Bacon's Rebellion

From Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post:

WestGroup, the biggest landowner at Tysons Corner, has urged Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to reconsider his rejection of an underground rail route through Tysons, saying a tunnel should be explored further at the same time as plans for an elevated track proceed.

In a letter to Kaine, WestGroup chairman and chief executive Gerald T. Halpin said he was “extremely disappointed” by Kaine’s “stunning reversal of direction” against a tunnel. On Wednesday, Kaine ruled out a tunnel for the four-mile Tysons stretch of the Metrorail extension to Dulles International Airport, after federal officials made it clear that switching to a tunnel would imperil the entire 23-mile, $4 billion project….

Halpin, one of the founders of Tysons Corner, wrote Kaine yesterday that the price of the project with an elevated track is sure to increase with time. Why not, he said, proceed with those plans but at the same time put a tunnel out to bid, to get a firmer price with which to compare designs? This would take only half a year and would cost no more than $7 million, which could be paid for by the private sector, Halpin said.

I’m increasingly uncomfortable with the way federal rules and deadlines are stampeding the Commonwealth into making critical decisions about the Rail to Dulles project. How much money are the feds contributing? About $1 billion of a $4 billion project? That money can’t be raised any other way? I’m feeling worse and worse about the way this project is unfolding.

Hampton Roads’ “Third Crossing” is back in play. A majority of Hampton Roads legislators have reached an informal agreement that the bridge-tunnel linking Norfolk and Newports News does need to be built, quelling speculation that the massive project was unaffordable, given the limited funding mechanisms available. (Read the Virginian-Pilot story here.)

What remained unresolved was how to pay for the Third Crossing and other expensive highway projects — requiring an estimated $275 million a year — that local political and business leaders insist are necessary. Legislators are exploring a package of tolls and selective regional taxes.

There are good reasons for supporting the Third Crossing from an economic development perspective. But that constitutes only one part of legislators’ ambitious road-construction plans, most of which are designed to alleviate congestion.

Still absent from the discussion is the idea that commuters, businesses or anyone else also need to alter their behavior in any way. From what I’ve read, land use reform, carpooling, mass transit, telework and schedule shifting don’t seem to be on the table. I can only hope that Hampton Roads lawmakers are considering alternatives that the newspapers just aren’t covering.

It’s ironic that Hampton Roads is the locale for two of the more successful suburban redevelopment projects in the state — Town Center in Pembroke and Oyster Point in Newport News — not to mention the incredibly successful revitalization of downtown Norfolk. From what I can tell, those success stories, which increase density around existing infrastructure without significantly increasing congestion, don’t appear to have had any impact on the local discourse about transportation.

A Richmond Times-Dispatch poll shows a strong majority of Virginia favoring the proposed constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Fifty-four percent of the respondents said they will vote for the Nov. 7 measure, while 40 percent were opposed and six percent undecided.

The results did not change significantly from a poll in July.

I sympathise with the motivation behind the amendment: the desire to counter the activism of out-of-state judges who would impose same-sex marriage by judicial fiat. But I continue to worry about the fall-out from the wording of this particular amendment, which could threaten the rights of unmarried couples, same-sex or otherwise, to enter into wills, trusts and other legal agreements. Pundits can legitimately disagree what that fall-out will be, but we won’t know for sure until the inevitable legal cases are ruled upon… by judges.

If it’s any consolation, at least they’ll be Virginia judges. I suppose that’s better than Massachusetts or California judges.

The Daily Press (School’s religions policy revisited, Sep 12, 2006) reports that York County School Board revisited its 1988 policy “after members of the public complained in March that schools were going too far in distancing themselves from religion, removing references to religious holidays from school activities.” Not quite. I was at the meeting last night and the one in March. The parents complained about schools that were culturally cleansed of Christmas as well as the Communists did in the old Soviet Union. No exaggeration.
The School Superintendent, Steven Staples, response is a nice bureaucratic side step.

Staples revised the York policy on “Section 9.5.3 – Religious Instruction and Released Time.” He added to the original three paragraphs with excursions on “encouraging all students and staff members to be aware of the diversity of beliefs and respectful of each other’s religious and/or non-religious views.” And “in that spirit of respect, students and staff members may be excused from participating in activities that are contrary to their religious beliefs unless there are clear issues of compelling public interest that prevent it.” Wow, when would the school have such a compelling issue? But, it’s all a digression. One paragraph comes close to addressing the issue.

