Bacon's Rebellion

The RTD reports today that:

“Sen. George Allen, under fire for wearing a Confederate flag pin as a teenager, said yesterday he will pursue a proposal for a congressional resolution for slavery.

“We want this to be a meaningful resolution that is adopted,” Allen said in an interview.

He stopped short of saying he would support an apology resolution. (Huh?)

Ken Woodley, editor of the Farmville Herald, had challenged Allen and Georgia Congressman Lewis to spearhead a congressional resolution apologizing for slavery and to provide some type of reparations for the losses suffered by blacks. By reparations, Woodley said he envisions a sort of domestic Marshall Plan that would address education, health-care and economic development issues for blacks.”

Follow the money. When politicians who never owned slaves apologize to politicians who never were slaves, follow the money – and the votes. It is perfect feel good politics. I thought Bill Clinton had a patent on this guiltless guilt exorcism.

On whose behalf would the U.S. Congress be apologizing?

Apologize on behalf of Western Civilization for having human bondage when every civilization that ever existed practiced slavery and then getting rid of it voluntarily – while Muslims still enslave Black Africans today?

Apologize on behalf of the United Kingdom for having race-based slavery among other forms of involuntary servitude from 1619 to 1833 when Parliament outlawed slavery throughout the Empire?

Apologize on behalf the U.S.A. for having slavery from 1776 to 1865. Especially, for keeping slavery legal in the border states and occupied Southern counties from the Emancipation Proclamation (1863) until the 13th Amendment (1865)?

Once Sen. Allen figures out who is apologizing for, he should get serious about it. Don’t make a speech at a ceremony followed by light refreshments. Even if listening to the blather of pompous pandering is painful. Let’s see some crimson ‘A’ for long days and nights in the public pillory. How about some sack cloth and ashes? Or walking up steps on bare knees?

Who else gets an apology? Americans of Japanese ancestry interned by FDR got an apology and bucks – because they are still alive. Who else gets cash?

Honoring the victory of the Civil Rights Movement is a celebration of American values. Empty apologies are the antithesis of honor.

P.S. Sen. Allen sponsored a resoluton for Congress to apologize for not outlawing lynching. Outlawing lynching was up to the states, not the Feds. It’s that Constitutional division of powers thing. ‘Racist, Jim Crow, whites only’ Virginia passed the first anti-lynching law – and never had another lynching. Virginia leads and other states follow.

A headline on the meteorologist’s column in a weekly paper distributed in Greater Warrenton-Fauquier caught our eye: “Flash floods are the nation’s leading killer.”

Michael Eckert says that flash floods kill more people on an annual basis than slow floods, hurricanes, tornados and all other “disasters” we see on the evening news. That would also include the indirect weather related disasters like forest fires, etc. See “Fire and Flood” 3 November 2003 and “Down Memory Lane with Katrina,” 5 September 2005″ at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

What is even more startling is how most people die in flash floods. They drive their cars into flooded roadways going from where they are to where the need or want to be.

In “Dying Young in Traffic,” 1 November 2004 at https://www.baconsrebellion.com/ we profiled the fact that human settlement patterns have put large numbers of citizens into cars who have demonstrated that they are too young to drive safely. Everything we have seen since 2004 suggests the problem is getting worse.

Data suggests that the vast majority of the pedestrians who die in the act of walking do so because they are hit by an automobile. The last person killed by a bicycle, stroller or a Segway was … (research in ongoing on this question, we are sure it is possible, but you get the idea…).

Then there is Bill Lucy’s data on death at the hands of a stranger in the Countryside. It is automobiles that makes one living in the Countryside more likely to die at the hand of a stranger that those living in the Urbanside.

The other day we noted that in the United States 20 times as many citizens are killed in auto accidents every year as the total of US and British military and military contractors who have been killed in the Iraq War since the invasion.

In the United States we kill more of our own citizens each year than the total number of Iraq citizens that have been killed since the current war started. Those auto accidents totals do not include flash floods, pedestrians and many other indirect results of using and abusing automobiles.

Is it not ironic that in order to achieve a sustainable trajectory for civilization citizens will need to evolve settlement patterns where most of these “accidents” would not happen?

In spite of this fact, citizens and their governance practitioners embrace automobile advertising, video games and movies that glorify dangerous and illegal driving.

Legislators give mainly lip service to ways to reduce auto related deaths. They even prevent rational approaches to traffic safety like red light cameras. And none of what they do relates to the core cause of automobile deaths – dysfunctional human settlement patterns.

There are some who suggest that this is just post-industrial Darwinism. We know enough model citizens killed by the irrational acts of others to know auto deaths are not helping to evolve a higher order of human.

There is no question we need to do something about reversing current population trends regionally, nationally and globally in order to achieve a sustainable human burden on the planet.

