Bacon's Rebellion

The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has given the General Assembly much higher scores for votes on environmental issues in 2006 than it did the year before. The House garnered a 56 percent rating this year, up from 40 percent in 2005. The Senate scored 54 percent, up from 42 percent.

The scores measured floor votes on conservation issues including the land preservation tax credit, the Virginia Energy Plan, air emissions controls, billboard vegetation control, water protection permits, construction of an I-95 alternative, and impact fees for transportation. “Extra credit” was also issued to legislators who patroned conservation-friendly bills that VALCV supported.

For details on the Conservation Scorecard, click here.

Just one question: A bill on “billboard vegetation control”?

Yes indeedy, the bill, which passed, grants VDOT “the authority to impose on a billboard company requesting approval of a vegetation control permit, the obligation to relocate or replant vegetation according to a landscaping plan approved by VDOT, at the sole cost of the billboard company.” The VALCV was against it:

This legislation arose from a situation in Virginia Beach in which a billboard owner applied to VDOT for a permit to cut down crape myrtles in the median of Virginia Beach Boulevard. The permit was rejected because the roads are city-maintained and not within VDOT’s jurisdiction.

I can’t tell from this explanation what the League was opposed to. But what the heck? Who could possibly support the cutting down of crape myrtles — especially when the alternative is looking at billboards?

If anyone thought that analyzing the traffic impact of local zoning and planning decisions would lead to more rational land use patterns, it’s time to reconsider. The Kaine administration’s pilot project — using VDOT traffic analysis to inform the land-use debate in fast-growing Loudoun County — took less than a week to become totally politicized. Traffic analysis, it seems, will become just one more tool that political interests use to batter one another.

In a letter last week, the Virginia Department of Transportation criticized a planning proposal to permit 28,000 housing units in the Dulles South district of Loudoun County, up from 5,000 previously allowed. VDOT’s “preliminary analysis” indicated that the development in the South Dulles district of the county would overwhelm the local transportation infrastructure, creating gridlock for miles around. (See “Batteries Not Included.”)

According to Leesburg2Day, Loudoun supervisors responded by describing the letter as a “distortion” and a political ploy by the Kaine administration to make the case for tax increases. Setting aside the rhetoric, VDOT critics leveled two substantive charges during a Board of Supervisors meeting. First:

It was unclear whether VDOT’s study showed that the impacts described in [the] letter would be caused specifically by new homes in the Dulles area or anticipated growth in general. In addition, [VDOT official Dennis] Morrison said a baseline study was not performed to compare the proposed new homes’ impact with a less dense option.

Translation: People gotta live somewhere. If you put those 28,000 households somewhere else, they’re still going to generate traffic congestion. And second: VDOT did not factor in the roads that developers were offering to build as part of their rezoning applications.

“Interestingly enough, they did not take into consideration our network plan, which we believe is the right way to do this,” [Dulles district Supervisor Stephen] Snow said, referring to a package of roads being proffered by several developers. “The didn’t take that into account.”

Translation: Dulles South developers are planning hundreds of millions of dollars worth of transportation improvements as proffers and other contributions.

I’m sure that the Piedmont Environmental Council and other opponents will offer responses to the responses. I’ll do my best to keep up.

Dulles South is shaping up as the hottest zoning/planning controversy in Virginia since the 80s-era controversies over the Manassas Battlefield and the Disney theme park at Haymarket. Watch the sparks fly! I’ll be taking a detailed look at Dulles South in next week’s edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine.

The Virginia Department of Transportation backs approval of a proposed interchange along Interstate 64 near Regent University on the condition that some local roads also are expanded, the Virginian-Pilot reports. The interchange would provide access to the 500-acre Blenheim Park development proposed by Pat Robertson and his Christian Broadcasting Network.

States the Pilot: “Building the City Line Parkway interchange would help relieve pressure at the Indian River Road and Greenbrier Parkway interchanges, VDOT officials said in a report sent Wednesday to the Federal Highway Administration in Richmond.”