“This policy will not be interpreted or applied in such a manner as to inhibit or proscribe the traditional use of prayers, religious music, or religious objects or symbols in any secular program sponsored by the division, when such activity does not involve the promotion of a religion.”

Notice the limiting word ‘program’. Are bulletin boards, class parties, and teaching instruction included in the word ‘program’? What part of the school day and activities are not part of a secular program?

The issue isn’t religion in schools. The issue is official holidays and schools. No parent asked for the schools to teach ‘religion’. None. Every parent demanded the schools teach and recognize in full, historical, traditional, and unifying, official holidays. Christmas is an official U.S. and Virginia holiday.

Superintendent Staples used the Virginia School Board Association sample policy for religion. He should have used the Federal and Virginia Department of Education guidelines for holidays as the parents asked in March.

The School Board lawyer changed the first draft from “The division also recognizes that one of the educational responsibilities is to advance the students’ knowledge of the role that religion has played in the social, cultural and historical development of civilization to the “educational roles is to advance the students’ knowledge and appreciation of religious diversity. They’re dropping the educational view of the role religion has played for the political indoctrination of ‘diversity’. The lawyer said it was more in keeping with the court decisions.

The Superintendent and the lawyer said the case law is conflicting. Indeed it is, because courts have taken over from weak legislatures and executives since the former KKK Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black started imposing his will in 1947. Courts promote Constitutional ignorance to exercise tyrannical power. Like the first sentence of the York policy which says “In accordance with the mandate of the Constitution of the United States prohibiting the establishment of religion , it is the policy of this School Board that York County shall be neutral in matters of religion.” The Constitution says ‘Congress’ will not establish a religion. The York School Board isn’t Congress.

The parents want the School Board to set a policy that will follow Federal and State guidelines on holidays – not religion. The parents want the School Board to support the SOL that teaches students about traditional, historical holidays that unite Virginians.

This policy will be read again at a School Board meeting on Sep 25th for approval. Then, there will be implementing regulations written – if it is approved. The devil hides in these details. I encourage the voters to get the York School Board to fix the problem with a policy on holidays – and not the PC prose on religion. It’s just an artful dodge.

A few weeks back, the Richmond Times-Dispatch was the subject of several unflattering portrayals at the hands of Richmond leading alternative weekly paper, Style Weekly (owned by Media General Competitor Landmark Communications). Sensing blood in the water, opponents of the venerable daily gleefully jumped upon the anti-RTD bandwagon. Though it contained some intriguing insights, especially about the “gag order” that RTD reporters operate under, the Style piece presented in a somewhat conspiratorial manner what would actually be a rather typical occurrence in any other industry. With the RTD having a new senior management team, a number of changes are in motion producing shifts in corporate culture.

Though I am not a journalist (but I do play one in the blogosphere), I dare say that when other major corporations (think GE, Wachovia, Home Depot, etc) undergo significant leadership changes against a backdrop of shifting industry dynamics and emerging competition from unforeseen corners (like blogs), life gets a bit hairy for the worker bees (those would be the journalists). As the RTD is basically the biggest dog in the local media kennel, what inevitably happens is that the smaller dogs like Style Weekly, Richmond.com, Richmond Magazine, Richmond Free Press, Chesterfield Observer, and various bloggers nip at their heels from time to time. Such is the nature of competition in a market economy.

With only passing knowledge of the internal operations of the RTD (and most other newspapers and media companies for that matter), I frankly had no pressing need to discover any of the “dirt” over there. Still knowing that journalists with media outfits constantly endure an existential crisis with respect to practicing their craft inside a bottom-line oriented business concern, watching the cannibalistic feeding frenzy that emerged from the Style pieces and the general changes afoot at the RTD have been fascinating. With my own community paper joining in the hit parade, renewing its call for a media monitoring entity – or news council – it seems like a good time to do a little poking and prodding around the periphery of the local media.

What emerged is a lengthy, two-part series – which will be featured on both South of the James and Bacon’s Rebellion – about watch-dogging the Metro Richmond media market that will run starting, tomorrow, Tuesday, September 12, 2006.

Despite my best efforts to cut them down into more bite-size kernels, the quotes, comments, and insights that I gleaned from talking with various people from the area’s community media and blogging worlds all deserved their day in the court of public opinion. Limiting the universe somewhat helped keep it manageable.

