Bacon's Rebellion

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.)

I’m an atheist and a Darwinist. I don’t go to church except to attend weddings and the odd Christmas or Easter service. I’m what you might call “secular.” The difference between other secularists and me is that I respect my Christian heritage. I don’t take offense at the display of traditional Christian symbols in the public domain — Christianity is, after all, part of America’s cultural endowment — and I would never, never presume to be offended by the display of a Christian symbol, like a cross, in a Christian setting, like a chapel.

But some people feel differently. The College of William & Mary has now taken to removing the cross from the alter in the Wren Chapel during the building’s use for non-religious events. As reported by the Cavalier Daily:

William & Mary President Gene Nichol released a statement to the college community saying that he has “not banished the cross from the Wren Chapel. The Chapel … is used for religious ceremonies by members of all faiths. The cross will remain in the Chapel and be displayed on the altar at appropriate religious services.”

However, Nichol continued that “the Chapel is also used frequently for College events that are secular in nature — and should be open to students and staff of all beliefs” and “must be welcoming to all.”

This is rich: A Christian chapel can be “welcoming” only by denying the central symbol of the Christian religion. Even some Muslims, it appears, have more respect for Christian symbols than does William & Mary’s secular administration. The Cavalier Daily quoted Ilgaz Toros, a second-year engineering student at the University of Virginia and a practicing Muslim: “The fact that it is a religious place shouldn’t be denied.”

(Photo credit: William & Mary.)

Update: Brian Ledbetter, a “lifelong Virginian and current resident of the northern parts of the Commonwealth, er, make that ‘Lower’ New York,” posted on this story before I did — and adds a few choice observations of his own. Read his post at “Snapped Shot.”

Update: Good editorial in the Virginian-Pilot. Those fellows make sense when they’re not writing about transportation!

Everyone loves trolleys. Some people actually ride them. But riders never pay close to what the trolleys cost to operate. The latest foolishness comes from Virginia Beach, where city officials are studying what to do with the money-losing trolley system, the VB Wave, that serves the beachfront resort area.

Reports Richard Quinn with the Virginian-Pilot:

Oceanfront leaders say VB Wave – the trolley system run by Hampton Roads Transit – is plagued by aging vehicles, frequent delays and malfunctioning ticketing machines. The useful life of a trolley is considered seven years and 300,000 miles, according to HRT. The fleet in Virginia Beach has an average age of more than 11 years, and each has been driven an average of 276,000 miles.

According to Quinn, Virginia Beach pays HRT about 10 percent of what it costs to operate the 32 trolleys. For fiscal 2006, that was $243,000 — or more than $7,500 per bus. That number doesn’t include state and federal support. Nor does it include the cost of replacing the aging fleet at a cost of $400,000 per vehicle. Faced with mounting costs, city officials are examining their options.

Ridership remains strong, topping 410,000 this summer, so the trolleys appear to be fairly popular. The main beneficiaries, besides the riders themselves, are the merchants in the resort area, the Lynnhaven Mall and assorted campgrounds on General Booth Boulevard. Why can’t an arrangement be made to dun these businesses, either through siphoning off a slice of the existing meal-and-foods tax or imposing a special fee? Remarkably, that was not one of the options mentioned in the article.

The businesses that benefit from the trolleys should help support the system. If they’re not willing to pony up, then one can conclude only that trolley riders don’t constitute an appreciable share of their customer base…. in which case, the system isn’t worth maintaining.

What is to be done with U.S. 460?

The Times-Dispatch ran dueling op-eds this morning. Pierce Homer, secretary of transportation, makes the case for building a divided, four-lane highway between Suffolk and Petersburg, financing the improvements with tolls and public funds.

Virginia needs an upgraded U.S. 460, Homer argues, for four main reasons: (1) to provide an evacuation corridor out of Hampton Roads in case of hurricanes or other natural disasters; (2) to provide flood-resistant access to communities along U.S. 460, (3) to accommodate the surge of container truck traffic resulting from Hampton Roads ports; and (4) to improve access to the expanding military logistics base at Ft. Lee outside Petersburg. The goals, I think any reasonable person would admit, are all laudable. The question is, are they worth the price tag attached to the project?

The cost is “very substantial,” Homer concedes: in the range of $1 billion to $1.5 billion. Tolls can pay for part of the project, but another $200 million to $1 billion — suggesting a wide range of uncertainty — would have to come from public sources. “Some will brand these sums as excessive or unachievable,” he writes. “But when weighed against our public safety, our economic future, and our national security, these investments in the 460 corridor are necessities of the first order.”