What citizens do, however, needs to be something other than subsidizing settlement patterns that causes tens of thousands to kill themselves every year.

EMR

Many local governments in Virginia would like the authority to enact “Adequate Public Facilities Ordinances” (APFO) giving them more power to block undesired development projects. In theory, APFOs would ensure that roads, public schools, water, sewer, fire/police/rescue stations and other public facilities are “adequate” to support new development. The goal: no more overloaded connector roads, no more kids attending classes in school buses, no more slow response times for fire and police.

Now comes a report from The National Center for Smart Growth Research and Education, affiliated with the University of Maryland, which takes a close look at APFOs as applied in Maryland. Some 13 counties and 12 municipalities in Maryland have enacted APFOs. The result: Things didn’t always turn out as planned.

As it turns out, APFOs can accelerate the spread of the very dysfunctions they were designed to curb. Due to inappropriate applications and inconsistent uses, concludes the Smart Growth Research group: “APFOs are being applied in ways that often deflect development away from the very areas designated for growth in county plans to other counties, other states and often rural areas never intended for growth.”

There’s a lesson here for Virginia. The solution to our disastrous land use policies isn’t giving local government more regulatory authority, it’s reforming the sprawl-inducing complex of zoning codes, subdivision ordinances, comprehensive plans so as to give developers more freedom to devise creative solutions. We need more balanced communities, more mixed-use development, more transit-friendly design, more bike/pedestrian-friendly design. As Pulte Homes and KSI Services have demonstrated, developers want to build these kinds of communities, and the biggest obstacles are NIMBYs backed up by the power of local government. Giving NIMBYs more power through APFOs will not help build Smart Growth communities.

On 24 April we posted a review of Gov. Kaine’s commitment to “conserve” 400,000 acres of land over the next four years. Our comment on a history of inappropriate locations of “conservation” actions was based on a survey we did for a client several years ago. Jim Bacon gets to work early in the day and at 6:01 AM on 25 April he asked for examples of land conservation initiatives in the wrong locations.

Jim’s question is very relevant but not easy to respond to quickly. The list needed to be up dated. We started but soon found the list growing very long. In addition, just a listing of examples without context raises more questions than it answers. The following is an attempt to put in perspective the locational dysfunction of “conservation” efforts since 1972 in the northern part of Virginia.

First some caveats:

In reviewing these examples recall that what happened in Radius Band R = 6 to R = 12 (about 70,000 acres of land in Virginia) in the 1970s is now happening to land in R = 20 to R = 50 (about 1,500,000 acres of land in Virginia).

Second, there is profound difference between “conservation” inside the Clear Edge and “conservation” outside the Clear Edge. This is the difference between “Openspace” and “Countryside.” We will not try to sort out all the differences at this time. We have chosen examples that do not turn on the definitions. (Yes, we are working on the Glossary.) We have divided our note into two sections one discussing conditions inside the logical location for the Clear Edge, the second addressing land outside the Clear Edge.

Third, what happens inside the Clear Edge around any urban enclave determines the need to add to or remove land from within a Clear Edge. Also recall that dysfunction within the Clear Edge drives families, enterprises and institutions to scatter urban land uses across the Countryside outside the Clear Edge.

If you are familiar with examples cited below, you may recall some were couched by MainStream Media in terms of lowering density to protect the “character” of the “neighborhood.” Even if not on the front burner, each had a strong conservation rationale.

We were directly or indirectly involved in each of these examples. Each case has a long, complex history. In the real world there are no short stories. These examples are brief summaries from memory and we may have omitted some important details.

INSIDE THE CLEAR EDGE

We address the examples in three categories concerning Balanced Communities, Shared-Vehicle System Station-Areas and Large-Acreage Initiatives.

Conservation Initiatives Thumping the Evolution of Balanced Communities

Huntley Meadows Park was a surplus World War II Navy radio antenna field that was used by Federal Highway Administration to test asphalt paving after the war. Beavers started to dam up Barnyard Run on the site, recreating wetlands that pre-revolutionary farmers had drained to make the land useable for agriculture.

Residents with lots that backed up to the site lobbied for the surplus federal property to become a park to thwart planned roadways from being extended through the site.

Huntley Meadows Park is now a nice place for bird watching and nature education. There is a need for parks and useable Openspace throughout the urban fabric, but …

There is was (and is) no plan for the Balanced Community that should (and eventually will have to) evolve in southeastern Fairfax County. This asphalt test site along with the surplus Belvoir Proving Grounds, the recycled Lorton Reformatory site and Ft. Belvoir itself together with the gravel pits that became Kingstowne and the existing development along US Route 1 plus major parts of ‘Greater Springfield / Franconia’ should have been viewed as an opportunity to create a Balanced Community and not be chopped up into what Jim Bacon correctly called “pods” in his 3 April column “Pod People” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

Why bother to reconsider this conservation decision?