(For a more detailed commentary on the project, see “Hurricane Pat.”)

It was a rare pleasure to read the lead editorial of the Richmond Times-Dispatch today about passenger rail. The piece, undoubtedly penned by Barton Hinkle, dispenses with the usual platitudes and takes a hard look at the economics of this oft-touted solution to Virginia’s transportation woes. As the writer unsentimentally observes:

When all the capital and operating costs of both mass transit and automobile travel are accounted for, rail travel is almost four times as expensive as vehicular travel. In 2002, rail cost 82 cents per person per mile; vehicular travel cost 21 cents, even after factoring in government spending on roads. Travelers might be willing to pay that higher cost in return for conveniences such as briefer commute times, diminished highway congestion, and less road rage. But passenger rail travel in most of the U.S. — and certainly in Virginia — promises few such offsets.

The problem, as the T-D observes, is that there is insufficient density in Virginia to economically support mass transit. “Mass transit works in places where people are, well, massed together.” Like New York (26,000 people per square mile), Chicago (13,000 per square mile), Washington, D.C. (9,300 per square mile). Rail does not work well in places with suburban densities of less than 1,000 people per square mile. Here’s why:

Low density rates force transit systems into an unhappy tradeoff: Either they maintain numerous stations along their routes, which slows travel speeds considerably, or — for the sake of greater speed — they maintain just a few stations separated by large distances. The latter option not only makes use of the system inconvenient to most potential passengers, it also requires them to drive to the stations — which largely defeats the point.

Impeccable logic. My only quarrel with the editorial is this: Just because average density may be too low for transit, that doesn’t mean Virginia jurisdictions can’t support rail transit. The key is placing islands of high density around transit stops, along with mixed uses, intermodal connections and pedestrian-friendly streetscapes. In the absence of appropriate zoning, however, rail as a commuting option is a waste of money.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has released the names of some 45 individuals appointed to state boards and commissions ranging from The Advisory Board on Athletic Training to the Small Grains Board. But no word yet on whom he has in mind for the five vacant positions on what is arguably the most important board in the state, the Commonwealth Transportation Board. The CTB exercises real power over road-building policies and priorities.

The CTB website still lists on its website the five members whose terms have expired.

Kaine spokesman Kevin Hall, who normally responds with alacrity to my requests for information, has yet to answer a query as to when the new CTB announcements will be released. Behind the scenes, I suspect, a battle for the soul of Gov. Kaine’s transportation policy is taking place.

Frustrated by state inaction, Prince William County has launched the most ambitious locally funded road-improvement program in Virginia: $1.5 billion in spending over 15 years.

In theory, it makes sense for transportation and land use planning to take place at the same level of government. In theory, Prince William would be less likely to approve comprehensive plans and rezoning projects that will overwhelm the local transportation structure if it assumes financial responsibility for fixing the traffic problems that result.

In the latest Road to Ruin article, writer Peter Galuszka takes a look at the Prince William transportation plan. Clearly, Prince William is more proactive than its neighbors. But environmentalists and smart-growth advocates offer two main points of criticism: (1) The County is spending the money on roads, paying little heed to the mass transit option, and (2) the county is showering money on larger highways and arterial roads to the detriment of local street networks. Read the story here.

Update: PWC board chairman Sean Connaughton responded to a criticism in the story suggesting that the County is neglecting mass transit in its transportation strategy. In point of fact, he says, “We are expanding the county’s bus system (now the fastest growing in the country); we have a transit lane planned on Route 1 and the Prince William Parkway; and our future bond referendum includes massive transit improvements.”

Pat Robertson is back in the news: not exploring the interface between meteorology and theology but as a real estate developer in Virginia Beach. Consultants for the Christian Broadcasting Network, reports the Virginian Pilot, have unveiled detailed plans for Blenheim Park, a 500-acre complex near Regent University.