As journalism legend Charles Kuralt once noted, By contrast with the Yankee, the Southerner never uses one word when ten or twenty will do.” The article that follow are the end result of what happens when a selected group of Richmond-area bloggers and alternative media types are given free reign to make open-ended commentary on the subject of local media bias and what actions can and should be taken to correct it. Of course, because this is the blogosphere, these articles are not the end of the line for this subject by any means. As this is a recurring theme for both South of the James and Bacon’s Rebellion, expect to see more on this subject, just maybe not as wordy! Feel free to make comments on either or both sites, and as always, if you want to chat off-line, holler at me via [email protected].

— Conaway

The latest data point regarding the widespread re-evaluation of transportation policy is a column in today’s Virginian-Pilot, whose editorial writers for years had steadfastly defined the traffic congestion crisis as a lack of funding. The Pilot’s pundits have awakened to the critical importance of land use! Blow me away — I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own two peepers.

Sayeth the Pilot:

A curious thing happened recently en route to a Loudoun County supervisors’ vote that restricts home building on a bucolic tract west of Dulles International Airport. Land-use legislation that sailed through the Assembly last winter played an important role in drumming up support for controlled growth.

The law, which pro-growth and anti-growth forces alike dismissed as meaningless in March, requires a Virginia Department of Transportation impact statement when localities make land-use decisions affecting roads.

When VDOT – its spine stiffened by the governor’s office – issued its first such report, the forecast stopped the Loudoun County debate dead. Predictions of three-county gridlock spurred a 5-4 vote that could ultimately half a prospective 37,000 new homes.

And how about this?

Serious legislators in both parties recognize that government will never get a handle on transportation spending so long as local governments can approve growth willy-nilly, while passing to the state the tab for maintaining a huge network of roads.

And this:

One plan under consideration would require suburban counties to maintain portions of their own ever-expanding network of roads. That job currently falls to the state under laws written when Virginia was a rural domain three-quarters of a century ago.

As tentatively outlined by Del. Clay Athey, R-Front Royal, a former mayor who understands land-use issues, counties would get a road maintenance allowance from the state, much as cities do today. They might also share in the presumed savings if the locality – rather than VDOT – oversaw the work. Impact fees on development in more rural areas of such counties might steer growth toward density.

The plan is far from official, but the fact that once radical notions are even talked about says how far the pendulum has swung.

The pendulum has swung indeed.

I’ll never keep up with BlogNetNews.com and Virginia Political Blogs in tracking political blogs, but I do try to bring new blogs (often “new” only in the sense that I have stumbled across them) to the attention of Bacon’s Rebellion readers. Here are the latest:

Vivian J. Paige, a blog maintained by Norfolk resident Vivian Paige, devoted to state and local politics.

Dog with Five Legs, a blog maintained by Fairfax attorney “TooManyTaxes,” a regular commentator in Bacon’s Rebellion.

Members of the Axis of Taxes are not the only political players to display an evolution in their thinking. (See previous post, “The New Political Calculus on Transportation.”) Even more interesting to observe is the evolution of the contras — those who oppose tax increases. No longer in reactive, just-say-no mode, they are actively thinking about how to refashion Virginia’s transportation system according to market principles.

The latest case in point is a column published in the Daily Press by Del. Phillip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News. Here are some of the ideas he explores:

• Public-private partnerships. “The commonwealth should aggressively pursue public-private partnerships and transportation concessions as strategies to involve the private sector in addressing the transportation congestion reduction goal.”
• Congestion pricing. “Another concept, congestion pricing, is an example of utilizing existing technology to provide an incentive for people to make travel decisions that improve traffic congestion. Where implemented, congestion pricing has proven that people and businesses are willing to voluntarily pay for less-congested highways and more reliable travel time. Virginia should pursue a congestion pricing demonstration project in Northern Virginia and/or Hampton Roads with the U.S. Department of Transportation.”
• Third Crossing. “Because the proposed third crossing primarily supports the necessary development and improvement of Virginia’s ports, it must be considered in a broader context. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine should develop a statewide, economic development strategy for the ports that includes access to them. The ports serve and benefit the entire state, therefore a new third crossing should be considered as an economic development project and not as a Hampton Roads traffic congestion reduction project.”

Sound thinking all around.

I still don’t see much sign that House leaders are digging deeply into land use issues, but they’re laying the groundwork. One prerequisite for land use reform is a transportation system based upon the user-pays principle, which is implicit in toll-driven public private partnerships and congestion pricing. The simple act of halting subsidies to sprawl-inducing transportation projects will create new cost-benefit equations for commuters. In turn, builders will respond by proposing more transportation-efficient projects, and applying pressure on local governments to reform their zoning codes and comprehensive plans.