You may recall the Pentagon is planning to move 20,000 or more military jobs to Ft. Belvoir. It is widely agreed that lack of mobility and access will be a result of this shift in jobs.

It would help considerably if Fairfax County Parkway and Van Dorn Street had been extended to US Route 1. That was thwarted for the time being in large part by creating Huntley Meadows Park.

It would be even better to evolve a settlement pattern that supported more fuel efficient mobility systems than private-vehicles to citizens to the those new jobs as well as to services and recreation including places to birdwatch.

It would have been much better to have a Balanced Community in southeastern Fairfax so there would be housing, services, recreation and amenity to balance with the relocated military jobs and other jobs that would be a natural fit in the community but for congestion and high prices due to imbalance.

Now a few of the families that could be living in Southeastern Fairfax Balanced Community are living in pods like Jim Bacon’s pod. Some are really nice pods, some not so nice, but all are pods. The rest are living in eastern Prince William, Stafford, Spotsylvania Counties and are now spreading to Caroline County and beyond.

As documented by the 87 ½ Percent Rule, almost all the scattered urban residents are now living in exactly the same pattern at the Unit-scale and the Dooryard-scale as they would if their home was in the sustainable pattern of a Balanced Community. The difference is that the Units and Dooryards of which the Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages of the Balanced Community would be composed are scattered over half a million acres.

The Southeastern Fairfax Balanced Community of 60,000 +/- acres could be home to over 600,000 people with nearly every family having access to the 40% of the land in the Community that could be openspace if intelligently planned. Now openspace is available to some pod residents – primarily those who live on lots that back up to a park – and those who drive there in their car to a park. Did someone say gas prices are going up? Take another look at Jim’s column on the Pod People.

Think about the traffic in the I-95 Corridor south of the Occquan River if 400,000 fewer people who derive their livelihood north of the Occquan River were not scattered in Prince William, Stafford, Spotsylvania, and beyond.

Think about the 500,000 acres of land south of the Occquan that would have been naturally “conserved” because there would be no need to develop it in the first place.

Think about the billions of dollars it will take to retrofit settlement patterns to evolve a Southeastern Fairfax Balanced Community.

Think of the angst of having to run new roads, rails and sewer lines through all those nice backyard parks. We did that through Rocky Run Stream Valle Park and it is not easy or cheap.

Think about what may happen due to the cost of rebuilding places like Greater New Orleans and all the other Beta components where Pod People now live. It may mean there is no resources for retrofitting southeastern Fairfax. You may have heard about the prospect of Bangladesh on Potomac in 20 years.

This is not hindsight. As a member of the Southeast Fairfax Redevelopment Authority we told politicians they were selling the future down the river.

This is also not a unique case. Jim and others may recall the map showing the location of the Core’s of 16 potential Balanced Communities inside the Clear Edge in the northern part of Virginia. We presented this map at the Spring of 2003 “Shaping the Future” certificate program. There is a “conservation” story in every one of those potential Balanced Communities, not all as clear as Southeast Fairfax but all bad.

Shared-Vehicle System Station-Areas

No land is more important in the evolution of functional human settlement patterns than the 500 to 1,000 acres nearest the station platform of any high-capacity shared-vehicle systems. Shared-vehicle systems like METRO are very expensive and must have a balance of ridership and system capacity to work efficiently.

We briefly reviewed the history of the Vienna-Fairfax-GMU station area in our 28 March posting “METRO WEST – 22 Years Too Late.” Nottoway Park and Oakton High School were carved out of the 800 acres of vacant land near station. The existence of vacant and underutilized land was the reason the METRO station was located there and not in Tysons Corner.

However, as soon as the station location decision was made, the Fairfax supervisors moved to take as much land as possible out of play. East Blake Lane Park came along later and was a trade-off to secure approval of a pod of townhouses off of US Route 29 in the station-area.

With intelligent planning in the station-area nearly all the 50,000 to 80,000 residents could have had access to openspace, not just those who back up to a park or get in a car to drive there. They could have walked to jobs and services as well.

You may have heard that gas prices are going up and METRO costing more and more each year because of unbalanced ridership?

From 1973 through 1990 we worked on five projects in the Vienna-Fairfax-GMU station-area. “Conservation” was a theme in both governance practitioner and resident opposition to functional settlement patterns in the station-area. This has been the case in many other station-areas. METRO – West is a step in the right direction but think how much better the Vienna-Fairfax-GMU station area and all the other station areas might have been with a more intelligent view of “conservation.”

Large-Acreage Conservation Initiatives

The “preservation” of part of the watershed on the Fairfax (north) side of the Occquan Reservoir (a potable water resource) was sold as a “conservation” measure. This is what we called the 83,000 Acre Occquan 5-Acre Lot Lifestyle Strategy. We documented the context and foolishness of this action at the time but will spare you the details. It really helped a lot of speculative land owners who could sell off 5 acre lots rather than having to wait for the market to develop for functional components of settlement.

