Bacon's Rebellion

There are two bills from Republican Hampton Roads Delegates for the special Transportation session of the GA. (http:/leg1.state.va.us – click on ‘2006 Special 1’)

Delegates Jones, Oder, Iaquinto and Suit (HB5072) have dressed up the failed ’02 Transportation Tax Scam with new funding, Private-Public Transportation Act authority and people-less tolling with congestion tolling.

Delegate Waldrup (HB5091) pulls all the bridges and tunnels across the James and Elizabeth Rivers and The Bay into a Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

Both become unelected Regional Governments – using the exact same wording, but the scope is different.

HB5072, or ‘Back to the Future’ Bill, creates a Hampton Roads Transportation Authority which pulls in 11 Hampton Roads communities (then adds Accomack and Northampton on the Eastern Shore) to build the same projects that were offered in the ’02 referendum that voters rejected.

HB5091, or the ‘Bay Bridge Authority on Steroids’ Bill, creates a Bridge and Tunnel Authority that includes only 9 Hampton Roads communities (- Williamsburg, James City and York Co, + Northampton).

Both omit Poquoson on The Peninsula and Surry, Sussex and Southampton along 460. Good for us.

HB 5072 gets the money with the following:
• Electronic tolling and congestion tolling
• Additional tax each year at registration ($30 for a car)
• One time tax for registering a new car (.0075 = $150 for a $20k car)
• Hotel/motel room tax (5%)
• Rental car tax (2%)
• Dedicates 20 cents on $100 value on state records tax
• The language of the bill says ‘includes’ these taxes. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if that prevents other taxes, because it says cities and counties may levy additional fees.
• $25 m of Hampton Roads’ sales and income tax in the General Fund goes back to this authority every year. This bill does not inflict a new sales tax like the’06 Quayle bill did.
• When the Chesapeake-Bay Bridge bonds are paid (09), it becomes a cash cow for this government.

HB 5072 has the same projects as the failed ’02 plan. Interesting because that plan’s own analysis said there would be MORE congested miles of roads in 20 years after the plan is built out than in ’02. (Message again – you will have more miles of congested road in 2026 than in 2006 after you build the plan).

HB5072 doesn’t add tubes to the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It takes trucks from the Port of Virginia and dumps them on I-64 about 12 miles up from the HRBT. (I believe the rail connection is from the Peninsula too, not Southside to the Port – not sure and the bill doesn’t say.)

Both plans pay the politicians and bureaucrats for serving plus per diem for going to work where they live.

Both plans have this terrifying paragraph, “To the extent funds are made available to the Authority to do so, to employ employees, agents, and advisors, and consultants, including without limitation, attorneys, financial advisers, engineers, and other technical advisors and, the provisions of any other law to the contrary notwithstanding, to determine their duties and compensations.”

Both plans lack an accountable authority for review of policy, plans and the jobs for friends of ‘pols’ paragraph above.

HB5091 puts all the crossings under one administrative and political authority. Reminds me of NYC’s inter-state Port Authority. That will provide a lot of revenue. The bill doesn’t go beyond that – on what to build and maintain with that money – but it includes the authority to do so and “construct or acquire, by purchase, lease, contract or otherwise,highways, bridges, tunnels, railroads, railroad facilities, and other transportation-related facilities.” It’s not clear if this would include building up the 460 corridor or widening I-64 up in The Peninsula.

Two very different plans.

Putting all the crossings under one authority for revenue – like the Bay-Bridge is now – is fine with me. Giving that authority the planning power to build projects worries me.

I don’t get why another layer of government is needed for either. The Governor and the GA have all the authority they need to set a priority of projects, fund and manage them.

Speaking in the coalfield burg of Norton, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine unveiled yesterday a “Return to Roots” campaign that aims to reach an estimated 15,000 Southwest Virginians who graduated from high school during the past 20 years but left the region. The program, according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, will try to reach the alumni through a website, direct mail and the news media to inform them about new employment opportunities that exist today in Southwest Virginia.

“I think it’s a pretty smart strategy,” Kaine told the Daily Telegraph. “The idea of course is we want to recruit good people for these jobs.”