Rivaling Norfolk’s MacArthur Center and Richmond’s Innsbrook office park in size, the development would include two hotels, a movie theatre, a department store, a big-box store, and a combination of 1,000 single-family and multi-family homes. The complex would generate hundreds of millions in tax revenues for Chesapeake and Virginia Beach when completed, and contribute $15 million to $20 million a year in land leases to CBN.

The good news: Blenheim Park would be a mixed-use development integrating shops, stores, offices and 1,000 single-family and multi-family residential units into a town concept. Mixed use development inspired by (if not always true to) New Urbanism is all the rage now. I haven’t seen the plans and sketches, but early indications that the project will be well designed on a micro level.

The potential controversy: To be economically viable, the CBN development would require construction of an interchange on Interstate 64 near the existing interchange at Indian River Road. The cost of the interchange, plus other road improvements, could well exceed $100 million. Robertson would pay up to $85 million by creating a Community Development Authority and issuing bonds.

The article is unclear about the financing mechanism, saying only, “The [CDA] would capture a portion of the increases in property taxes and other taxes from Blenheim Park and use it to pay off the bonds over a 30-year period.” Does that mean (a) that the properties would be taxed at the normal rate, and a portion of the taxes will be siphoned off to support the project, or (b) that the bonds would be paid off through a tax surcharge? If the answer is the former — if CBN expects to pay off the transportation improvements through the normal taxation rate, thus short-changing Virginia Beach and Chesapeake on the cost of other government services and facilities — a firestorm will erupt as soon as the citizenry understands what’s happening. Most likely, the Robertson people are smart enough to propose the latter.

Meanwhile, there’s the question of whether the other $15 million will come from. Who will pay for that?

The first question that needs to be asked: Will Blenheim Park contribute to the creation of a community with a balance of housing, offices, retail spaces, health and educational facilities, and other amenities? This question is critical because the only way to address traffic congestion in south Hampton Roads is to create communities that support fewer, shorter car trips instead of msucling onto I-64 to reach most of their destinations. The preliminary evidence is not encouraging. Developers are saying they expect to draw visitors from 40 miles away. On what roads? Interstate 64?

The second question that needs to be asked: Will Blenheim Park develop a Transportation Demand Management plan that will offset localized traffic impact by encouraging mass transit, ride-sharing, telework and other strategies? That’s state-of-the-art development in Northern Virginia, and it needs to be in Hampton Roads as well.

This is a huge project that will shape south Hampton Roads for decades to come. If done properly, it could help ameliorate the region’s steadily worsening traffic congestion. If done improperly, it could accelerate the drift to round-the-clock gridlock. Local government officials had better get this right.

(Rendering credit: Kahn Development.)

Tracking Virginia political bloggers has just gotten easier. I’m a little slow getting to this, but those who are only occasional blog readers may find this to be news: Now there are two excellent aggregators of Virginia political blogs: Virginia Political Blogs and BlogNetNews.com.

Virginia Political Blogs is the handiwork of Virginia blog pioneer Waldo Jaquith. It was the first Virginia blog aggregator and, as such, is a sentimental favorite among other long-time Virginia bloggers. At this point in time, Waldo aggregates roughly 125 blogs.

The newbie on the scene is the Virginia page of BlogNetNews.com. The aggregator, according to Dave Mastio, has just added its 126th blog – ditzydemocrats. It also has some potentially cool features, such as listings of most linked-to stories in the MSM, most commented-upon blog posts, most active blogs, and most linked-to blogs.

The Virginia political blogosphere is getting so big that it’s getting a bit unwieldy — 125 blogs is more than I want to follow. The next step in the evolution of the blogosphere would be a capability that allows subscribers to select the blogs that go into their own customized aggregator. I suspect that a goodly number of people would be willing to pay a modest subscription — say $4 to $5 per month — for such a service. With luck, it’s already under development!