In summary there would have been less polluting runoff into the water supply and a place for 800,000 citizens to call home and find work, services and recreation if planned and developed in an intelligent, balanced and more sustainable manor. That is more citizens than the total now living in Loudoun and Prince William Counties combined. We will address the issue of 5 and 10 acre horse farms in our forthcoming “Use and Management of Land.”

Had the 1965 plan for the distribution of land uses for the northern part of Virginia been followed, all the urban development supporting the National Capital Subregion in Virginia would have been inside Radius=20-Miles. There would also have been Countryside supporting urban enclaves which we call Disaggregated But Balanced Communities inside their own Clear Edges. See Regional Rigor Mortis,” 6 June 2005 and “Reality Based Regionalism,” 17 October 2005 at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

Had the National Capital Subregion expanded in a rational manner there would be no need for other large-acreage “conservation” initiatives such as the “Rural Crescent” in Prince William County. The “Rural Crescent” is well on the way to becoming 80,000 acres of 10 acres lots with a generous scattering of 1-, 3- and 5-acre subdivisions and 7-11s (aka, low density pods). In twenty years it will be closer to “lunar crescent” than “rural crescent.” Or perhaps lunatic crescent?

On both sides of the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital Subregion there are both large and small conservation-excused inappropriate actions taking place. One of our favorites is the attempt to “save” an former farmstead that the recently deceased owner explicitly wanted developed. The site is next to the RV sales lot not far from Wal*Mart and Home Depot in the southwest quadrant of I-66 and VA 234 Business in Greater Manassas.

The site in question is right across I-66 from a new million-foot-square-foot +/- big box center. This new center backs up to Manassas National Battlefield Park. The vast majority of those who go to the new big box center has to 1.) drive through Manassas National Battlefield Park, 2.) drive under I-66 and take a left turn against two lanes of traffic or 3) use the constrained I-66 / VA Business 234 interchange.

If Greater Manassas / western Prince William County needed another big box center (most would suggest the answer is “no”) the “conservation” site behind the RV sales lot would make a lot more sense than the site that was developed. A better idea would be to redevelopment of the entire Greater Manassas urbanized area into a West Prince William / Greater Manassas Balanced Community.

This vignette suggests that Greater Manassas / western Prince William is well on the way to becoming another Southeastern Fairfax. (For a view of the other end of the 15,000 acre West Prince William triangle See “Anatomy of Bottleneck: The US route 29/Interstate 66 Interchange at Gainesville” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com )

In summary, these inside the Clear Edge examples are not unique cases. They are the norm. See “The Role of Municipal Planning in Creating Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com .

OUTSIDE THE CLEAR EDGE

This brief review documents the growing dysfunction inside the logical location for a Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital Subregion. Much of the dysfunction is rooted in misunderstandings concerning the role of “conservation.” The facts also document why “conserving” a parcel here and a parcel there outside the Clear Edge is Foolishness – or worse.

An overview of how to understand this reality starts with the First Natural Law of Human Settlement Pattern:

A= PiR2.

Recall that, as noted above, “what happened in Radius Band R = 6 to 12 (about 70,000 acres in Virginia) in the 1970s is now happening in R = 20 to 50 (about 1,500,000 acres in Virginia).”

While the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the National Capital Subregion has now moved out to between R=22 to R=25, most of the 1,500,000 acres between R = 20 and R = 50 is land that should not be devoted to urban land uses.

Preventing urban scatteration and thus dysfunctional human settlement patterns in this area is critical if citizens are to achieve functional, sustainable places to live, work and play. All of the 1,500,000 acres outside the Clear Edges around the components of the Balanced But Disaggregated Communities in the Countryside needs to be “conserved” in order to:

1) Provide a market to evolve a viable Urbanside inside the Clear Edge around the National Capital Subregion’s Core, and

2) Provide the context for viable components of Countryside throughout the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region.

We noted in the original post on the 400,000 Acre Foolishness (24 April 2006) that “preserved / conserved acres can:

1) Raise the speculative value of adjacent land for urban use (“no one can build next to your five acre lot”),

2) Cause urban development to leapfrog to unprotected land in even more dysfunctional locations and,

3) Waste the public investment that has already been made to serve urban land uses on the newly “conserved” land.”

At this point the parcels that are candidates for “conservation” are awash in a vast area that is a checkerboard of interests and expectations. There are 1,500,000 acres inside R = 50 in Virginia alone. There are up to 10,000,000 acres in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania around the Washington-Baltimore New Urban Region. There are at least 14,000,000 acres Commonwealth-wide in Virginia outside the three New Urban Regions and the other urban enclaves where over 85 percent of the population resides.