Kaine said the 15,000 plus alumni now scattered out across the nation already know Southwest Virginia is a great place to live and work. The campaign simply aims to reach them, and encourages them to return home.

Kaine said Southwest Virginia is seeing an increase in job vacancies with improving employment rates. For example, Kaine said just last year more than 700 information technology jobs were created in Russell County.

“They (the alumni) are a little bit everywhere,” Kaine said. “It can be hard to find them. But most high schools have reunions. Many of them can be reached through alumni associations and high school associations.”

This initiative is another positive sign that SW Virginia is thinking very differently about economic development. (See “Broadband and Nature Trails.”) The region is investing in higher education through new schools of law and pharmacy in Grundy. It’s investing in nature trails and heritage trails to attract visitors. It’s building a broadband infrastructure. And now its reaching out to alumni.

If there’s one group of people that know, love and have reason to move to SW Virginia, it’s the sons and daughters who left. With their family roots in the region, they have greater reason to settle there than anyone else. I don’t know how well this campaign will work — success will depend in part upon the execution — but it’s clearly a move in the right direction. In the Knowledge Economy, economic development is all about the development, recruitment and retention of human capital.

The House Appropriations Committee had its chance yesterday to question John Bennett, Mark Warner’s Secretary of Finance, about miscalculations that led to a $137.2 million error in school funding formulas. According to Christina Nuckols with the Virginian-Pilot:

Bennett, the top budget adviser to former Gov. Mark R. Warner, said he did not know the full extent of the mistake when he left the administration to take a job at Virginia Commonwealth University in January.

Bennett said he incorrectly assumed that state tax analysts would fix the problem during regular revenue adjustments. …

Bennett said he did not tell Warner about the mistake because it represented a tiny percentage of total state spending on schools and he thought it would be easily fixed. Total state aid to public schools exceeds $6 billion annually.

It sounds like a breakdown in communications. What’s not clear from Nuckols’ story is what can be done to prevent a recurrence of such breakdowns. Was the incident entirely the result of human error? Or were the systems inadequate to handle the transition from one gubernatorial administration to the next?

Will anything change, or will it be budgetary Business As usual?

Tourism should play an important role in a balanced approach to economic development in Southwest Virginia. So argues James C. Thompson, chairman of the Thompson & Litton engineering firm, in a column published in the Galax Gazette in response to an earlier column by Jerry Fuhrman (See “Selling Bottles of Water and Granola Bars“).

The average visitor to Southwest Virginia spends $157 per day and stays nearly three days, Thompson contends. He cites the town of Damascus as the “poster child” for the benefits of a tourism-driven strategy. “The Virginia Creeper Trail, with an annual usage in excess of 200,000 and proximity to the Appalachian Trail, has literally transformed the town, lining the main street with locally owned, tourism-related businesses.”

Visitors are financially secure and highly mobile, Thompson argues. “They come from across the country, and many have the ability to conduct their business from any location.” If they visit Southwest Virginia, they may fall in love with Southwest Virginia. By developing tourism amenities and broadband infrastructure, Thompson writes, “we have the potential to create brain gain instead of brain drain by attracting such people to the region to stay and establish businesses locally.”

Thompson is taking a big step in the right direction. In effect, he’s arguing for an economic development strategy based on developing, recruiting and retaining human capital. That’s a radical departure from the traditional emphasis in SW Virginia on recruiting manufacturing (although Thompson makes it clear that he supports that, too — he does, after all, run an engineering firm).

I made the very same argument to the Shenandoah Valley Partnership back when it was a newsletter client of mine. If Thompson’s idea makes sense for SW Virginia, it makes even more sense for the Shenandoah Valley, which enjoys a plethora of charming small towns, old houses and homesteads to restore, beautiful landscapes and, most importantly, proximity to metropolitan Washington. I saw a step-by-step process that would unfold organically over years: (a) use the draw of tourism to get outsiders to visit the region, (b) promote the region as a place to buy weekend-getaway or retirement homes, (c) encourage visitors to settle permanently and start new businesses, and (d) build a new entrepreneurially based economy.

The SVP didn’t bite on my idea, preferring to maintain its focus on industrial recruitment. But it looks like the scenario I described is unfolding all on its own. Whether the idea can work in SW Virginia, far from a thriving metropolis like Washington, is an open question. But the region’s leadership is wise to explore that option.

