Bacon's Rebellion

The Washington Post has picked up on the trend that local governments in Virginia and Maryland are stepping in to pay for local roads that the states cannot afford to build. Localities, reports Eric Weiss, “are going into debt to embark on an unprecedented half-billion-dollar road-building boom to try to ease some of the area’s worst jams.”

The story is useful in that it illuminates the fact that the phenomenon is not limited to Virginia jurisdictions. (Let’s hope the WaPo editorial writers, who routinely castigate Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates for their resistance to raising taxes, notice that Maryland counties are experiencing similar problems.)

Weiss concludes that there are more tolls and bonds in the future, and he quotes Pierce Homer, Virginia’s Secretary of Transportation, as worrying that the local efforts are less likely to be coordinated than if the Virginia Department of Transportation has sufficient funds to undertake the projects itself — a legitimate concern. Road networks are regional in nature. Secondary roads are rightly the responsibility of local governments, but primaries and Interstates should be left to VDOT.

I had my first encounter with a touch-screen voting booth today. I found it a vast improvement over Henrico County’s previous, mechanical voting technology. The instructions were clear — no room for confusion whatsoever. There was a brief delay as I stood in line while poll watchers made an hourly check on the machines — some kind of fraud prevention procedure. What an improvement!

This was originally published in the latest issue of Bacon’s Rebellion e-magazine. Given the topic and the timing, it will be interesting to see the kinds of discussions (if any) that this idea will generate among bloggers in Virginia. Have at it folks! ===========================================

As the 2006 elections rush to a conclusion, the stars of the season – political bloggers – would be wise to think about what lies ahead for their vibrant, sometimes vicious community. In early 2006 Virginia’s political blogosphere was still regarded as a curiosity. Print journalists begrudgingly acknowledged that blogs and bloggers had impacted the the 2005 statewide and House of Delegates races, but there was no consensus on the likely impact of blogging going forward. No one predicted the fast and furious rise of blogging and bloggers to the pinnacle of politics in the Commonwealth.

Blogs added to the fireworks of the 2006 General Assembly session, helping torpedo the promised goodwill between the new governor and the House Republican leadership by uncovering the off-color comments made by a top gubernatorial staffer and by highlighting Republican opposition to a high-profile executive appointment. Then writer and political neophyte Jim Webb threw his hat in the ring against Sen. George Allen earlier this year. His primary campaign effort was fueled by a band of bloggers and blog enablers who crashed the gates of the Democratic Party. Those bloggers and their partisan opponents turned media and politics in the stately Commonwealth on its head.

To say that blogs played leading roles in the brutal 2006 elections is truly an understatement. The keenest political observers have resorted to doubly crediting and blaming bloggers for fostering the nasty tone of the campaign. Now, as Virginia’s political bloggers head into the last night before Election Day, with visions of Senate victory parties dancing in their heads, it would seem like a good time for some practitioners to ponder what the future holds for both the craft and the crafters. The question is, “Where do we go from here?”

In the days following the 2006 election, there will inevitably a “morning after” effect, when the winners and losers start down an existential journey of ecstasy or despair. Such is life among the tin-foil posse. Unlike last year’s statewide battles, this 2006 election seems to have generated deep fissures in the “citizen media” community along partisan and ideological lines. The ecumenical nature of the early movement, in which bloggers of all stripes treated one another with courtesy and respect for the good of the order, yielded to a harder-edged partisanship this time around. Even the supposedly more “thoughtful” corners of blogdom (this writer pleads guilty) grew more strident.

To that end, it’s worth discussing whether Virginia’s political bloggers can find any added value from maintaining a sense of connectedness that transcends fault lines, and if so, how that can be accomplished.

Read the rest of the column.

(Note to readers: I have modified Conaway’s original post, which contained the entire column. I have kept the first five paragraphs of his column and linked to the full text on the Bacon’s Rebellion website. Note to other B.R. contributors: Please follow the same practice. Instead of posting long articles or columns on the blog, highlight key passages if need be and link to the full text elsewhere. — Jim Bacon)

Del. Clifford L. Athey, R-Front Royal, thinks that Frederick County has a growth-management model worth emulating — so much so that he has crafted legislation to require counties across Virginia to create Frederick-style “Urban Development Areas” to accommodate growth. I explain Athey’s idea in my latest column, “Focused Growth,” the third of three articles that outline the transportation/land use reforms proposed by the House Republican Caucus during the recently departed transportation session of the General Assembly.