The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) uses municipal “comprehensive” plans to determine the appropriateness of parcels for conservation. Other groups, especially land trusts set up to preserve a specific parcel or interest, are said not to follow such criteria. The municipal “comprehensive” plan may not be a useful guide. See “The Role of Municipal Planning in Creating Dysfunctional Human Settlement Patterns” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

Note that every one of the problems listed in the Inside the Clear Edge review above was done in conformance with a municipal comprehensive plan – although in some cases the “comprehensive” plans were amended to “conform” after the political decision was made. VOF leadership is aware of the issues outlined here and are doing as much as they can without broader public understanding and therefore political support.

Are there threshold criteria that can be applied? Of course.

New conserved land should be next to existing protected land or be of a scale and in a location that the land can become the anchor for a major new agglomeration of conserved land. It is, however, the holes in the donut near these preserved places where the greatest negative impact from raising the value for scattered urban land use comes home to roost. Our experience as a member of the Maryland Environmental Trust (MDET plays the role of the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in the Commonwealth) suggests that only when the three major issues noted in our original post (and rephrased below) are addressed can sound and rational principles and criteria be articulated.

Major Countryside resources such as the Appalachian Trail or a major viewshed can be anchors of land conservation efforts. Our experience as the Vice Chair for Stewardship of the Maryland chapter of the Nature Conservancy when the chapter Board was faced with finding a context for 11 “ecological gems” that had been donated to the Conservancy over the prior 30 years sharpened our appreciation for the problems encountered.

In this discussion we leave aside the entire issue of who benefits from actions to conserve land and who pays the ultimate costs. See Jim Bacon’s 24 April post on purchase of development rights and easements.

A recent study by Resources for the Future (RRF) titled “The Value of Open Space: Evidence From Studies of Nonmarket Benefits” documents how far the “state-of-the-art” is from establishing a fair value for “open space.”

The first paragraph of the Executive Summary of the RRF report includes this sentence. “And in rapidly growing urban and suburban area, any preserved land can offer relief from congestion and other negative effects of development.” That sort of misinformation is the cause of the Huntley Meadows Park problem.

Conservation of land a few acres here and a few acres there in the 1,500,000 acres within R=50, or within the 14,000,000 acres of land Commonwealth-wide that need protection will not solve any known problem until there is recognition of:

1) The scale and scope of the problem and the difference between and the role of “Openspace” and “Countryside”

2) The reality that there is already far more land committed to urban land use than will be needed in the foreseeable future

3) The need to establish a fair and equitable ways to transition to functional human settlement patterns

A first step is to develop a “Wright Plan” for Virginia that provides a rational basis for defining Clear Edges for the urban development in the New Urban Regions and the Urban Support Regions of the Commonwealth. This will help citizens understand the difference between Openspace and Countryside.

It is not just “open space.” Conserving 400,000 acres of “open space” could do more harm than good if it is scattered in THE WRONG LOCATIONS.

Note:

The entire first paragraph of the Conclusion in the RRF study noted above is a dictionary of error with respect to understanding human settlement patterns. It will be the subject of further review in our forthcoming report on “Use and Management of Land.” Also see our three columns on Vocabulary starting with “The Foundation of Babble” 28 November 2005.

EMR

State senators are sticking by their proposal to impose a 6-cent-per-gallon surcharge on gasoline companies, which, according to the Washington Post, “they characterized as a populist effort to make big oil corporations share the cost of improving state roads and transit systems.”

Gas companies “don’t mind sticking it to me and sticking it to every person in Virginia when we come up to that pump, and I don’t mind repaying the favor,” said Sen. R. Edward Houck (D-Spotsylvania). Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch (R-Henrico) said the tax is aimed directly at “profiteering” by the gasoline giants.

I would like to ask Sen. Houck what evidence he has that oil companies are “sticking it to him,” and I would ask Sen. Stosch what, exactly, does he mean by “profiteering”? Do they base their charges upon anything more than a casual observation of rising prices at the gas pump? What proof do they have that gasoline retailers — BP, Hess, Exxon, Shell, Marathon, Amoco, Chevron, Texaco and too many convenience stores to count — are circumventing the normal workings of a free market, in which prices fluctuate according to supply and demand? If they have evidence, they have not presented it.

One of two things would come of this legislation. First possibility: The oil companies pass on the tax to consumers, and the consumers get hosed. Second possibility: The oil companies cannot pass on the tax to consumers, their Virginia operations become less profitable, they are more reluctant to expand gasoline distribution and retailing capacity in Virginia in the face of ever-escalating demand… and the consumers get hosed.

According to a recent Gallup poll analysis, as reported by the Washington Times, the South contains eight of the 10 most church-going states in the nation. Virginia, it appears, is not among them.

