ideally, the two groups would work together, not squabble over differing definitions and standards.

    The metrics have yet to be devised, although Kaine’s group has already started the process, having held its first meeting. Over and above the safety guidelines, which are well established, metrics might include traffic congestion mitigated per dollar spent, or contribution to economic development. By “economic development,” backers of this concept are not envisioning earmark projects like the $50 million interchange in Stafford County built to improve access to a little-used regional airport. That’s precisely the kind of low-return “investment” they want to prevent. Instead, economic development metrics might measure how a new road would increase the accessibility of labor to a major employment center like Tysons Corner.

    Setting priorities is critical. Setting the right priorities is even more critical. This represents an excellent opportunity to align transportation with land use planning. It’s also an opportunity for the state, for once, to stimulate in-fill and re-development in Virginia’s urban core and aging suburbs instead of pushing growth ever farther into the countryside. It could even become a tool one day for building transportation systems that serve Balanced Communities.

    There’s one issue that we did not have a chance to explore: the extent to which new priorities driven by new metrics actually would change current spending patterns. Virginia’s road allocation formula is fairly rigid, parceling out funds on the basis of antiquated highway districts boundaries, drawn in the 1920s, and between road classifications that haven’t been updated in almost as long. HB 3202 would require the Virginia Department of Transportation to reclassify roads, but I’m not aware of any measure that would redraw VDOT district boundaries.

    Meaningful reform may require more than setting new standards: It may require tearing up the old road funding formula and starting over.

  • Roads, Parking and Market Pricing

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Market pricing is coming to roads and parking sooner rather than later. Virginia can be in the forefront of the trend, or it can get left in the dust. As General Assembly conferees consider their quasi-socialist approach to building and maintaining roads — raising new revenues from every source but those who actually use the roads, and providing access for “free” — they need to recognize that the technology and theory behind market pricing continues to gain credibility around the world.

    The latest point of reference: a mini-white paper written by Bern Grush, founder of Skymeter Corporation, of Toronto, Canada. Grush advocates the concept of Road User Charging, which combines a number of features: (1) road pricing, essentially a charge for vehicle-miles driven, as a substitute for the gasoline tax, (2) congesting pricing, a mechanism to cope with traffic congestion, and (3) parking demand management. It’s the ultimate user pays system, and it’s on the cusp of commercial feasibility thanks to satellite and wireless technologies.

    Grush is a thought leader in this space. The challenge of his start-up company is to persuade someone to invest in its untested technology and to pioneer its untested theories. Selling to government requires a frustratingly long sales cycle. But Skymeter has raised one round of angel financing, and it expects to close another round, according to an article in the Toronto Star. Although Grush has articulated the possibilities provided by the emerging technology better than anyone I’ve read, he’s not alone. The success of congestion pricing in Singapore, London and Stockholm are attracting attention around the world.

    It’s a travesty that, in a state that prides itself as home to a world-class Information Technology industry, the General Assembly seeks to devise a “stable, long-term source of transportation funding” without giving serious consideration to the latest and greatest information technology and theory. One is tempted to blame the politicians for their small, parochial minds, but the responsibility goes deeper. Politicians draw from those around them — the newspapers they read, the television shows they watch, the conferences they attend, the lobbyists they listen to, the academics, businessmen and citizens they interact with. Ultimately, we have only ourselves to blame for our parochial thinking.

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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.
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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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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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