Bacon's Rebellion

Mass transit is one of those ideas that may sound better in theory than in practice, especially when the public sector is in charge. The Washington Metro is an undisputed managerial disaster, and the Virginia Railway Express ain’t lookin’ too sharp right now either.

The Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star has the goods: Last year, from July through November, trains were late on the Fredericksburg line 30 percent-40 percent of the time. Then the service had its first derailment in January, which shut down service for the rest of the day.

Lo and behold, what happened next? Ridership declined.

During the first three months of 2006, ridership was down an average of 4.2 percent compared with the first three months of 2005. … VRE knows there is a connection between the dip in passengers and delays, spokesman Mark Roeber said.

Update: I cry “uncle.” It was rash of me to suggest that VRE’s on-time performance problems are related to its status as a state entity. VRE’s problems may well be attributable to its ticklish relationship with CSX Corp., which owns the railroad tracks, and the priority CSX gives its freight trains. I have no evidence to suggest otherwise. (See reader comments for criticism of my stance.)

As lawmakers deadlock over taxes and transportation, they should pay heed to what’s happening in Virginia outside the state capitol complex — especially to what’s happening in the private sector, where people invest their own money, not the taxpayers’. Vienna-based KSI Services, one of the nation’s 20 largest developers, is totally revamping its business plan. Reversing its traditional emphasis on suburban sprawl-styled development, the company will focus on “Transit Oriented Development.” The company has announced plans for seven new transit-friendly communities near rail and Metro stations in Northern Virginia.

In “Tipping Point,” writer Peter Galuszka finds that the dramatic shift in KSI corporate strategy is illustrative of a national trend driven by changing demographics and consumer preferences, increasing traffic congestion and the rising cost of car ownership. KSI is betting that it can sell and lease more real estate (like Harbor Station, in rendering above) by marketing mass transit and other alternatives to the one-man-one-automobile lifestyle. In an existing project, Residences at Lorton Station, KSI is promoting slugging, van pooling and Flex Cars. Two-driver families can save up to $7,000 a year if they can live without one of their cars.

There is so much underutilized land near Metro and rail lines in Northern Virginia, observes E M Risse, a fellow Bacon’s Rebellion columnist, that redevelopment around those transit nodes could provide enough housing and related development to accommodate the region’s population growth for the next 20 years — or longer. It makes sense to encourage growth to take place where infrastructure — not just roads, but utilities and public services — already exist.

While the private sector is adapting to the new market realities, Virginia’s lawmakers remain committed to the notion that the answer to Virginia’s transportation woes is to find more money somewhere, whether through taxes, tolls, budget surpluses or privatization, mainly to build more roads. Admittedly, lawmakers do seem willing to make transit a larger part of the budget mix, but transit will fall far short of its potential unless the right kind of transit-friendly development takes place around existing and proposed rail stations. Many obstacles to development, especially at the local level, must be addressed.

I suppose you have to be a political junky to appreciate Attorney General Bob McDonnell’s humor at the 58th annual shad planking, but I found some of his jokes pretty amusing. You can read them all here. Read them soon, though. Most have a shorter shelf life than a politician’s campaign promise. A sampling of the jokes that tickled my funny bone:

• Jim Webb is with us. Jim, as a fellow veteran, I salute your service. But I am a little confused; does your campaign as a Democrat for Senate mean that your annual Summer Republican Cook-Out is canceled? Just need to know if we should reschedule. … Jim is already doing his part to fit into the party of John Kerry. After all, Jim Webb was for George Allen before he was against him.
• It has been a contentious session as you know. Unfortunately it now seems like thing have gotten even worse. Last update I heard: Speaker Bill Howell has introduced the Nebraska Plan, calling for a unicameral legislature with the abolition of the Senate. In a rare show of unity the House passed the bill overwhelmingly.
• And I’ve been doing a lot of outreach in office, including the brave new world of the Blogs. I might be the only officeholder who has spoken to the real Larry Sabato and the blogger named “Not Larry Sabato” all in the same day.

Update: Columnist Ray McAllister notes the evolution of the Shad Planking from a colorful “good ol’ boy” event into a yuppified garden party.

Got an email memo from Sen. George Allen on Illegal Immigration to Mr. and Mrs. Virginia (April 7, 2006).

“The legislative priority should be to secure our borders and stop the flow of illegal entry. A country that cannot control its borders, cannot control its own destiny. I have advocated and supported measures to address this neglected responsibility with more border patrol personnel, detention centers, sensors and virtual and physical fences where necessary to stem the flow.”