Nationally, 42 percent of those polled say they attend church at least once a week. Here’s the breakdown for the Top 10:

58 percent — Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina
57 percent — Mississippi
55 percent — Arkansas and Utah
53 percent– North Carolina and Nebraska
52 percent — Tennessee and Georgia

At 44 percent, Virginia was the lowest-ranking state in the South, and only a hair above the national average. Seems like everyone around me in Richmond goes to church (or synagogue). All those heathen in Northern Virginia must be dragging the numbers down!

For awhile now, this blog has explored the state of mainstream media business models, particularly the impact of technological advances and the decentralization of news-gathering and op-ed functions to alternative media modes such as blogging. In particular, there has been debate about the effect of shifting media market dynamics on the coverage of local issues. Though normally concerned with the national and large regional outlets, this issue is one that also involves smaller papers that serve local markets. Case in point: Just two months removed from its shift from twice-monthly to weekly publication, the Chesterfield Observer is announcing that access to the online addition will no longer be free to readers.

One of two weekly newspapers covering Richmond’s largest suburb, the free print news outlet, which reports a delivery base of over 35,000 and distribution of 47,000 copies through other means, will now charge $24.95 per year for access its current content. However, according to the paper, “there will be no charge to read the newspaper’s previous issues or search its archives.” In a few weeks, online readers will face the prospect of paying what amounts to around 50 cents per issue to gain immediate access to content. The publisher acknowledges that this will not please some saying, “We realize some online readers will be disappointed to find they have to pay for the latest week’s stories. We think this method is fair both to our online readers and to the advertisers in the print edition that support this community service. And, overall, it’s a much more useful website to our county now.”

How this situation plays out could shed light on the future of newsgathering and reporting by such community-based media outlets. For example, Chesterfield’s other weekly newspaper, The Village News, provides its print and online versions free of charge, including full access to its archives. Its circulation is around 10,000, and it is distributed to over 200 local business locations. It takes a different editorial-page bent than the Observer, focuses primarily on the eastern end of the county (whereas the Observer leans toward the western end), and provides links to other sources outlets such as blogs (including this one). Together the two papers roughly reach between 15-30% of Chesterfield’s 300,000 residents via distribution, and both claim to have steadily increasing print readership numbers, contrary to the trend with national papers. Both serve as alternative information and opinion sources to the venerable Richmond Times-Dispatch for Chesterfield residents.

With the steady growth in the local population, and the growing demand for news content, it remains to be seen if either paper’s business model (free print/free online vs. free print/paid online) is sustainable over the long term. We all know that generally, times are tough for the newspaper industry nationwide, particularly large daily papers and some larger regional ones. Smaller-circulation, community-focused papers represent quite a different operating paradigm than larger regional entities with whom they share markets.

Will changing consumer tastes, demographic shifts, technologies and cost factors represent increased opportunities for community-based papers, or will they wade through the same troubled waters as their larger brethren as they struggle to adapt their business models? Is there a role for blogs in this equation as either collaborators or competitors with these weekly outlets?

It looks like the state Senate is backing down in its confrontation with the House of Delegates over taxes and transportation. From today’s report from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Hoping to jump-start budget talks, the Virginia Senate could be poised to eliminate a major roadblock to new funding for transportation. Senators last night were discussing isolating new taxes for roads and transit from their version of the proposed two-year, $74 billion budget.

Just one comment on the reporting… sorry, I can’t resist. Jeff Schapiro and Michael Hardy also made the following statement: “The Senate proposal would represent a retreat by the chamber as well as an overture to a seemingly intransigent House.”

A “seemingly intransigent House?” Did Schapiro and Hardy refer to a “seemingly intransigent Senate” when the House caved on taxes back in 2004? As I recall — and I’ll be happy to stand corrected — the House was being characterized as intransigent back then, too!

You wouldn’t know it from the myopic punditry regarding the transportation debate in Virginia, but a revolution in transportation financing is sweeping the world. According to Kenneth Orski, editor/publisher of Innovation Briefs, tolls and privatization represent the future of highway construction funding.

Quasi-socialist Europe is way ahead of the United States. Writes Orski in his May/June issue:

In Europe, virtually all major toll road authorities have been privatized. Italy’s state-owned toll authority, Autostrade SpA, was sold to private investors in the late 1990s (and will soon be merged with Spain’s Abertis, creating a vast 6,700 km (4,200 mile) network of private toll roads throughout Western Europe). In France, the three largest toll enterprises in which the government had retained controlling interest, Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhone (APRR); Societé du Nord et de l’Est de la France… ; and Autoroutes du Sud de la France… were put up for sale in late 2005; their privatization is currently in process of being completed. By the end of the year, 8,175 km (5,109 miles) of France’s toll roads will be in private hands, according to the French toll road association, AFSA. In Spain and Portugal, all major toll roads are likewise in private hands.