In a companion column, Stewart Schwartz and Lisa Guthrie disagree. Schwartz is executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, and Guthrie executive director of the Virginia League of Conservation Voters.

According to Schwartz and Guthrie, the project is relatively low on the list of Hampton Roads transportation priorities. In contrast to many gridlocked arterials inside the metro area, U.S. 460 is usually free-flowing — and still will be in 20 years!

The big story is that if the new highway is not built, the old U.S. 460 will still be free-flowing along most of its length in 2026. Only the traffic lights in the few towns along 460 contribute to poorer levels of service — a problem that can be addressed by solutions far less costly than a 55-mile-long new highway.

The upgrade would cost between $465 million and $665 million in public funds. That amount of money can pay for a lot of spot improvements to relieve local bottlenecks and leave funds for more pressing priorities.

I’m inclined to agree with Schwartz and Guthrie — at least until more authoritative estimates come in. We need to get a better handle on how much public money the mega-460 alternative would cost. And we need to be able to compare it to the cost and benefits of the “spot improvements” alternative.

Luis Padilla, the Cargill employee in Harrisonburg who was fired for posting a sign — “Please Vote for Marriage on November 7th” — in his pickup truck, has been given his job back. According to DNR Online:

The company is … expected to issue a new policy on employee expression on Monday that will allow Padilla to display the sign that led to his dismissal. “We haven’t seen the actual policy yet,” Wesley Carter, manager of Cargill’s Timberville plant said in the joint announcement, “but we are confident that under it, Mr. Padilla’s sign would not have been a problem.

“This was all a big misunderstanding,” Carter said in the statement. “After reviewing all of the facts surrounding this case, we are satisfied that Mr. Padilla did everything in his power to comply with our requests and that there was no insubordination on his part.”

Cargill did the right thing. I’ll probably vote against the marriage amendment, but that doesn’t mean I think that Padilla should have been fired for expressing his pro-amendment views in the way he did.

Ozone levels in Richmond and Hampton Roads has improved so much, reports Rex Springston with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that the Environmental Protection Agency will drop both regions from the national list of smoggy areas.

The popping of the real estate bubble is hitting with a vengeance in Northern Virginia, according to the latest numbers compiled by the Virginia Association of Realtors. The average sales price for a home in Northern Virginia was $512,00, down $31,100 from the year before.

Long-time homeowners should escape unscathed — their property values rose so much during the boom that they should have plenty of cushion. But not all homebuyers were prudent boys and girls. Some, we can presume, tapped their rising homeowner’s equity to fund lavish spending. Others bought more house than they really needed or could afford, and now face the prospect of getting sucked dry by mortgage debt. As one of my Northern Virginia friends noted disdainfully, many purchasers of the $1 million McMansions are “house poor.” They’re spending so much of their income on mortgage payments, they don’t have enough money to furnish their houses.

While house values go down, fixed mortgages stay stable and adjustable rate mortgages go up, there is no indication that the local tax burden will decrease. My hunch is that the level of palpable unhappiness in Northern Virginia will rise exponentially, and voters will express their wrath at anyone they perceive as costing them more money. Raise regional taxes for transportation? Er… maybe in the next election cycle.

Northern Virginia is not the only place feeling pain. The Eastern Shore and Massanutten markets have seen precipitous declines as well. (Can anyone say “second home”?) To my surprise home values have increased modestly in Hampton Roads. And Richmond… well, what can I say about my home town? We’re a year behind every trend. Apparently, housing prices rose about 10 percent. Pssst. Guys, the housing boom is over. You can stop now.

Illegal immigrants get most of the attention in the immigration debate. We know, or think we know, who they are — overwhelmingly Hispanics from Latin America. But what is the origin of the major legal immigrants to Virginia?

Drawing upon 2004 figures, a Virginia Association of Realtors research report lists the following:

Of a total of 21,695 legal immigrants, the top contributors were:

India… 2,269
El Salvador… 1,575
The Philippines… 1,265
Korea… 1,009
China… 888
Vietnam… 841

It won’t be easy upgrading Virginia’s educational system if we don’t know what needs upgrading. Everyone agrees, for instance, that the high school drop-out rate is too high. But ask them, “how high,” and they can’t give you a meaningful answer.

The reason is that public school systems use different formulas to calculate the number. Comparing graduation rates is like comparing apples and oranges, explains Cathy Grimes with the Daily Press, reporting on a meeting of the state board of education.

Virginia requires local school districts to report their graduation rates to the state, but districts need not use the same formula to figure out who earned a diploma and who did not. “We just take what they give us,” said Julie Grimes, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Education.