This is key to fixing the problem and a wedge issue to winning the GOP nomination and the election in 08.

No policy on what to do with the 11 or 12 million or who knows how many illegal aliens in the U.S. is worth anything until we, as a Nation, decide to close and control the border or not. Nothing matters until that problem is solved first.

Our current Republican President has failed in his Constitutional duty to protect the Nation.

I’m one of the voters looking for a candidate who will enforce the borders – immediately. Then, we can consider the alternatives for illegal aliens in country.

Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge, has blamed Virginia’s tax-and-spend policies for the Ford Motor Co.’s decision to close its Norfolk pickup-truck assembly plant. The Newport News Daily News quotes him as follows, comparing Virginia to Michigan:

“We are reaping the same results from this type of tax-and-spend policy with the events in Norfolk and the announcement of the Ford plant closing,” he said. “We’re seeing the same effects that Michigan has seen from their tax and spend policies.”

I agree with Cline’s premise that Virginia has adopted a tax-and-spend policy towards transportation, and I totally support his effort to hold the line on tax increases. But I also think it’s important to base arguments on well-founded facts. And the fact is, Cline has absolutely no evidence that Virginia’s tax burden — which, as the Kaine administration has pointed out, is relatively low compared to other states — was responsible for the Ford announcement.

Based on the press reports I’ve seen, Ford has given only the vaguest of explanations for its decision to shut down the Norfolk plant. The company has indicated that it wants to shift to a new system of flexible manufacturing, a system that entails the ability to shift production rapidly and inexpensively from one auto model to another. This new methodology requires a very different factory layout than the old manufacturing paradigm in which auto plants produced long runs of the same model.

I would conjecture that Ford’s Norfolk plant, which was built in 1925 — making it 80 years old — has a layout and configuration, literally locked in steel and cement, that is impossible to adapt to flexible manufacturing methods. I don’t know this to be the fact, but it sounds far more plausible than the notion that Virginia’s business taxes were too onerous. It would be helpful if the reporters covering the Norfolk plant closing would probe that angle.

Based on the information disclosed so far, there is no evidence to justify pinning the Norfolk plant closing on Virginia’s “tax-and-spend Democrats.” If anything, one could plausibly argue that Virginia’s business tax burden was a point in favor of the Norfolk plant. But we just don’t know because Ford isn’t releasing details.

The case for low taxes must be built on supportable facts, not fanciful speculation, or we risk losing credibility with the public.

Update: Here’s the Virginian-Pilot’s coverage, quoting a Ford spokesman as explicitly denying that taxes were a factor in the decision… And the reaction of Will Vehrs at Commonwealth Conservative.

Never let it be said that I refuse to publish information that contradicts my pet theories. The Kaine administration is touting two studies affirming Virginia’s status, despite recent tax increases, as a “low tax” state.

The Tax Foundation ranks Virginia 41st in state/local tax burden (with 1st being the worst) — an improvement since the 1970s, when it logged as high as 34th in the nation. State/local taxes amount to 9.5 percent of state income, compared to 10.6 percent nationally.

According to the Council on State Taxation, Virginia has the lowest state/local business taxes in the country expressed as a percentage of gross state product: 3.7 percent compared to 4.8 percent nationally. Let that sink in — lowest business taxes in the nation. Pretty impressive.

I still would argue that in a globally competitive economy, Virginia needs to focus relentlessly on driving down the cost of state/local government while at the same time ensuring the efficient functioning of core obligations. Just because we’re one of the better states in the nation doesn’t mean we’re good enough to maintain our prosperity in the face of competition from China, India, the Asian Tigers and the more dynamic European countries. Still, intellectual honesty compels me to concede that, in light of these studies, it is difficult to argue that Virginia is grotesquely overtaxed.

Update: For another take on these studies, read Dan Radmacher’s column in the Roanoke Times. Too bad he uses these studies as a launching pad to justify higher taxes for transportation!

Excerpts from “The declaration and Remonstrance of Sir William Berkeley his most sacred Majesties Governor and Captain Generall of Virginia“:

“I am of opinion that itt is onely for divells to be incorrigable, and men of principles like the worst of divells, and these he hath, if truth be reported to me, of diverse of his expressions of Atheisme, tending to take away all Religion and Laws….”

“Perhapps I have erred in things I know not of, if I have I am soe conscious of humane frailty, and my owne defects, that I will not onely acknowledge them, but repent of, and amend them, and not like the Rebell Bacon persist in an error, onely because I have comitted itt, and tells me in diverse of his Letters that itt is not for his honnor to confess a fault…”

“I will take Councell of wiser men then my selfe, but Mr. Bacon hath none about him, but the lowest of the people….”