The Washington Post editorial writers never cease to amaze. There they are, pontificating for one of the most powerful newspapers in the world, and they can do no better than spout vapid rhetoric on two of the most critical issues — transportation and housing — that affect the prosperity of the New Urban Region they live in.

The latest assault on the intelligence of its readers appears in an editorial this morning urging the Loudoun County board of supervisors to turn down a “rezoning request” (actually, a change to the comprehensive plan) that would allow construction of 28,000 more houses in the South Dulles section of the county. The Post cites a “study” (actually a preliminary analysis) by the Virginia Department of Transportation concluding that those 28,000 homes would generate 300,000 vehicle trips per day, creating bumper-to-bumper driving conditions across much of Loudoun, Fairfax and Prince William counties.

Overlooked in the Post’s verbal foray across the Potomac is the incidental matter that, according to Washington Council of Governments forecasts, Loudoun County is expected to add 110,000 households by the year 2030. If some of those households don’t wind up in South Dulles, where will they go? The Post doesn’t ask that question, settling for the platitude that “Loudoun’s Board of Supervisors should zone intelligently.” Uh… thanks. That was helpful.

Instead of suggesting principles to guide the board in its zoning decisions, the Post reverts to its default position: Spend more money on roads.

The state needs to get serious about transportation. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) has tried to do just that and has been stymied so far by the Republican General Assembly. The latest study is one more piece of evidence in favor of a special legislative session to cope with the worsening transportation problems in the region and the state.

Ah, yes, it’s the Virginia legislature’s fault! This non-sequitor fails to address the issue of where the growth should occur.

As it so happens, I had the opportunity yesterday to visit fellow blogger/columnist Ed Risse at his home in Warrenton, where we discussed this very issue. He and I sat in his office and pored over detailed maps of the area around Dulles Airport that he had prepared several years ago. As Ed suggested, fundamental issues need to be addressed:

1. Loudoun has three concentrations of growth: Leesburg, Ashburn and Sterling, and an emerging cluster in South Riding. Each of these clusters still has significant acreage yet to be developed. If the Rail-to-Dulles Metro extension is ever built, the possibility also exists to build up as well as out, creating even more untapped capacity. The first strategic question that Loudoun needs to ask is this: Should it focus growth in these existing clusters, with the aim of building balanced, sustainable communities? Or should it spread the growth around?
2. If the growth doesn’t go in those clusters, where does it go? Does Loudoun want to create a new cluster in “South Dulles”? If not, then where? Under current zoning, the South Dulles area would allow 5,000 houses by right. What would be the traffic impact of 5,000 houses in scattered, disconnected, low-density development? And where in Northern Virginia would the other 23,000 houses go?

I’m agnostic on whether or not South Dulles should be developed in the manner that Greenvest, Toll Brothers and other major developers would like. But I do find that the editorial sallies of the Washington Post — which boil all development issues down to “tax increases for roads= good” and “Virginia legislature=bad” to be numbingly uninformed and unhelpful. When you think about the vast resources the Post has at its disposal, its punditry on issues of local import is disgraceful.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R-11, has coaxed the U.S. House of Representatives into passing a bill that would funnel $1.5 billion into the Metro transit over the next 10 years as long as Virginia, Washington, D.C, and Maryland promise to match the money.

Unless there are critical elements to the legislation that Washington Post reporter Lena Sun is overlooking in her story today (a possibility not to be overlooked), Davis is not tying the subsidy to any new measures that would ensure performance or accountability.

“For years,” Sun explains, “Metro’s leaders have appealed to local governments to provide a steady, consistent flow of money so the transit system will not have to compete with other public needs, such as education.” A consistent flow of money. Sounds eminently reasonable, doesn’t it?

Here’s the question: How will Metro management and unions respond to the knowledge that they have a “consistent flow of money” for the next 10 years? Will the knowledge electrify them with a surge of creativity and innovation? Will management make the hard decisions? Will workers relax their demands for higher-than-market compensation and featherbedding work rules? Or will the entire organization slack off, perpetuating scandalously poor management of past decades, knowing that Metro is accountable to no one — not the marketplace, not even the politicians.

