Bacon's Rebellion

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.)

A number of Fairfax County officials and residents have reacted with dismay to Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s decision to run the Metro heavy rail extension through Tysons Corner on elevated tracks rather than underground.

Quotes Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post: “It’s sad. The last thing Tysons needs is another silly barrier, and that’s what it’s getting,” said Clark Tyler of McLean, chairman of a county task force drafting a new master plan for Tysons. “We’ve got the Beltway and Route 123 and Route 7, and now we’ll get this thing sticking up that you can see from Pittsburgh.”

Del. Thomas Rust, R-Fairfax, raised the possibility that Kaine might have gotten a different result if he’d delved into the tunnel issue earlier. “Some of us from months ago knew the federal funding issue was a huge unknown, and I am surprised [the governor’s office] did not get those answers much earlier. He may have gotten caught up in the moment. A lot of people were pushing it, and he may have just gotten caught up in it and thought, ‘We can work around this.’ “

That’s a dead end. Kaine has pursued the Rail-to-Dulles diligently. (I don’t agree with his decision to hand over the project to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, but his diligence cannot be faulted.) Arbitrary rules and restrictions are inherent when your financing scheme hinges upon support from the federal government.

Perhaps it is time to re-think the financing of the Rail-to-Dulles extension from scratch, this time paying for the project by increasing density around the planned Metro stops and extracting, through taxes, the resulting increase in property values. Cutting the federal government out of the picture also might eliminate various requirements — such as Davis-Bacon Act (no relation!) requiring the use of union construction labor — that drive up the project costs. Can any readers shed light on how federal regs might drive up the project costs?

Update: More negative reaction from Steve Eldridge with the Examiner.

The Virginian-Pilot, Times-Dispatch and Associated Press are reporting that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has selected David Ekern, who retired last month as Idaho’s transportation director, to run the Virginia Department of Transportation.

According to Christina Nuckols with the Pilot, House Transportation Chairman Leo Wardrup, R-Virginia Beach, who interviewed the three finalists for the job, described Ekern as an “idea man.” Said Waldrup: “The governor is looking for someone who can bring a fresh approach to things.”

Nuckols quotes Sen. Dean Cameron, the Republican chairman of Idaho’s budget committee, as describing Ekern as a “straight forward person” who was instrumental in persuading state leaders to spend more on roads. “He challenged our thinking about how we needed to approach road construction and how we were addressing our transportation needs. He challenged the status quo.”

Cameron said Ekern met with resistance from some lawmakers concerned about increased borrowing to pay for the plan and from state bureaucrats who disliked privatization efforts.

Hopefully, the Governor will explain his thinking behind his selection of Ekern when he makes a formal announcement later today.

Update: Here’s the money graph from the Governor’s press release:

David Ekern is a recognized national leader in transportation operations, management, context sensitive design, and innovative program delivery for the 21st Century,” Governor Kaine said. “He has the vision and leadership to take VDOT to the next level – with a focus on performance, accountability, innovation, and smarter integration of transportation and land use planning.

And reaction from House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford:

When announcing his search for a new VDOT Commissioner on February 2, Governor Kaine stressed the importance of finding “a commissioner who can serve multiple governors.” To truly fulfill that charge, Mr. Ekern will have to be open to new ideas, innovative approaches and possess the ability to resist the reflexive tendency to first call upon taxpayers to solve every challenge facing government. …

I share Delegate Wardrup’s view, as quoted in this morning’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, that by selecting a Commissioner from outside the agency, the Governor is sending a very encouraging signal that his administration may be open to the significant reforms and organizational transformation so desperately needed at VDOT.

Next week, House Republicans will be announcing a series of new public policy innovations to continue our ongoing overhaul of VDOT. We remain focused and committed to making this unwieldy state agency more responsive to changing the way it conceives of and delivers transportation services and more accountable for improvements based upon relevant performance measures, such as reducing traffic congestion.

Obviously, we hope that Mr. Ekern shares our positive vision. I am optimistic that his selection is a sign that the Governor will welcome the package of long-overdue reforms and much-needed innovations for the agency.

A new publication, “Measuring Up 2006: The National Report Card on Higher Education,” provides ample grist for analyzing the adequacy of Virginia’s efforts to prepare its population to compete in a globally competitive knowledge economy. The good news: Virginia has improved its performance for the most part since 1992. The bad news. We’re losing ground internationally.

There is so much material that I can’t begin to digest it all. I’m hoping that readers can add insight in the discussion thread. To view the Virginia report card and its treasure trove of comparative data, click here.

Virginians can take some satisfaction in our scores: A- for preparing K-12 children for higher education, B for the participation rate in higher education, B+ in the completion rate and A in economic benefits flowing from the advanced level of education. But… no surprise here… we measure an F in affordability.

The chart at the top of this post represents the percentage of young adults (ages 18-24) enrolled in college in 2003. Virginia performs below the national U.S. average, and it lags such countries as Korea, Greece, Belgium and Ireland — and we’re on a par with Poland.

Well, those are small countries, you say, no big deal. To get the dynamic picture rather than a static one, click here (and scroll down one screen) to see charts comparing the educational attainment of older adults (35 to 64) vs. younger adults (25 to 30). America’s older adults are the second best educated in the world, training only Canada by a narrow margin, and exceeding No. 3 Finland by a wide margin. But the education level of young adults falls to No. 7.

Here’s what’s happening: The same percentage of young adults in America hold a college degree as older adults — no change. By contrast, the younger generations in other countries are zooming up the learning curve. Scary.

Zipcars and Flexcars, purveyors of shared-car services, are making measurable inroads in the metropolitan Washington market, says the Washington Post. Says the Post: “No longer a curious fad, the services boast 530 shared cars in the Washington area, making them increasingly attractive to new kinds of customers, including universities and businesses.”