Patricia Nicoson, president of the Dulles Corridor Rail Association, puts an optimistic spin on the recent decision by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to pursue the “aerial” option rather than the “tunnel” option for the METRO rail extension through Tysons Corner. Many advocates of the project were dismayed by the decision because running the rail above ground would disrupt connectivity between destinations, making it all the more difficult to redevelop Tysons along the lines of a pedestrian-friendly business district.

In a column in the Reston Observer, Nicoson writes, running the rail line above ground provides a “challenge and an opportunity” to produce “memorable building designs serving as landmarks within Tysons Corner…. Thoughtful design and use of air rights could create a unique urban form at the four stations in Tysons, creating a sense of place missing today.”

A rail line hoisted on pylons need not necessarily interfere with the creation of a walkable street grid or “a public realm of plazas, parks, paths and open spaces.” As Tysons redevelops, she suggests, connectivity can be provided by means of pedestrian bridges.

As a bonus, Nicoson suggests, an elevated METRO line will create a better experience for passengers looking out the window. “An elevated line provides the opportunity to view Tysons as one travels through it, which ought to be an enjoyable experience for riders. … Many are likely to prefer an above-ground experience of rail to descending 80 or more feet below ground in a high-speed elevator to a train station in a tunnel.”

I can’t blame Nicoson for putting the best face on an unfortunate decision, which Gov. Kaine was forced to make or run the risk of losing federal funding for the project. But I’m not sure I’m buying it. As the saying goes, “Puttin’ lipstick on a hog don’t make it purdy.”

Note: See Ed Risse’s response by clicking on “comments.”

The price of gasoline, which hovered above $3 per gallon not long ago, has dipped beneath $2 a gallon at an Exxon gas station in Gainesville, the Washington Post has reported. The relief from high prices is certainly welcome. But no one should be deceived that the era of cheap gasoline is returning for any length of time.

One of the reasons that gas prices soared so high is that uncertainty over petroleum supplies prompted businesses up and down the global supply chain to hold higher inventories. As fears of supply disruptions subsided, businesses have lowered their inventories, creating a temporary glut on the market. By all means, let’s enjoy the respite while it lasts. And let us hope that it takes a year or two before prices return to $3 per barrel.

But the fundamentals remain intact: Global petroleum consumption, led by China, India and the United States, continues to climb. Global petroleum supplies have peaked. Old, cheap oil is being depleted, and it’s being replaced by new, expensive oil. The recent discovery of a new oil basin in the Gulf of Mexico won’t change anything. The oil find will take years to exploit and, because the oil resides in very deep water, it also will be very expensive to extract.

Virginia still needs to prepare for an expensive-energy future. That means embracing new forms of energy, and it means conservation. To be meaningful, conservation must entail more than installing energy-efficient light bulbs. We need to evolve towards a more energy-efficient transportation system and human settlement patterns.

Today’s Daily Press editorial (‘Going Somewhere? Transportation progresss requires action, not more roadblocks’, Sep 18, 2006) cites Bacon’s Rebellion as an ‘asphalt adverse Internet blogger’.
Their story about Republican delegates Glenn Oder, Terrie Suit and Sal Iaquinto supporting Republican delegate Chris Jones’ unelected, unaccountable, tax-and-spend Regional Government solution for Hampton Roads leaves out the part about the unelected, unaccountble, tax-and-spend Regional Government and the new, additional sales tax they will impose for perpetuity.

This is the same government the Hampton Roads voters rejected soundly in ’98 and crushingly in ’02. Suit, Oder, and Jones supported the ’02 Sales Tax Transportation Scam. Apparently, their Republican committees and voters are docile or uninformed.

They will stay uninformed, because the DP doesn’t tell the whole story on Jones’ plan. The Regional Government with taxing authority isn’t needed to just collect tolls. Many Republicans will support user fees – tolls – but not the unaccountable. No elected officials will review their policies or spending or be able to fire their board.

The newspaper doesn’t ask, because it isn’t interested, how much the politicians on the new Regional Government will be paid. How big will the staff be? What will they be paid? What will they do besides collect the additional sales tax? And on and on. It is a jobs program for politicians and friends of politicians. It is the biggest invitation to corruption – the Regional Government will have billions in revenue – that I’ve seen in Virginia.