An important shift in Virginia’s transportation debate has occurred, but it has yet to be fully acknowledged by the Mainstream Media. The push for a statewide, broad-based tax increase to fund transportation has evaporated. The pro-taxes forces have beat a tactical retreat. They’re now working on (a) modest new revenue sources, such as higher auto insurance premiums or traffic abuser fees, or (b) regional taxes to fund regional projects.

Meanwhile, momentum is building to restructure the way the Virginia Department of Transportation does business. At the very least, expect moves to privatize maintenance, more public-private partnerships and new priorities for ranking road-building projects. Finally, there is a lot of rhetoric about aligning transportation and land use planning, although it’s not clear what concrete proposals might emerge.

This is a far cry from the call for $1 billion in statewide tax increases that launched the 2006 session of the General Assembly.

One key figure to watch in the upcoming special session, of course, is Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. We detailed his revised transportation agenda recently on this blog. (See “Kaine on the Transportation Session.”)

Other public figures are re-thinking the political calculus as well. In today’s edition of Bacon’s Rebellion (see “The Dog that Didn’t Bark“), I describe how former VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet, once a vocal supporter of tax increases, has changed his tune. After spending a year in the private sector as president of a Virginia Beach home-building company, he interacts more with people who just can’t handle another tax increase, no matter how bad the roads. Also, his work on “workforce” housing, has sharpened his awareness of the impact of land use patterns on transportation.

Both Kaine and Shucet have concluded that there’s no point in pressing for tax increases that the House of Delegates is unwilling to approve. Instead, they say, look for areas of common ground. Work on these until the political equation changes and then make another run at developing a stable, long-term source of revenue.

The Sept. 11, 2001, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been published. You can view it here.

Or read the following columns here:

The Dog that Didn’t Bark
Like the hound of Holmesian lore, former VDOT Commissioner Philip Shucet is keeping unusually quiet. That’s a clue for deciphering the shifting momentum of the transportation debate.
by James A. Bacon

This Time, Pull Together
September’s special session on transportation gives delegates and senators another chance to meet public expectations.
by Doug Koelemay

Two Steps Backward
Tim Kaine has made two decisions that will aggravate Virginia’s dysfunctional human settlement patterns: He nixed the tunnel for the Tysons METRO extension and he picked a traditional highway guy to run VDOT.
by EM Risse

When Pachyderms Fly
The white elephant has sprouted wings: METRO rail through Tysons Corner will run overhead, on pylons, not underground. Bus Rapid Transit could handle more commuters at a fraction of the cost.
by Michael Thompson

Ten Reasons to Vote for Allen
From taxes and immigration to judges and World War IV, Sen. George Allen stands on the right side of the issues.
by James Atticus Bowden

Taxpayers Can’t Afford “Affordable Housing”
Can’t afford to buy a house? Try saving. Or working two jobs. Don’t ask the City of Virginia Beach to take it out of my hide.
by Robert Dean

Nice & Curious Questions
Virginia’s Oldest Institutions: From Shirley Plantation to Burke & Herbert Bank
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

How many Virginia college students does it take to change a light bulb?

• William & Mary students: Three, one to change the bulb and two to crack under the pressure.
• Old Dominion students: Four, two to change the bulb and two to figure out how to get high off the old one.
• Mary Washington students: The whole student body. There’s nothing else to do on weekends.
• Mary Baldwin students: Four, one to change the light bulb, and three to figure out how it will help them meet their future husband.
• Virginia Tech students: Three, one to change the bulb, and two to discuss how they did it just as well as a UVA student.
• James Madison students: None, Harrisonburg doesn’t have electricity yet.
• VCU students: None, downtown Richmond looks better in the dark.
• Eastern Mennonite U students: Two, one to hold the candle, and the other to strike the flint.
• VMI students: One Rat to actually change the bulb, one upperclassman to yell at him for not doing it fast enough, one to yell at him for not using the proper wattage, and one to send him up to the Rat Disciplinary Committee for letting the bulb burn out in the first place.
• U of Richmond students: Two, one to mix the martinis and one to call the electrician.
• Hollins College students: None, that’s what maids are for.
• Longwood students: None, the Farmville Super Wal-Mart has fluorescent lighting.
• Hampden Sydney students: Five, one to actually change the light bulb, and four to figure out how this could get some Longwood girls to come over.
• Radford students: Just one, but it takes six years.
• Randolph-Macon students: None, they’ll just drink in the dark.
• Washington and Lee students: Four, one to change the bulb, and three to talk about how great the old one was!!!!!!!!!!!!
• George Mason students: Three, if they get lucky and one of them has taken the course at NOVA.
• Sweet Briar students: One to change the bulb, and three to call up daddy and cry and complain about how awful the whole experience was.
• UVa students: One, he just holds the bulb and lets the world revolve around him.