“I doe therefore againe declair that Bacon proceedeing against all Laws of all Nations modern and ancient, is Rebell to his sacred Majesty and this Country…”

The most recent edition of the Richmond Free Press (no link available) features an article with the headline of “NAACP cool to Cannaday.” Apparently, the Virginia branch of the historic civil rights organization is lukewarm about Gov. Kaine’s selection of respected African-American educator, Dr. Billy Cannaday, as Superintendent of Public Instruction for the Commonwealth. Cannaday, who will finish out the school year as head of Chesterfield’s school system, initially drew the ire of the NAACP three years ago for refusing to close county schools in honor of the Martin Luther King holiday. After a career in the Hampton School system, Dr. Cannaday made history as the first African-American superintendent in the history of majority-white Chesterfield County, and with this appointment he will become the first African American to hold the statewide position. He is widely-regarded as an effective leader and top-notch educator.

Apparently, this is not enough to assuage the doubts of King Salim Khalfani, head of the Virginia NAACP. He told Free Press reporters that “normally when a person of African descent is appointed to a high-ranking position, I would be enthusiastic or even celebratory. Not this time,” though he acknowledged that the county NAACP chapter “had nothing negative to report” about Dr. Cannaday’s performance. Thus, some three years after the King Day snafu – when Cannaday decided to keep Chesterfield kids in school to ensure that the system met its instructional time requirements – time has not yet healed the wounds that Mr. Khalfani feels were caused by this move.

The Free Press article ran during the same week as a Washington Post report which explored how black students in Fairfax County – the wealthiest community in Virginia – lagged woefully behind their counterparts in other districts, even those from lesser-regarded schools in poorer communities such as those found in Metro Richmond. Ironically, under Cannaday’s watch, black students in Chesterfield performed at or above the level of black students statewide. Though Chesterfield’s black students were outperformed by the county’s white students, on balance, those black students (who comprise over 20% of the school system’s population) met the relevant state and federal targets for student testing performance.

Additionally, Cannaday has been lauded by the Chesterfield School Board for his 6-year tenure there, where he oversaw increased enrollments, curricular changes, and new construction. His work in that county culminated in him being named “Superintendent of the Year” for the entire Commonwealth in 2005 by his peers. These accomplishments – which should be attributed more to the content of Cannaday’s character than the color of his skin – were not noted by the Free Press article or in the comments of the Virginia NAACP official.

The bottom line is that while the leader of the Virginia NAACP was busy nursing a grudge against him, Dr. Cannaday simply did his job well, which resulted in better outcomes for black students under his watch. He can be expected to bring those same talents to bear on the entire Commonwealth, ensuring that all Virginia students get a chance to excel. After such a lukewarm reception, it remains to be seen whether the Virginia NAACP chooses to work with Cannaday or against him. One has to wonder just what Dr. King would think about that.

That’s the title of another article in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal report, “One Billion Cars.” The WSJ has stumbled onto a truth that, so far, has eluded Virginia pundits and policy makers.

Until recently, expanding highways and roads has been the traditional response to congestion. But in many areas of the world, such expansion isn’t feasible anymore because of lack of funding, opposition from residents or simply lack of room.

The WSJ highlights a variety of transportation alternatives that are being explored around the world. They include (with cutesy WSJ subheads):

• Rubbing out Rubbernecking. Accidents and stalled cars breed rubbernecking and congestion. Many communities are investing in “incident management” capabilities to get those cars off the roads as quickly as possible.
• Car-Road Talk. Better traffic light sequencing can move more cars through the same fixed roadway.
• Paying for a Lane. HOT lanes and congestion pricing will encourage some drivers to find alternatives to driving alone during during periods of peak demand.
• Alternative-Transit Bonus. Encourage employees to carpool, use mass transit or telecommute through subsidies, vouchers and ride-matching websites.
• Quick Notice for Drivers. Provide drivers with more real-time information about traffic conditions so they can steer clear of gridlock.

Bacon’s Rebellion has explored each of these alternatives. My point in quoting the Wall Street Journal is to make it clear that these aren’t quirky ideas advanced by some eccentric blogger. Other people around the world are pursuing these ideas. Even the Virginia Department of Transportation is pursuing them. Unfortunately, the Traffic Light Sequencing lobby and the Carpooling lobby in Virginia can’t mobilize millions of dollars in campaign contributions, so, when it comes to funding, their ideas don’t get much of a hearing.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal published a special section entitled “One Billion Cars” that explored the ramifications of an increasingly auto-centric world. According to a graph in the report, the global fleet of cars and light trucks in 2005 was roughly 750 million. The number should shoot well past 1.0 billion by 2020, and 1.2 billion by 2030. Global gasoline consumption is expected to surge from roughly 275 billion gallons of “gasoline equivalent” in 2005 to 400 billion by 2030.