The bid, if I got it right, is $375m a year for Hampton Roads to get a Third Crossing and pour the concrete for other projects that will result in more congested miles 20 years from now (the ’02 study said) than today. That money can be assured annually in user fees and from tax revenue (up to a $72b budget now) pouring into Virginia’s coffers now.

A Regional Government isn’t needed to make this happen.

Maybe a 10% tax on newspapers would help.

The American Dream Coalition, a think tank funded by Dulles-area developer Chris Walker, has published a paper, “The Planning Penalty: How Smart Growth Makes Housing Unaffordable.”

The starting premise of this report is that the price of the house pictured above can vary region by region by as much as a factor of eight. The four-bedroom home, which sold for $150,000 in Houston recently, would cost as much as $300,000 in Portland, Ore., $600,000 in Boulder, Colo., and $1.2 million in San Jose. Some of that difference can be accounted for by demand — some localities are simply more desirable places to live. But most of the difference, argues the report, can be explained by restrictions on housing supply associated with “growth management.”

What author Randal O’Toole calls the “planning penalty” can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per dwelling. Writes O’Toole: “Between 1999 and 2005, regions with growth-management planning saw prices grow by 4 to 11 percent per year, while regions without such planning saw prices grow at only 1 to 3 percent per year.”

Northern Virginia and increasingly Hampton Roads, it seems, have devised the worst of both worlds. Segregation of land uses, low densities and beggar-thy-neighbor planning by local governments has created both high-cost housing and traffic congestion. Congratulations, guys!

The solution is not giving more power to local governments. It is not social engineering. What we need is a market-based solution that honors consumer sovereignty — homeowners would be free to live where they want and in the kinds of community they want — with the proviso that people pay the locational costs associated with their choices.

The challenge for Virginia is to revamp funding mechanisms for roads, utilities and public services in order to create a locationally level playing field, and to give developers more freedom to innovate new types of communities that address housing affordability and traffic congestion in creative ways. Rather than micro-manage growth, planners should define the “Balanced Communities” and “Clear Edges” (see Ed Risse’s writings for details), which provide the broad parameters within which free markets would function.

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has published a report, “Smart Transportation Investments: Reevaluating the Role of Highway Expansion for Improving Transportation.” This study argues that investment in urban highway capacity suffers from the law of diminishing returns. Early investments generated a high return on investment. But comparable investments today will generate a much lower rate of return.

The paper summarizes the issues thusly:

• “The first highway projects are generally the most cost effective because planners are smart enough to prioritize investments. For example, if there are several possible highway alignments on a corridor, those with the greatest benefits and lowest costs are generally built first, leaving less cost effective options for subsequent implementation.
• “Interregional highways (those connecting cities) are generally constructed first. They tend to provide greater economic benefits and have lower unit costs than local highway expansion, due to numerous conflicts and high land costs in urban areas.
• “Adding capacity tends to provide declining user benefits, since consumers are smart enough to prioritize trips. For example, if highways are congested, consumers organize their lives to avoid peak automobile period trips. As highway capacity increases, they travel more during peak periods, perhaps driving across town during rush hour for an errand that would be deferred, or moving further away from their worksite. Each additional vehicle mile provides smaller user benefits, since the most valued vehicle-miles are already taken.”

The chart at the top of the post shows the declining rate of return on dollars invested in highways. As recently as the 1970s, public investment in highways generated higher returns than did private capital. By the 1990s, however, the return on highway investment trailed the return on private investment, representing a loss of economic efficiency.

That’s not to say that carefully selected individual highway improvements won’t be economically efficient. But any large-scale plan by a state, city or region to build its way out of traffic congestion is likely to be very inefficient.

A quick note about Bacon’s Rebellion‘s endorsement policies: We don’t endorse political candidates and we don’t endorse political parties. Contributing bloggers are, of course, free to vote for and endorse anyone they like on their own websites — and they do. But this blog eschews partisan politics. We focus on state and local issues, most of which transcend party lines.

If you want the latest tit-for-tat in the Allen-Web race for U.S. Senate, there are many excellent websites to consult on both sides. Virginia is blessed with an incredibly vibrant blogosphere.

