Bacon's Rebellion

  • No Tract Is an Island

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    James A. Bacon

    West Broad Village, the large mixed-use development underway on West Broad Street, rates cover story treatment in the Metro Business of today’s Times-Dispatch. The 115-acre project, which is rising upon one of the few remaining undeveloped tracts in the Short Pump area, will contain about 550 town houses and 340 apartments, 420,000 square feet of retail space and 668,000 of office space.

    It’s hard to imagine that western Henrico County needs more retail space – especially so close to the 1.2 million square feet in nearby Short Pump Town Center, not to mention the big boxes lining West Broad and Pump Road — during an economic slowdown that has bit deeply into consumer pocketbooks. But “Village” officials profess optimism.

    One of the very things crimping the economy – rising gasoline prices – should help the residential component of project.

    With gasoline prices at $4 per gallon, people want to simplify their lives, maintains Patrick Ashley, a sales and marketing manager for Ryan Homes. “People are telling me that the higher gas prices, the more attractive West End Broad gets,” he told Louis Llovio with the Times-Dispatch. “Residents will be able to walk to the grocery store and to work: go to dinner and shop, all without leaving the area.”

    Continued Ashley: “For someone who lives in, let’s say, in Goochland and works in Innsbrook or even downtown, this is a great spot because the commutes are shorter. After work and the weekends, they can just park their cars and not have to worry about it.”

    Are higher gasoline prices enough to goose sales at West Broad Village? Will households forsake their single-family dwellings with big lots just to shave a few bucks off their weekly gasoline bill? The Villages at West Broad could provide an interesting test of consumer preferences — at least in the Richmond metropolitan region.

    “Live, work play” is the new mantra in real estate development as rising gasoline prices prove punishing to Richmond-area road warriors. The project literature calls upon the vocabulary of the New Urbanism school of urban design, which calls for mixed uses, people-friendly streetscapes and a balance between accommodating the interests of pedestrians and automobiles. While West Broad Village makes concessions to the surrounding auto-centric landscape of Henrico County — it surrounds its retail stores with the usual vast parking lots — it provides parking decks for apartment dwellers and homeowners, and it has paid keen attention to creating designing “walkable,” pedestrian-friendly streets. As the website explains:

    There are seamless transitions from neighborhoods, to the “main street,” to the public spaces and even to the adjacent school and park. Collectively, these spaces create a dynamic community framework, a community of neighborhoods social interaction can take place. …

    Tree lined streets with comfortable sidewalks bring back the small town feeling of a community in West Broad Village. Streets will be designed to a pedestrian scale without compromising the automobile. Intersections will consider the pedestrian, bicycle and vehicular movement. Multiple connections and traffic calming will be integrated into the network design.

    The developers are saying all the right things. How well the project will work in practice, wedged as it is into a classic landscape of “suburban sprawl,” is another question. West Broad Village is sealed off from neighboring development by a combination of wetlands, forested areas, upland reserves and parks, a “continuous natural edge.” The project map indicates little connectivity between the “village” and surrounding communities — other than the six-lane highway on West Broad Street. Traffic in and out of West Broad Village will add to the already horrendous congestion along West Broad.

    Unlike the genuine urban environments that the project emulates, the Village’s streets and sidewalks do not knit the village into the fabric of surrounding neighborhoods. West Broad Village is a pedestrian oasis in a sea of auto-centric, big boxes, shopping centers and cul-de-sac residential development. The village cannot create an authentic urban experience. Still, with gas prices rising, retailers and homeowners may find even a faux-urban oasis preferable to the auto-dependent, suburban alternative.

    (Cross posted with R’Biz.)

  • NATIONAL DISASTER

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    James A. Bacon

    Jim Bacon and EMR tune in on different MainStream Media outlets and today they saw different stories and came to different conclusions. Bacon reported on a Richmond Times-Dispatch op ed column by the US Secretary of Transportation (“Mary Peters on Virginia Transportation Policy”). EMR has been reading WaPo.

    In SundaySource, WaPo splashes a lot of colored ink on “An Airfare To Remember: As the Cost of Travel Soars, Couples in Long-Distance Relationships Are Feeling the Pinch.”

    True and touching but WaPo would do better to alert citizens to the economic, social and physical impact on citizen’s well being due to a deteriorating Mobility and Access system in the air, on the water and on land.

    It is all well and good to chew over the cratering of IntraRegional transport – roadway congestion, deteriorating bridges and other realities – but let us not forget InterRegional transport. The headline from a 22 June WaPo Op Ed by David Ignatius puts the air issue in perspective: “Failing Airlines, Failing Government.”

    We considered the impact of the declining health of Air Enterprises in a column “The End of Flight as We Knew It” on 21 April 2008. Things have gotten worse since. Last week the EU finally voted (640 to 30) to start forcing Air Enterprises to pay the cost of their upper atmosphere impact. That on top of fuel costs…

    For years Air interests have pumped Agency and private Capital into a system of air Mobility and Access based on cheap fuel. They have convinced smaller urban enclaves that the saviors of their community’s economy will fly in and out of town. Uncle Sugar’s pork barrel has doled out grants to build a system that now will be so expensive it will only serve a few at the top of the Ziggurat.

    Just yesterday WaPo reported that airport managers have come to the federal trough for help. (“Feeling Airlines’ Pain, Airports Seek Help in D.C.”) Sorry, Uncle Sugar has spent all his money in the casbah – protection money for cheap petrochemicals – and he has nothing to show for it but war casualties and debt.

    On the water and on land, the problem is no better. In “Interstate Crime,” (28 February 2005) we outlined some of the problems with the Interstate System and the ideas floating around to “fix” it.