Congress may be crazy enough to pass this legislation, and President George W. Bush hasn’t shown any inclination to veto anything that entailed spending more money (except for stem cell research). But the deal is contingent upon the states contributing their share. That puts Virginia in a position to nix the deal if performance and accountability measures aren’t built into the package. Metro is a critical piece of Northern Virginia’s transportation infrastructure, but that’s all the more reason to insist that Metro get its act together.

Update: Examiner.com has an excellent editorial on this topic. Money quote: “Here’s a better idea: Stop subsidizing the waste and mismanagement inherent in an obsolete 1950s mass transportation concept, and force Metro to cut costs, become more efficient and undertake a crash course to learn how transit systems around the country are using competitive contracting to ease burdens on taxpayers while improving service to customers.”

Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, has articulated several important themes regarding Virginia’s transportation policy that we rarely see in the op-ed pages of Virginia’s daily newspapers. In a column published Sunday in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Miller made these points:

1. “Public frustration with traffic does not mean unconditional support for new transportation revenues. … Support for new transportation funding is contingent upon a substantial change in land-use decision-making so that new growth does not overwhelm the existing roads and highways.”
2. “The existing legal and political system separates decisions on land use from the responsibility for the transportation system. … We need to build on the progress of the last session in requiring traffic-impact analyses and encouraging local investment by granting local government clearer direction to limit land uses that overwhelm the transportation system.”
3. “The current transportation plan is based on unrealistically low gasoline prices and construction costs. Already, higher gasoline prices mean that we are driving less, that estimated tax receipts from state gasoline taxes are below projections, and that the costs of maintenance and new construction are rising. In effect, we have less money to build more costly projects for driving rates that won’t materialize, as the costs of maintaining our existing networks keep rising. This is not a winning formula.”
4. “The current transportation planning system is largely without measures of performance. Even though substantial progress has been made for better accounting of the limited transportation dollars Virginia spends, there is no way to determine the rate of return on that investment.”

I agree almost 100 percent with Chris’ prognosis of what’s wrong, as any regular reader of this blog will know. The main area where we differ is in the faith that we place in local government. I’m very concerned that, in the absence of systemic reform, giving more power to local government to block unwanted housing projects could lead mainly to… less housing. Not a desirable income.

Chris, I think, is willing to take that risk. If developers get head butted a few times for submitting Business As Usual housing projects, maybe they will start focusing their energies on projects in locations that are served by existing infrastructure rather than where they can buy cheap land. Also, he hopes, maybe developers will start getting more creative — designing more transportation-efficient communities and setting up Transportation Demand Management plans that will mitigate the traffic impact.

I hope he’s right.

John Bull and Carol Scott with the Daily Press have written a perceptive article, “Awash in Cash, But Who Gets Soaked?”, detailing the surge in property taxes on the Virginia Peninsula: 58 percent on average since 2001. Soaring real estate assessments have allowed local governments to reduce nominal tax rates even while collecting record revenue and spending it all.

The danger is that local governments aren’t treating the revenues as a windfall. Rather, they’re hiring more employees and offering generous raises, decisions that will be hard to reverse if favorable economic conditions change.

Those financial decisions lay the foundation for a problem when the housing bubble deflates and local tax revenues grow stagnant.”The worst part will be when property values fall – and they will,” said Pete Sepp, spokesman for the National Taxpayers Union in Alexandria, a national anti-tax organization. “Governments will scream they don’t have enough money and there will be tax increases.”

The Bacon’s Rebellion blog has been issuing the same warning for more than a year now, though mainly with an eye toward Northern Virginia where real estate prices have been the strongest. Clearly, the danger is not limited to one part of the state. It’s gonna get ugly, folks, real ugly.