Patrick Michaels, Virginia’s state climatologist, is not alone in questioning global warming hysteria. He has allies among other state climatologists in departing from the putative “consensus” among climatologists regarding the severity and urgency of the global warming crisis. Now, according to the Washington Post, the “irregular system” of state-supported offices of climatologists is coming under criticism. Writes the Post:

A root of the conflict is that, although state climatologists and atmospheric scientists study “climate,” they can attack the same problems very differently. State climatologists often are trained to rely on past weather data — records that show how much the Earth has already warmed.

State climatologists’ critics in the scientific community study much broader periods and use computer models to determine how much warmer the Earth will become if pollution isn’t curtailed. The view of critics often is simple: State climatologists are behind the times.

Ah, that’s it. The state climatologists are rustic simpletons who can’t keep up with the times. Rubes that they are, they deal with real-world data rather than computer models that often fail to replicate that data when projected backwards in time. Although the Post article was generally fair toward Michaels, the authors left out what is perhaps his most controversial argument of all: how the political economy of global warming distorts the science of global warming.

Critics have sought to delegitimize Michaels’ scientific arguments by pointing to the fact that he has obtained some of his funding from the fossil fuel industry, presumably biasing his findings. But that argument cuts two ways.

As Michaels argues in his book, “Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media,” most climatologists in the United States get their research funding from the federal government. In an environment in which the mass media fan the flames of hysteria — systematically hyping evidence that supports the global warming paradigm and ignoring the evidence that doesn’t (a phenomenon that Michaels documents copiously) — and in which politicians respond to public opinion informed by that bias, the only scientists who will get federal funding are those who tout the party line. Professional advancement follows funding. To win big federal grants, win tenure and rise in the academic establishment, aspiring professors must support the tenets of the prevailing paradigm. To go against the tide of global warming is to court professional suicide.

State climatology departments are independent — their funding comes from states, not the federal government. State climatologists don’t court professional suicide by speaking truth to power. Little wonder that state climatologists have been among the more outspoken critics of global warming hysteria. How ironic: Those who point to a supposed scientific “consensus” in regard to global warming enforce that consensus by stigmatizing and driving out through political means those who do not conform to that consensus!

(For the record, I believe that global warming is a real phenomenon, but it is far from clear how much is due to human causes and how much the consequences are to be feared. There are many other environmental threats — deforestatation, erosion, loss of habitat, and pollution as traditionally understood — where we should be focusing our attention.)

Talk show host Rosie O’Donnell may think that “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America where we have separation of church and state.” But one indisputable difference should give her pause: When offended by blaspemy, radical Christians don’t riot and kill the people who offend them.

UVa’s student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, caused a flap recently when it printed a cartoon depicting “Christ on a Cartesian Coordinate Plane,” with Jesus crucified on the X and Y axes of a mathematical grid, and another, “A Nativity Ob-scene,” in which the Virgin Mary tells Joseph that her bumpy rash was “immaculately transmitted.” So reports the Charlottesville Daily Press.

When Christians get in an uproar, they write letters and call into talk radio. Conservative Fox News Bill O’Reilly termed the cartoons “an unbelievable assault on Christianity” and urged UVa alumni not to donate to the school until the newspaper is “forced off campus.” Ooooh, how horrible! But please note: There were no riots, no lynchings, no acts of arson. No repressive legislation was passed, no one was fired, no one got punished. (For the record: The CD did pull the cartoons.)

In America, gays can’t get married. In Iran, they get executed. But radical Christians and Islamicists are equally dangerous. What kind of bizarro world does O’Donnell live in?

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has finally announced his appointments for Commonwealth Transportation Board seats that expired June. Two of the five appointments are reappointments: Mary Lee Carter, a former chair of the Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors, and John J. “Butch” Davies, a Culpeper attorney and former member of the House of Delegates.

Bringing new perspectives are:

• E. Dana Dickens III, of Suffolk, vice chairman of the Suffolk Planning Commission and CEO of the Hampton Roads Partnership.
• Peter B. Schwartz, of Delaplane, a former commercial real estate developer and now vice chair of the Piedmont Environmental Council.
• Cord A. Sterling, of Stafford, vice president of the Aerospace Industries Association and former legislative assistant to U.S. Senator John Warner, responsible for advising key issues such as military construction projects and Base Realignment and Closure .