Now, I’m not one of those alarmists who thinks that we’re running out of oil. As gas prices rise, free markets will introduce new technologies — witness the new petroleum-cracking catalysts unveiled recently by Richmond-based Albemarle Corporation, which can refine lower-quality oil reserves more efficiently — and new substitutes like bio-fuels. Whether those technologies/substitutes can come online fast enough to compensate for increasing demand from China, India and other developing nations, however, is questionable. Combine rising global demand with unstable oil supplies, and the price of oil is likely to continue increasing. U.S. crude oil futures set a new record yesterday, hitting nearly $71 per barrel.

As noted in a previous post, “Virginia’s Vulnerability to Oil Shocks,” Virginians consumed 527 gallons of gasoline per capita in 2004. Of course, that understates the impact on motorists, because not everyone drives. Virginians consumed 979 gallons per motorist in 2004, according to the Division of Motor Vehicles. Each $1 increase in the price of gasoline taxes relieves the typical driver of nearly $1,000 in after-tax, take-home pay. A household with two drivers sees a reduction of nearly $2,000 per year!

I cannot stress this enough: Our scattered, disconnected, low-density pattern of development is a significant contributor to the increase in Vehicle Miles Driven and gasoline consumption. Over the past half-century, Virginians have built an autocentric physical infrastructure adapted to a cheap-energy world but maladapted to an expensive-energy world. All the signs are there for anyone who’s paying attention. But our political leaders continue their Business As Usual transportation and land use policies, differing only in the extent to which they are willing to dedicate new revenue streams to perpetuate the ancien energy regime.

The issue in the 2006 transportation debate is not just $1 billion a year in taxes: It’s the nearly $15 billion a year Virginians spend on gasoline, the $20 billion a year a few years from now and the $25 billion a year a few years after that. In a classic case of the blind leading the blind — blind politicians leading blind citizens and egged on by blind editorial pundits — our elected leaders are redoubling their commitment to energy-intensive transportation and land use policies that will diminish Virginians’ economic competitiveness and standard of living for decades to come.

Claudia Emerson, a Chatham native, University of Virginia graduate and, oh, by the way, an associate professor at Mary Washington University, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry this year, for her work, “Late Wife.”

From the book jacket: “In Late Wife, a woman explores her disappearance from one life and reappearance in another as she addresses her former husband, herself, and her new husband in a series of epistolary poems.”

A sample from the poem “Artifact”:

For three years you lived in your house
just as it was before she died: your wedding
portrait on the mantel, her clothes hanging
in the closet, her hair still in the brush.

More from the Associated Press.

Note to the Pulitzer Prize Board biography writers: It’s “Chatham,” not “Chattham.” Down here in Virginia, it matters.

I praised University of Virginia President John Casteen in a recent post for evicting students who’d staged a sit-in at Madison Hall over the issue of a living wage. I based my comments on reporting by the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Now comes an e-mail from four professors/administrators associated with the Virginia Organizing Project asserting that “Casteen Betrayed University of Virginia students.”

Based on the contents of the e-mail, I have even more respect for the way Casteen handled the situation. According to the four professors:

On day one of the protest, Casteen denied food to the students, refused to allow faculty supporters to enter the building to confer with them and arrested one of the professors who tried to enter. On day two of the sit-in, Casteen ordered that wireless internet services be cut-off, disabling students from sending in their class assignments, and continued to refuse entrance to faculty supporters who brought food, water and books to the protestors.

Looks to me like Casteen was making every effort to be reasonable, increasing pressure on the students very slowly and giving them every opportunity to depart without being arrested. Obviously, the students didn’t take the hint.

By pursuing these strategies, Casteen ensured that by the time he met with students — at 2 a.m. on April 15 — to open negotiations, the students would be hungry, sleep deprived and without counsel.

First reaction: Waaaah! Second reaction: After two days of this nonsense, Casteen met with these people at two o’clock in the middle of the night? The guy must have the patience of a saint!

[The students] have followed all of the proper channels by making presentations to the Board of Visitors, meeting with Casteen and other high ranking officials, and lobbying for alumni support. It is only after eight years of attempting to make headway on this issue that the students took the step of civil disobedience.