As far as I know, House Speaker William J. Howell R-Stafford, is the only elected official to be actively pushing privatization. So far, the idea has been a non-starter in Virginia. No question, a number of prickly accountability and governance issues need to be addressed. But as other nations gain experience with privatization, Virginia could learn from them. Meanwhile, Orski cites these practical benefits of privatized roads:

Private sector involvement may also benefit the public interest in other ways. Private toll road operators are likely to bring a higher standard of customer service, achieve more timely and cost-effective completion of planned improvements and introduce a higher rate of innovation into their operations. They offer access to private equity capital which can speed up project delivery by many years. And they can raise toll rates to control demand or fund needed improvements without being influenced by fear of a negative political reaction (although they will be constrained by the terms of the toll rate-setting schedule in their concession agreement).

The proper role of the state is to oversee the transportation system: to ensure that roads and rail facilities are being built and maintained to proper service and safety standards, to ensure that all pieces of the system fit seamlessly together, and to match transportation capacity with human settlement patterns. There is no compelling reason, other than inertia, for the state to be in the business of operating the system.

I’m a bit late with this, but better late than never. Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, has sent out an e-mail under the banner of the Virginia Senate Republican Leadership Trust, on the subject of Tax Freedom Day. In Virginia, the day that we symbolically stop working to pay taxes to government and start working for ourselves is April 26.

Stosch used the occasion to celebrate the Old Dominion’s status as a “low tax” state. “Virginia state government and local governments collectively impose one of the lowest state and local tax burdens on their residents. Only eight states can match us. … We are all entitled to our own opinions but we are not entitled to our own facts. And the plain fact remains that the state and local tax burden born by Virginians is among the lightest in the nation.”

The Republican Majority Leader continued: “Since I have been in the Virginia Senate, we have enacted over 50 tax cuts, deductions and credits covering a host of activities. They now total over $1.5 billion in taxes Virginians would otherwise be paying each year.”

Interestingly, there was one set of facts that Stosch omitted from his e-mail: his support for the $700 million-per-year tax increase in 2004 and another $1 billion in tax increases this year. If the Senator wants to pose as a champion of government efficiency and fiscal integrity, that’s fine. But posturing as a tax cutter? Puh-lease.

Roanoker Bob Egbert has a longer commute than most: The 56-year-old Navy veteran gets started at 6 a.m. every day. But the trip has its compensations: He’s never stuck in traffic, never spends a dime on gas, and stays in fantastic condition. He walks to work — a nine-mile trip every day.

As Roanoke Times writer John Cramer notes:

Egbert … is among a growing legion of Americans who walk or bicycle to work to fight pollution, improve their health and save money. It’s part of a nationwide movement away from sprawl and toward more pedestrian-friendly communities, according to Complete the Streets, a nonprofit coalition that promotes bicycle-friendly and walkable neighborhoods.

In recent years, Roanoke has started creating bicycle paths, greenways and traffic-calming measures. Recent opinion polls found that 52 percent of Americans want to bicycle more and 55 percent would prefer to drive less and walk more, according to the National Center for Bicycling and Walking.

Egbert, a member of the Sierra Club who predicts an “oil storm” within the next decade, says he is rebelling against America’s “car culture.”

As part of an ongoing effort “to build a more inclusive and welcoming campus climate,” Virginia Tech will spend $337,000 to renovate and expand its Multicultural Center this summer. Next year, the Office of Multicultural Programs and Services will host “Dialogues Around Difference,” a series of workshops focusing on “student success strategies, cultural consciousness, and community collaboration.”

Said Zenobia Hikes, vice president for student affairs: “This project will strengthen and enhance the cultural competencies of the Virginia Tech community while creating an inclusive and welcoming environment for all students. It will support a rich campus climate that contributes to a civil and just community for all Virginia Tech members.” (See press release.)

Does it occur to anyone that the more people talk about their differences, the more they will end up accentuating those differences? Does anyone else worry that Virginia Tech is drifting towards a University of Virginia-style system in which minority students self-segregate by race under the guise of multiculturalism? Is there anyone else out there who thinks that the best way for people to overcome racial and ethnic stereotyping is to interact with one another as individuals in everyday circumstances, not guided in groups by ideologically driven facilitators?

Well, gasoline in Richmond has has hit $3.00 a gallon, or just shy of it, and I spent $48 filling up the gas tank of my Jeep — the most I’ve ever paid for in my life. I’m not happy about it, but I don’t see high gas prices as a reason to start foaming at the mouth and chewing on the carpet. Others feel less constrained.