You can agree or disagree with the proposals. You can quibble with the details. One thing you cannot do — unless you are shilling for higher taxes with no accountability, or you’re a member of the Mainstream Media and content to live in la-la land — is dismiss them as a “cover” or a “distraction” from the tax debate. Governance reform is a fundamental part of the tax debate. Without reform, raising taxes will buy only more of the same failed transportation policies of the past.

To remind you of the ground we’ve covered:

Part I: Seventy-Five Years. Virginia’s system for building and maintaining roads has changed little in three quarters of a century. Some people think it needs more money. Others think it needs an overhaul.

Part II: The Devolution Solution. Any meaningful transportation reform would make fast-growth counties responsible for their secondary roads. The trick is coaxing them into going along.

Part III: Focused Growth. To tame scattered development and the ills it creates, Frederick County concentrates growth in an Urban Development Area. The idea works so well that House Republicans want to take it statewide.

Add it all up, and you have the most far-reaching package for overhauling Virginia’s state/local governance structure in decades. As I’ve said repeatedly, the fact that it has elicited no more than a yawn from political reporters and editorial pundits is an indictment of Virginia journalism.
Am I saying that the House Republicans have devised the perfect, long-term solution for transportation and land use reform? No, I’m not. I’m merely insisting that they have raised substantive issues and proffered some ideas worth serious consideration.

Re-thinking the way Virginia builds and maintains secondary roads is crucial. Finding a way to channel growth into districts more efficiently served by roads, transit, utilities and public services is crucial. Making it easier for developers to apply New Urbanism design standards, as Athey’s bill also would accomplish, is crucial.

Are there many, many other things that need to be done? Of course. At the top of the list is adopting a true user-pays system for financing roads and rail…. And planning for Balanced Communities…. And setting objective performance measures to evaluate investments in transportation projects…. And embracing new technologies…. And improving VDOT business processes…. Real transportation reform can’t be accomplished with a single spasm of legislation. It requires a sustained effort over many years.

If we feed the system with new revenues, none of those changes will happen — just as the legislature made no movement towards reform after raising taxes for transportation in 1986. Without reform, the usual cast of special pleaders will return in another 10 years, weeping that Tim Kaine’s $1 billion in extra taxes still isn’t enough. Virginians will be $1 billion-a-year poorer and still stuck in traffic jams.

The Nov. 6, 2006, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been published. You can view the complete product here. Better yet, subscribe and have the e-letter delivered to your inbox every two weeks.

Here are this week’s offerings:

Focused Growth
To tame scattered development and the ills it creates, Frederick County concentrates growth in an Urban Development Area. The idea works so well that House Republicans want to take it statewide.
by James A. Bacon

Making Government Work
Whatever the results of Tuesday’s election, the underlying issues for Northern Virginians are competence and problem solving.
by Doug Koelemay

Bread and Circuses
The philosophy of “Buy More Stuff” does not make Americans particularly happy, and it definitely is not sustainable. But politicians of both parties still peddle the fantasy.
by EM Risse

Time for a “Citizens Initiative”
Virginia’s budget has doubled in size over 10 years and growth continues unabated. We need constitutional and procedural safeguards to keep the spending in check.
by Geoffrey Segal

Are Republicans Listening?
The pollsters are predicting a disaster for the GOP tomorrow. Could the 2006 national elections presage the same for Virginia in 2007?
by Phil Rodokanakis

Ten Reasons to Vote Against Jim Webb
They all start with, “He can’t be trusted.”
by James Atticus Bowden

The Day After Tomorrow
As the 2006 elections rush to a conclusion, the stars of the season – political bloggers – would be wise to think about what lies ahead for their vibrant, sometimes vicious community.
by Conaway Haskins

Nice & Curious Questions
Is Virginia Really a State? What the Heck is a Commonwealth?
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

The Virginia Department of Transportation has announced the most significant restructuring of its maintenance operations since 1932. The department will consolidate 335 maintenance facilities into 244 locations by July 2008, aiming to save some $4 million to $6 million per year. Much of the work on secondary roads will be outourced; all work on interstate highways will be outsourced by 2009.