Critics have argued that the lack of a uniform system means districts can inflate their graduation rates, making their high schools look better. Or they can mask or miscount dropouts and transfer students.

It would be really nice if the educational establishment could get the basic facts straightened out before barraging the taxpayers with requests for more money.

Update: Apparently, this discussion results from HB19, sponsored by Del. William H. Fralin Jr., R-Roanoke, and passed by the General Assembly this spring, that “directs the Board of Education to collect, analyze, and report high school graduation and drop out data using a formula prescribed by the Board.”

As the calendar peels away before the election, Virginians still support a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages by a wide margin. The latest poll, by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, shows Virginians favoring the amendment 52 percent to 42 percent. That represents a shift of four percentage points against the amendment since late July, but amendment foes don’t appear to have enough momentum to change the final result materially.

I guess I’ll be on the losing side again. My inclination is to oppose the amendment. Here’s why: A constitutional amendment offers no flexibility. If you don’t like the way things turn out, there’s no easy way to fix it. You can’t go, “Oh, we didn’t think of that, we’ll just patch it up with a piece of legislation next year.” The process of amending the state constitution is simply too cumbersome, and rightfully so, to permit fine tuning.

I’m not a constitutional scholar, so I cannot make an intelligent judgment on what the amendment means for the legal rights of gays. Some experts say one thing, some say another. The only thing we know with any certainty is that people will file lawsuits, that judges will rule on them, that the rulings will be appealed, and that the state Supreme Court has the final say-so. If we don’t like the rulings, that’s too bad. We’re stuck.

Like many who support the amendment, I feel that traditional values, many of which I share, are under siege in our society today. But you protect those values by winning in the marketplace of ideas and winning in the electoral process, not by trying to enshrine them in the state constitution,. I’m still open to new arguments, but if the election were today, there’s an 80 percent chance I would vote no.

The HOT lane proposal for Interstates 395/95 is moving ahead. The Virginia Department of Transportation has signed an interim agreement with Fluor Virginia and Transurban USA, agreeing to split the $53 million cost of the engineering/study phase.

Fluor/Transurban propose adding a third lane to the existing HOV corridor that would allow high-occupancy vehicles to drive free and charge variable, time-of-day tolls for other drivers. Additionally, the original proposal called for building six park-and-ride lots and upgrading 12 bus stations.

The state is taking a risk, observes Kelly Hannon with the Free Lance-Star, because there’s no guarantee that the detailed study will show the project to be economical. In 2003, Fluor/Transurban estimated a cost of $913 million, but there has been considerable inflation in the construction sector since then. Studies for the two legs of the project should wrap up by early 2009.

Meanwhile, with a hat tip to blogger Jon Baliles, Trucker.com is reporting: “Utah has opened its first fee-for-service highway by allowing a limited number of solo drivers to use carpool lanes on Interstate 15 for a monthly $50 fee. The initial offering of 600 passes is sold out.”

The monthly subscription approach is an approach to congestion pricing that I have not seen discussed in Virginia.

Jumping aboard the bullet-fast Virginia blog train, Phyllis Randall offers up her entry, called A Moderate Voice. With a tagline as “The place where people from all political affiliations can discuss, learn, and laugh,” Randall describes her ideology by saying that, “Conservatives call me liberal, liberals call me conservative; depending on the issue, either characterization could be correct,”

A political consultant and activist who resides in Loudoun County, Phyllis is a Christian from a military family and pro-military moderate-to-conservative Democrat. A graduate of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership, she asserts that, “I did not choose politics it chose me; it is the passion God has placed in my heart. For me, being actively involved in our political system is not merely my choice, it is my responsibility.”

Appealing to that vast silent center that comprises the swing vote come election time, Phyllis believes that “the majority of Americans believe as I do; that usually no one party or one politician is all good or all bad. However, often rational, moderate voices are crowded out, while the vocal minority sets policy and creates legislation. This blog is my effort to let moderate voices rise to the top; and to discuss, educate and enjoy.” Her blog is not limited to Virginia local and state affairs, as her initial posts have touched on Barack Obama, the Iraq War, the Darfur crisis, and the on-going tension between evangelical Christians and the GOP.

Having met Phyllis at a recent Sorensen event, I definitely can attest to her graciousness, thoughtfulness and energy. In joining the fray, she also becomes the Commonwealth’s third discernable African-American blogger covering Virginia politics and the first from the northern part of Virginia. This is definitely a plus for both Vivian Paige and me as we try to encourage (and hopefully inspire) more and more black Virginians to set up shop in the blogosphere.

Let’s all give Phyllis and her Moderate Voice a warm welcome!