The hysteria over rising gas prices has reached a fever pitch. The economic ignorance of the sound bites and commentary I’ve seen on national television knows no bounds. Demagogues are calling for self-destructive taxes on oil company profits, oblivious to the reality that, in a capitalist society, profits are a critical signal that guide the flow of capital. (1) If you confiscate Exxon Mobil’s profits, you reduce the capital available to the world’s largest oil company to invest in more exploratory drilling, new oil wells, new pipelines, new refineries, etc. (2) If you tax oil industry profits, you also reduce the incentive for owners of outside capital to invest in new capacity. Why bother if the profits will be taxed away?

Here in Virginia, a semblance of sanity still reigns. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has not yet proposed anything as breath-takingly stupid as the proposals emanating from Washington, D.C. The Governor has said he will investigate reports of “price gouging,” which, given the fact that the the concept of “price gouging” is meaningless and impossible to define, means he will, for all practical purposes, do nothing…. Which is exactly what he should do. Nothing. Virginians and Americans will adapt to higher gas prices if government does not interfere.

(The Governor also is considering applying for a waiver of federal regulations requiring cleaner gasoline be sold in Virginia’s major metro areas, but has not yet made a determination. See the Times-Dispatch report. Unfortunately, he’s sticking to his guns on trying to raise $1 billion for transportation projects without raising gasoline taxes — a topic for another post.)

As I have been hammering away relentlessly on this blog (See “A World with One Billion Cars“), the world economy is moving from a 20-year era of cheap petroleum to a plateau of more expensive petroleum. This shift is driven by the combination of (a) escalating world consumption of petroleum, especially in rapidly developing economies like China and India, and (b) the peaking of global oil production capacity, the increasing expense of exploiting the remote and isolated oil reserves that remain, and terrorist/political instability in oil-producing countries. This is not the oil companies’ fault. This is not Dick Cheney’s fault. This is not the auto industries’ fault. It is not the environmentalists’ fault. It’s the reality of geology and geopolitics.

The American public can adapt to the new global realities by changing their energy-intensive lifestyles, and politicians can help them by speaking honestly and forthrightly about why the price of gasoline is increasing, instead of demagoguing the issue for short-term political gain.

Here in Virginia, the General Assembly has been examining what Virginia can do to increase energy production. That is OK, as far as it goes. But there is nothing that Virginia can do to increase the global supply of oil, and probably little it can do to increase the petroleum refining capacity needed to convert oil to gasoline. What the political and business leadership of Virginia has so far failed utterly to do is admit that Virginia is acutely vulnerable to oil price shocks. Virginians consume more gasoline per capita than the national average, in part because our transportation policy is geared toward matching every increase in automobile travel with an increase in transportation capacity with no thought of modulating travel demand.

But reality is a stubborn thing. With each increase in the price of gasoline, the bankruptcy of the old order becomes increasingly evident. Let us hope that Gov. Kaine, who prides himself on straight talk, begins leveling with the people of Virginia.

John Yellig with the Charlottesville Daily Progress describes the Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) center in Hoo-ville, which times the traffic lights on three major corridors: West Main Street, Emmet Street and Preston Avenue.

Motorists can now drive from Jefferson Park Avenue to Ridge Street on West Main without stopping for a light, and maximum travel times on that stretch have been cut from 15 minutes to 3 minutes, 18 seconds, he said.

“So often we get stuck thinking what road we’re going to build next or what $20 million project we’re going to build,” said City Councilor Kevin Lynch, a supporter of the project. “It’s something that I think is positive news … that things are going to get better.”

The project has cost about $850,000 so far. The estimated
build-out cost stands at around $2 million, Randall said.

If Virginia rated transportation projects on a Return on Investment basis — travel times improved per dollar spent — I suspect that traffic light synchronization projects like Charlottesville’s would out-perform most road construction projects by a wide margin. Why doesn’t the General Assembly insist upon putting ITS on an equal footing with expensive road and transit projects? Beats the heck out of me.

Alec MacGillis with the Washington Post describes the daily trek of Shenandoah Valley residents to jobs in Fairfax County: gathering in the park-and-ride at 3:50 a.m. and piling into vans for a 77-mile trip. Writes MacGillis:

It has come to this in the Washington region, where an imbalance of housing and jobs produces commutes that stagger the imagination and confound the biological clock: Every weekday, seven vans set off from Luray and six other far-flung locations with 55 passengers bound for a single workplace: the physical plant shop at George Mason University in Fairfax. The college looks so far afield for carpenters and electricians that it has started letting workers use campus vans for the commute. …

George Mason’s predawn van pools may seem like just another example of the extreme commutes in a region where roads are illuminated with brake lights well before sunbeams, but they challenge the assumptions behind the trend. The conventional explanation is that people are moving farther out for tranquility and more affordable homes and paying for them with a long commute.

The Luray riders serve as a reminder that there is another dynamic. They are not exurban wanderers but people with lives deeply rooted in towns far away who would have nothing to do with the Washington area if not for this: It’s the only place they can find work.