History major… Blogger… Potential candidate for Lieutenant Governor? Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, has made a name for himself as one of Virginia’s leading fiscal conservatives. The 40-year-old chairman of the House of Delegate’s Cost Cutting Caucus is not content simply to nix higher taxes — he’s always on the prowl for ways to axe waste and run state government more efficiently. Daily Progress columnist Bob Gibson profiles Saxman in his Sunday column.

In all of my interactions with him, Saxman maintains a civil, up-beat tone and an optimistic outlook. As a senior executive in the family bottled-water company, he brings a different perspective to state government than his lawyerly colleagues. He doesn’t see government spending as a zero-sum game. Private businesses accomplish more with less by restructuring their enterprises, re-engineering processes and boosting productivity — why can’t government, too?

Think Mark Warner — with a stronger commitment not to raise taxes. In Virginia, it’s a winning political formula. In my opinion, Saxman would make a strong candidate for Lieutenant Governor.

A Virginian-Pilot editorial takes the City of Virginia Beach to task for decisions made in the 1990s to quit a light rail partnership with Norfolk. The City of Norfolk is proceeding regardless. Virginia Beach has much to gain by jumping back on board.

From this morning’s Virginian-Pilot: “A group of Republican delegates backed a proposal Friday that calls for the creation of a Hampton Roads Transportation Authority, with the power to toll new and existing roads, increase annual licensing fees, and add a half-percent “local lodging fee” for area hotels and motels.”

The tax package would raise about $235 million annually, shy of the $275 million that regional leaders say is needed to fund top-priority road- and bridge-building projects.

Among the more controversial elements might be a proposal to impose a $30 annual fee for passenger cars and pick ups, $40 for panel trucks, $20 for trailers, $15 for motorcycles and $25 per axle for larger trucks.

A one-time local fee on any first-time registration of a vehicle also is being considered. The fee would be equal to three-quarters of a percent of the vehicles’s retail value. An additional 2 percent local fee on car rentals also would be imposed.

Instant reaction: This plan attacks transportation entirely from the supply side. There was no mention in Tom Holden’s story about any initiative to restrain the demand for new transportation capacity.

If Hampton Roads leaders decide that the region must raise revenues, it do so through congestion-pricing tolls that have the virtue not only of raising revenue but inducing motorists to switch to alternate modes of transportation or drive during off-peak periods. (I won’t even get into the subject of stimulating more compact, mixed-use redevelopment projects such as Virginia Beach’s Town Center or Oyster Point in Newport News that could offset future demand.)

I find the mule-headed inability of legislators to curtail the demand-side of the transportation equation absolutely astounding.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine is calling for the coordination of transportation and land use planning. Now some House Republicans are talking about handing responsibility and funding for secondary roads to local jurisdictions on the grounds that they will make better land use decisions if they have to clean up their own traffic mess.

It sounds great in theory — and it’s a principle that I support personally — but beautiful ideas often turn ugly when applied to the real world. The Road to Ruin project has examined Prince William County’s $1.5 billion plan to upgrade its secondary road system (see “Will the Real Prince William Please Stand Up” and “Going it Alone“) and found a mixed bag as far as its commitment to changing transportation-inefficient land use patterns.

Now Road to Ruin writer Bob Burke takes a look at Spotsylvania County, where voters approved $144 million in road improvements last fall. There is no discernible action to encourage development that generates fewer and shorter automobile trips. As Hap Connors, chairman of the board of supervisors told Burke: “These are catch-up projects.” (Read Burke’s story, “Spotsy Turvy.”)

Fast-growing Spotsylvania is playing catch up, coping with zoning decisions made years ago. But the county will always find itself playing catch up unless it embraces more transportation-efficient forms of development.

When it comes to coordinating transportation and land use, devolving responsibility and funding for secondary road maintenance is part of the answer. But by itself it won’t lead to any magical changes. If citizens and local government practitioners think they can build their way out of traffic congestion, they won’t make any better decisions than VDOT did.

(Photo credit: DCS – Development Consulting Services.)