Kaine is to be credited for appointing three new individuals who bring strong areas of expertise and a variety of new perspectives to the CTB. Here’s how the Governor is spinning the appointments:

These public servants demonstrate our Administration’s continued commitment to innovation and reform that will help us maintain Virginia’s reputation as a national leader,” Governor Kaine said. “With the addition of VDOT Commissioner David Ekern, we are assembling a team of individuals who share practical, front-line experience in the critical linkage between local land use decisions and state transportation planning.

My gut reaction: If Kaine wanted a true change of thinking on the board, he would have selected five new appointees, not three. Of the three newbies, only Schwartz is likely to challenge Business As Usual head-on. (I say that based only on the formal credentials of the appointees. I know nothing about their personal philosophies, and am willing to stand corrected.)

Based on the contents of the press release, I see this as a cautious step in the right direction, not a dramatic departure from the old way of doing things. Can anyone else lend any insight?

Business and political elites in Virginia are far more agitated about traffic congestion than average voters are, and they are far more willing to pay higher taxes to address it. Why is that? This chart, excerpted from “Smart Transportation Investments,” published by the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, provides important clues why.

This chart compares various costs, both personal and societal, of automobile travel. The report doesn’t say where this data comes from, so I don’t know how valid it is, but the larger point seems unassailable: Traffic congestion is a relatively small component of the total cost structure associated with automobile travel. When you compare the value of time, gasoline and engine wear-tear associated with congestion to the cost of buying a car, maintaining it, and paying for gasoline, insurance, crash damages and parking, congestion costs are almost trivial.

Of course, the chart provides average numbers. Congestion costs in places like Northern Virginia are significantly more acute than they are in, say, Roanoke. But even in Northern Virginia, the elites tend to be more upset than the Average Joe. Why is that?

Because the elites, by definition, have higher incomes and have more disposable income. They also tend to work harder, longer hours and place a higher value on their time. The Average Joe earning $25,000 to $50,000 a year has less money to spare to pay higher taxes but more spare time. While a member of the business/political elite might value his/her time at $100 to $200 per hour, Average Joe might value his time at $10 to $20 per hour. As a percentage of the total cost of car ownership/operation, the cost of congestion simply doesn’t loom as large for the little guy. But the cost of taxes does loom large because the little guy tends to be hard-pressed financially and less discretionary income to part with.

In sum, the little guy doesn’t like stewing in congestion. But he is more more likely to prefer paying the costs of congestion with his time rather than his taxes.

Of course, business elites are better organized than Average Joe — witness their recent proclamation in Northern Virginia in favor of more taxes for transportation — more vocal, more articulate and have more access to power. The voices of the elites carry much farther in Virginia’s political process than the voices of the little guys.

(Hat tip to Ray Hyde for bringing the VTPF study to my attention. Ray bears no responsibility whatsoever for the conclusions I have drawn in this post. But there’s more in the study to blog about, and I will make more posts in the future.)

Greg Pearson is the publisher and editor of the Chesterfield Observer.

Regarding the News Council blog, my differences with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, WWBT or any other daily media does not concern their size. The issue is simply accurate and fair reporting. All of the media, regardless of size, need to be monitored, including the Chesterfield Observer. A News Council concept would allow a citizen, business, government, or group to access a venue for redressing poor reporting wherever it occurs locally. Saying “Pearson is not a big fan of Media General or many media conglomerates” is not really correct. There is a need for big media. Most of the good reporting done in the Richmond metro is written by RTD reporters. To cover some stories, you have to have the resources, and that means adequate staffing. Six months ago, I said so at an RTD public forum.

The blog seems to imply that I’ve been a defender of the county (as in “to chastise the larger news outlets for what he considers to be shabby treatment of Chesterfield.”) Actually, I consider myself to be informed about the county, and therefore, I’m writing about subjects that I believe I have sufficient knowledge to comment on. Finally, to date, there has never been an editorial in the Chesterfield Observer that has criticized any media. Criticisms of the media have only been written in the “Media Watch” column.

– Greg