Reports Kelly Hannon at the Free Lance-Star:

VDOT analyzed the administrative workload at each facility, the population it served and highway safety before announcing yesterday’s decisions. Agency officials said they found that current locations don’t necessarily match where maintenance is needed.

“People don’t really realize, most of our VDOT headquarters were built in the 1930s,” said VDOT Commissioner David Ekern. “It makes sound business sense to adjust our facilities to address today’s business needs.”

(As an aside, some legislators are expressing concerns about the restructuring moves. According to the Daily News Record in Harrisonburg, local lawmakers complained that were not kept in the loop as VDOT worked over the past eight months to think through the restructuring plan.

A couple of observations:

First, saving $4 million to $6 million a year is a step in the right direction — VDOT deserves kudos for making the effort — but that’s chump change in a $3.8 billion budget.

Second, what VDOT needs to implement is a system-wide asset management plan. I haven’t pieced together the full story yet, but here are parts that I know:

In 2002 a JLARC report noted, “There is no statewide systematic approach for measuring the conditions of the pavements on the secondary roads, although about 70 percent of Virginia’s lane mileage is on this system. … VDOT currently employs a reactive maintenance approach to addressing problems as they arise, although it is trying to develop and implement a preventive approach, known as asset management.”

As of 2002, VDOT had spent $39 million developing an “Integrated Maintenance Management Program” since 1996, but the system was not then operational. According to a VDOT spokesman, certain aspects of the program were found not to be cost effective. Since then, VDOT has implemented a “Version 1.0” of an Asset Management System, which “has helped VDOT quantify its maintenance needs and equitably distribute maintenance funds to its work units statewide based on needs,” according to a VDOT spokesman. Work is underway on a Version 2.0.

A state-of-the-art system for measuring roadway conditions and prioritizing maintenance work is absolutely essential. It is imperative that VDOT receive the financial support to take its Asset Management System to the next level.

Third, the state needs to accelerate the devolution of maintenance funding and responsibility to Virginia’s fast-growth counties. Not that the counties can do a better maintenance job than VDOT, but they can do a better job of aligning road building/maintenance decisions with land use decisions. (See my latest column, “The Devolution Solution.”)

One thing’s for sure: Today’s news of VDOT’s restructuring plan is only the first step in a long journey.

Update: I have modified portions of the original post to reflect information provided by Anonymous 2:20 in the comments section.

Update: Jim Wamsley has brought to our attention a November 2005 VDOT PowerPoint presentation on the status of the Asset Management System.

How realistic are the revenue assumptions of Hampton Roads transportation planners? Del. Leo Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach, argued yesterday that the region’s transportation plan is based on faulty assumptions about how much the region’s drivers would be willing to pay at the tollbooth, reports Tom Holden with the Virginian-Pilot.

Using low toll rates, [lawmakers] said, forced Hampton Roads planners to seek a larger increase in transportation funding from the General Assembly when it met in special session in September. The “ridiculously low tolls” forced the General Assembly to turn down tax or fee increases intended to close a transportation funding gap, said Del. Leo Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach and chairman of the House Transportation Committee. …

Regional officials had pleaded with lawmakers to approve $275 million in new funding for 30 years and authorize imposing tolls on existing and new facilities to help finance six major projects.

This is an interesting debate. When financing major transportation projects, planners must make realistic assumptions about toll revenues. How many people will use the tolled facility, and how much will they pay? The original investors in the Dulles Greenway found out what happens when optimistic toll projections fall short — they got taken to the cleaners. Over-optimistic toll projects also led to the restructuring and privatization of the Pocahontas Parkway southeast of Richmond. In sum, there are good reasons to be cautious.

But Wardrup also may have a point. If toll projections are too low, a different problem is created. Either projects don’t get built that could have been, or the special interests lobby for state subsidies that may not be needed.

I have no idea whether Wardrup is right or wrong, whether the postulated tolls are too low or too high. But I think his comments open up an important debate. Before any region of Virginia talks about raising billions of dollars in taxes, there must be a clear understanding of what the real demand is for the proposed transportation improvements. By “real” demand, I mean what value real people in the real world would put on the improvements, as measured by their willingness to pay tolls. If users aren’t willing to pay what it costs to build a road, is there any justification for building it?