Proposed development of 28,000 residential units in the “Dulles South” area of Loudoun County would create regional gridlock for miles around, maintains a Virginia Department of Transportation preliminary analysis of the traffic impact. By 2025, the proposal would generate 300,000 trips per day, creating hours of stop-and-go traffic as far away as Herndon, Fairfax city and into Prince William County.

The Washington Post has the story here. Sayeth the Post:

Investment needed to prevent such gridlock could “easily” reach hundreds of millions of dollars, VDOT spokeswoman Joan Morris said. That’s on top of the billions of dollars already planned to extend Metrorail to Dulles and widen three of the highways in question.

The analysis represents the first application by the Kaine administration of a new law enabling VDOT to conduct detailed traffic impact analyses of local development projects. The Kainiacs picked a good place to start — the tip of the spear of growth… the development frontier of Loudoun County, which has been consistently one of the fastest two or three growing municipalities in the country over the past decade.

Del. Joe May, R-Loudoun, had the best quote:

“This is another excellent example of why we’re going to have to coordinate land use with transportation,” said [May] who believes the Dulles South plan would overwhelm the region. “The plan reminds me of those words on so many toy boxes, ‘Batteries Not Included.’ Only in this case, the words should be: ‘Roads Not Included.’”

But not everyone is panicking. Observed Loudoun Supervisor Stephen J. Snow (R-Dulles): The VDOT project does not include nearly $200 million in road construction and other public improvements that would be financed as part of a proposal by Greenvest, a Fairfax County developer, to build 15,000 housing units and supporting commercial space in the area.

Meanwhile, the Greenvest proposal moved one step closer to approval with an 8-0-1 vote by the Loudoun County planning commission to increase planned residential densities in a “transition” area west of Dulles airport. The transition is designed to segue between the farms and hamlets of western Loudoun and and the suburban-style development spilling from Fairfax County into eastern Loudoun. Leesburg2Day.com has that story.

Update: Here is a copy of VDOT’s letter to the Loudoun County Department of Planning, and the accompanying map showing 2025 traffic volumes and projected levels of service.

Kudos to the Greater Richmond Transit Company (GRTC) for thinking entrepreneurially. The GRTC has identified an unmet market niche: Richmonders who commute to Northern Virginia. The public transit system is soliciting bids from private bus companies to run express buses from Richmond-area Park ‘n’ Rides to the Virginia Railway Express station in Fredericksburg, where the riders would take the VRE to complete their trips.

VRE estimates that 100 regular riders who board the VRE in Fredericksburg come from the Richmond region. Some ride in van pools, others drive by themselves. CEO John Lewis Jr. told the Richmond Times Dispatch that he thought express buses could attract as many as 130 riders. Bids from the private bus companies will determine if the service can be operated with passengers picking up the entire cost.

Two points to be made:

First, that’s exactly the kind of thinking we need from our public transit companies — and from private bus operators as well. (Question: Why haven’t private bus operators spotted spot this opportunity already? If they did, what prevented them from acting on it?)

Second, as traffic congestion gets worse, more long-range commuters will find it worthwhile to shift to shared-vehicle transportation. Economics 101. Traffic and congestion will not increase in a straight-line projection, as the Virginia Department of Transportation assumes in its long-range traffic and budget forecasts.

One quarter of the United States workforce could do their jobs from home, according to a report by the National Technology Readiness Survey, but only two percent telecommute full time, and only nine percent do so part time, according to a Reuters story.

P.K. Kannan, professor at the University of Maryland business school, which co-sponsored the survey of 1,015 U.S. adults, conjectured that people still like “face time” at the office as well as the social interaction of the office. Also, he observed, the average 20-minute commute each way really isn’t so bad.

If the average commute isn’t so bad, maybe the hue and cry over traffic congestion is overblown.

On the other hand, the survey deals in national averages, which may be meaningless. What is the telework participation rate in New Urban Regions, like Washington, where traffic congestion is more burdensome?

(Hat tip to Robert Jackson for pointing out the Reuters article.)