Someone needs to explain to these people that you don’t always get your way, even when you’ve exhausted every means of persuasion. It’s called democracy and the rule of law. It’s imperfect, but it beats legislation by sit-in.

The April 17, 2006, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been published. The entire edition can be viewed here. Columns include:

On the Chopra Block
Cutting costs in the Medicaid system may sound an odd task for Virginia’s Secretary of Technology. But that’s only if you don’t know Aneesh Chopra.
by James A. Bacon

Making the Disaster Fit the Plan
The Congressional analysis is in: The Katrina disaster represented a failure at all levels of government, not only to plan ahead, but to communicate and react to unforeseen developments. by Doug Koelemay

Howell Gets Feisty
One reason the House of Delegates is holding firm in the budget debate this year is that House Speaker Bill Howell is more assertive, even combative, than ever before.
by Patrick McSweeney

Kaine Reneges Again
Tim Kaine has broken three important promises in a mere three months: First transportation taxes, then land use reform, and now the marriage amendment.
by Patrick McSweeney

Crippling the Disabled
Virginia’s educational lobby upholds its own institutional interests above those of the most vulnerable members of our society, disabled children.
by Chris Braunlich

Governed by Demagogues
Virginia politicians are not simply spinning the truth — they’re engaging in outright demagoguery. And they will continue as long as the electorate remains apathetic.
by Philip Rodokanakis

Time to Choose: Are You a Peasant or a Patriot?
The royals running Virginia’s House of Lords, er, Senate, think the populace is too supine to protest another tax increase.
by Jim Bowden

When Democrats Attack
The Democratic blogosphere has a problem with the fact that U.S. Senatorial hopeful Harris Miller is a rich Washington lobbyist. My reaction: So what?
by Conaway Haskins

Race, Class and Affirmative Action
Jim Webb supports affirmative action for African-Americans to counteract historical injustices of slavery and segregation. But poverty, he notes, does not discriminate on the basis of skin color.
by Conaway Haskins

Nice & Curious Questions:
After Monticello: Modern Architecture in Virginia
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

From Lieutenant Governor William T. Bolling comes an e-mail this morning reminding recipients that today is “tax freedom day” in the Old Dominion: the day that Virginians, on average, stop working to pay taxes and start working for themselves. He adds this commentary:

My friends, when you have to work for 107 days every year to pay your taxes, that is excessive taxation. …

We used to hear that Virginia was one of the lowest tax states in the nation. While that used to be true, it is true no more. The Tax Foundation reports that Virginia now has the 17th highest state and local tax burden in the nation. That puts us in the top 1/3 of states when it comes to taxing our citizens. Nonetheless, there are still those who think we don’t pay enough taxes. They are back again this year asking us to pay higher taxes, albeit to support a worthy goal of increasing funding for transportation.

But with Virginia’s economy growing at a rate of 11% per year, and with state spending set to increase by 19% in the upcoming biennium, we do not need to raise taxes to fund transportation. What we need is the fiscal discipline to direct our resources to our highest priorities.

When ranked by total dollars exacted, Virginia has become a high-tax state. The Axis of Taxes points out, with some legitimacy, that Virginia is a moderate/low-tax state when ranked by taxes as a percentage of income. In other words, because Virginians have higher-than-average incomes, the tax burden isn’t as heavy.

I don’t find that riposte particularly consoling. The harder I work to make more money, I can be assured that my state and local governments will be soaking up their “fair share” of my income. I’d prefer to see state/local governments that committed themselves with unremitting zeal to boosting productivity, re-engineering processes and re-imagining services to meet core needs more cost effectively. That’s something we did for two years of the Warner administration while the state was in financial “crisis.” Now we’ve reverted to a multi-year phase of aggressive expansion — which will last as long as the current economic expansion does.

Over on Commonwealth Conservative, Will Vehrs takes note of an article in yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch suggesting that Toyota is looking at the Roanoke region as a location for a new auto assembly plant — welcome news indeed after Ford announced its plan to close its Norfolk truck assembly plant in 2008. But the unidentified Kaine administration official who leaked the news might have queered the deal. As Vehrs observes:

This anonymous Kaine official is violating a fundamental tenet of economic development – confidentiality of projects under negotiation.

Let’s hope that Toyota overlooks this gaffe. But whoever released the information needs a serious talking to — if he/she hasn’t already gotten one.

Update: One of our readers (see comments on this post) notes that The New York Times first broke the story and suggests that the Kaine administration did no more than confirm what had already been reported. That mitigates the offense somewhat, but I would hasten to add that in my years of covering economic development, the only response that I’ve ever gotten on a hot economic-development story was “no comment.”