As I’ve argued in other contexts, the business and political elites value their time more highly, therefore they are more distressed than ordinary Virginians by traffic congestion. Trouble is, they want everyone to share in paying for improvements. That’s just wrong. That’s why transportation improvements should be structured so that those who benefit from them pay for them.

Style Weekly has the details of the long-rumored editorial shake-up at the Richmond Times-Dispatch: two deputy managing editors laid off, the shuttering of the South Boston bureau, the scrapping of Mark Holmberg’s column, and various reassignments of responsibility. In a nod to the increasing importance of digital media, reports Greg A Lohr, “the newspaper is emphasizing multimedia, creating a specialized ‘swat team’ of reporters and editors who will be responsible for exclusive Web content.”

I know both of the editors losing their jobs, and they have my sympathy . I hope they held out for good severance packages. One of them, Howard Owen, is a successful novelist — Rock of Ages is his latest of eight — so, I wouldn’t be surprised if he views his departure as an opportunity to pursue his true passion.

Given the mass layoffs that other newspapers have seen, the Times-Dispatch newsroom is getting off fairly easily. Here is the ineluctable reality: Readership nationally, and locally, is down, revenue growth has slowed to a crawl and costs continue to rise. Website readership is soaring, but newspapers have yet to develop a Web business model that’s as profitable as it is for print. Every newspaper in the country is being forced to make hard choices, and the T-D is no exception.

I will be particularly interested to see (a) how the T-D deploys its Web-content SWAT team, and (b) whether the T-D can generate meaningful revenues from that content.

The T-D faces some serious organizational issues in making its Web initiative a success. The T-D is part of the Media General media conglomerate, which has bequeathed authority over all websites to its Interactive Media Division (IMD). The T-D website has a lot of editorial autonomy, but, to the best of my knowledge, its business operations fall under IMD. There is an inherent tension. IMD is run by technocrats who don’t share the T-D newsroom’s journalistic ethos. Additionally, IMD managers will allocate resources in such a way as to maximize their own departmental profits (and personal bonuses), not those of the T-D. What does the T-D get out of building a bigger, stronger website? I’m not sure.

Unless Media General has figured out a way to resolve those inherent organizational tensions — usually perceived by the participants in terms of of personality clashes, with all the attendant emotional flare-ups — I question whether the T-D newsroom will have its heart in making the Web initiative a success. The ongoing saga may be an issue that Style Weekly should follow.

In early September, we profiled the efforts of Spotsylvania County build its way out of its transportation woes — voters last year approved a $144 million bond referendum. (See “Spotsy Turvy,” Sept. 8, 2006.) In theory, jurisdictions that take on prime responsibility for building and maintaining their own roads will make a greater effort to support transportation-efficient human settlement patterns. Trouble was, I observed back then, there wasn’t much evidence of such development in Spotsylvania.

Now we’ve gone back for a closer look. There still isn’t much transportation-efficient development, but that’s mainly because previous zoning decisions created a pipeline of unfortunate development. Land use planning was so basic that Spotsylvania County didn’t even have a land-use map to show what kind of development was supposed to go where. As Bob Burke reports today in our update, “Spotsy on the Spot” (I’ll take the blame for the bad puns in the headlines):

Without a land-use map, “what do you measure a rezoning against?” asks Ric Goss, the county’s planning director, who arrived in May 2003 after the current comprehensive plan was already written. “If you don’t have a land-use plan that tells you where you want to go, how do you make these decisions?”

The good news for Spotsylvania residents is that the current Board of Supervisors is getting serious about changing the dysfunctional development patterns. In addition to creating a new map, supervisors are considering the traffic impact of rezoning requests, concentrating development around transportation corridors, encouraging mixed use, promoting transit-oriented development and permitting higher densities. All moves in the right direction.

Given the backlog of bad development, however, traffic is likely to get worse before it gets better — even with that $144 million to spend on roads. Let’s hope that voters don’t draw the wrong conclusions and blame land use reforms which haven’t even been implemented yet.

Here is an interesting juxtaposition of stories.

First comes this from Michael Hardy at the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The General Assembly is very unlikely to grapple again with a statewide transportation fix before the 2008 session of the legislature. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine conceded as much yesterday, arguing that lawmakers rarely act on major issues during the so-called short session when they are largely focused on the coming elections.

“I’m a realist about this,” Kaine explained. “It’s really hard to make something happen in a short session. The ’07 session is not for big heavy lifting.”

Kaine is saving his energy for the 2008 session, when retirements and defeats of key Republican legislors could produce “a new dynamic” in the assembly.

Then there’s this from Tom Holden at the Virginian-Pilot:

House Republican leaders said Tuesday they will resubmit next year many of the same transportation ideas that died during September’s special legislative session. House Speaker Del. William Howell, R-Stafford, … emphasized in a meeting with The Virginian-Pilot’s editorial writers that his party represents more than a no-new-taxes bloc .

The House leadership wants to streamline VDOT, eliminating as many as 700 positions. House leaders, according to Holden, also back “improved coordination between local land use and road planning, greater reliance on private money to finance new construction and greater use of tolls.”

On the one hand, the House is trying to work through some very complex issues; on the other, the Governor is blowing off the House proposals. (Says Kaine spokesman Kevin Hall: “At some point these guys have got to quit beating up on VDOT and pony up some resources to build some roads.”) On the one hand, the House wants to get down to business when the assembly reconvenes in two months; on the other the Governor wants to put off the transportation debate until he can defeat his opponents in next fall’s elections.

Who’s the obstructionist now?

A 110-foot roundabout, due for completion next spring, will create an attractive southern gateway to the city of Portsmouth’s revitalized downtown. Reports Janie Bryant with the Virginian-Pilot:

The road design eliminates several of the roads now feeding in and out of Crawford Street and frees up extra land on its northwestern side to make room for what will likely be a mid rise residential development.

The added land for development is one of the benefits of the new traffic design but not the main point, city engineer Richard Hartman said. … “This would provide a focal point for downtown. … It’s more of an identity of a destination.”

Downtown Portsmouth, once one of Virginia’s seedier urban districts, is making a tremendous come-back. Overshadowed by the spectacular revitalization of downtown Norfolk across the river, downtown Portsmouth is one of Virginia’s best kept secrets. The city has built on its waterfront and historic buildings to create a very attractive and liveable place. To see other renderings of Portsmouth Vision 2005, visit the Urban Design Associates website.

There are huge disconnects between transportation and land use planning in the Washington New Urban Region. State/local government, the usual offender, is not the only perpetrator. Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post examines the impact of locational decisions made by the federal government.

Recent offenders: The FBI, the FDA and the Pentagon. In case after case, federal agencies have sought to save money by moving to lower-cost real estate on the fringe of the region. But they costs they save are their own. They are not considering the impact of longer commutes for employees, or the burden on state/local government to build new transportation facilities to serve the new job locations.

Supporters and foes of Highland New Wind Development’s proposal to erect 19 windmills on a 4,300-foot-high ridge in Highland County presented their case yesterday in a State Corporation Commission hearing. The arguments in a nutshell, according to Greg Edwards with the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Wind energy’s supporters see it as preferable to power generated by burning coal or other fossil fuels. Wind power, they say, can cut pollution that sickens people and contributes to global warming.

Opponents see windmills as a threat to migratory birds, bats and other wildlife. The mammoth structures will scar a pristine landscape and hurt tourism, they say.

It is imperative that the United States — and that includes Virginia — develop clean, non-polluting sources of energy. It’s an imperative for reasons of energy security, reducing acid rain and other local forms of pollution and, if you believe Al Gore, slowing the onset of global warming. If Virginia can’t build a wind farm in remote, sparsely populated Highland County, then it’s unlikely we’ll ever build a wind farm anywhere in the state.

Foes cited a study of Pennsylvania and West Virginia wind farms that revealed “unacceptable fatality rates for birds and bats.” Now, I’m all in favor of protecting wildlife, and I’m open to the idea of halting the project — if the carnage is bloody enough.

But I would like to know what those “unacceptable” rates are. How many dead birds and bats? Are any of them endangered species? Has anyone devised a way to reduce wildlife fatalities? If so, how effective is it, what would it cost, and would it imperil the financing of the wind farm? These are all questions the SCC need answers to before ruling against the windfarm.

Just remember: According to the Energy Information Administration, electricity usage is expected to rise anywhere between 11 percent to 17 percent by 2015.

(Photo credit: Campaign to Protect Rural England.)