    Most now understand the profound negative impact the Interstate Highway system has had on human settlement pattern – for a refresher see “Interstate Crime.” A growing number are coming to realize dysfunctional result of relying on Autonomobiles for Mobility and Access – See THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

    The foolishness of building a system of roadways that must be used by vehicles with vastly different weights and driven by persons with different skills is coming into focus as drivers get older and energy costs will result in vehicles that are smaller, lighter and more dangerous. See our 13 June Bacon’s Rebellion Blog Post “Aprera and the Tiger Riders.”

    The dialogue in Jim Bacon’s Friday 11 July post “Get Over it” on the physics of InterRegional Mobility and Access via rail makes it clear how far citizens, even citizens of good will, are from coming to a well considered judgement on a course of action with respect to any mode of travel.

    Where have the 100s of millions of dollars in transportation “research” gone over the past 60 years? To the Enterprises and Institutions that are the Haliburtons of the Autonomobile, the vehicle of choice of Business As Usual.

    It would be so nice not to have torn up the street railway system – the Federal District hopes to have its system rebuilt by 2030. And what about those thousands of miles of abandoned railroads?

    Seems like Ms. Peters should be worrying about the big picture, not giving op ed advice on finding money for IntraRegional short-term fixes. On the other hand she has not been in office for 60 years so it is hard to put all the blame on her.

    Where is Will Owen when we need him?

    EMR

  • Mary Peters on Virginia Transportation Policy

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    James A. Bacon

    Mary E. Peters, the U.S. Secretary of Transportation, has published a column in the Times-Dispatch today that displays a surprising familiarity with Virginia’s transportation-policy gridlock. Perhaps, as a federal employee, she is a resident of Virginia, which means she is affected by the actions (or non-actions) of the General Assembly. Or, perhaps her knowledge derives from the fact that Virginia is a national leader in tolling and congestion pricing — which happen to be the very remedies for the nation’s transportation woes that she advocates.

    Whatever the case, Peters makes far more sense than most national politicians who pontificate about transportation policy. She’s got the big themes right. Now she needs to work on the details.

    At the heart of her message, Virginia needs to change the way it funds transportation projects. She writes: “It makes little sense — and it’s certainly not sustainable — to increase our reliance on gasoline taxes at a time when we all recognize the need to decrease fuel consumption and increase the use of alternative fuel sources. … gasoline, car, property, and sales taxes have little or nothing to do with the use of highways and are ineffective at reducing highway congestion.”

    Translation into Bacon-ese: Transportation funding needs to address the demand side, as well as the supply side, of the equation. There needs to be a direct connection between how much, and when, people drive and how much they pay. If drivers pay their share of the cost of building and maintaining roads and highways, they won’t “demand” as much transportation capacity as if they pay by other means.

    Peters is a huge fan of variable pricing, or congestion pricing, as am I — the difference being that I recognize there is a gap between abstract economic theory and how congestion pricing is applied in the real world.

    Private toll operators, Peters says rightfully, bring private capital to the able, allowing projects to get financed that Virginia otherwise could not afford. Congestion pricing, she adds, manages transportation corridors on the basis of supply and demand, allocating scarce capacity in a manner very much like long-distance phone service.

    But the analogy with long-distance phone service is far from exact. There is abundant competition in phone service, with multiple players utilizing multiple technologies. Private toll operators strive to squelch competition in order to lock in their captive markets, as Virginians discovered when we got a peek at the contract between the Commonwealth of Virginia and Capital Beltway Express for operation of the Interstate 495 HOT lanes. (See “The Capital Beltway HOT Lane Deal.”) That was a deal, incidentally, that Peters’ office was intimately acquainted with, as the feds provided much of the low-interest financing to make it happen.

    The Beltway HOT lane contract protects the private operator’s revenue stream by imposing significant financial penalties on the state of Virginia for making transportation improvements that would undercut toll revenues. I would humbly suggest that the solution to traffic congestion is more competition, not less. On the other hand, it is questionable whether Transurban and Fluor, the joint venture partners, would have made the investment and taken on the financial risk without some assurances, so there are no easy answers.

    Still, Peters articulates the critical issues clearly when writes:

    Virginia’s leaders have a clear choice. They can ask drivers to pay more at the pump, more at the store, and more at the DMV — regardless of where they live or when they drive. Or, they can put in place direct user fees that will be targeted to areas where congestion is at its worst, and will actually cut traffic, speed commutes and improve the timeliness and quality of transit bus service. …

    Embracing direct pricing for road use would also have the added benefit of encouraging better decisions about land use, stimulate reductions in carbon-dioxide emissions and encourage more of the commonwealth’s commuters to try transit. In short, embracing tolling as a solution to Virginia’s transportation funding challenges would cut traffic, generate needed revenue, improve transit, and significantly benefit the environment.

    Now, if we could just get Madame Secretary to start talking about “balanced communities,” we’d really be making some progress!

  • Get Over It

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    James A. Bacon

    Gov. Timothy M. Kaine blasted Republicans yesterday for the collapse of the General Assembly special session on transportation, and the Republicans blasted him back. The blame game is inevitable as the pols mug for the cameras and play to the next day’s headline writers. But Kaine’s comments rang especially hollow.

    As Jim Nolan reports for the Times-Dispatch: Kaine “likened what he saw in the Republican-controlled House of Delegates to a situation comedy.

    “It was like a Seinfeld episode — a show about nothing,” Kaine told reporters at the Capitol, hours after lawmakers adjourned following a marathon 12-hour day, closing the six-day special session with no transportation fix for the state.

    “And in the House, it was a road session about nothing.”

    How rich. This comes from a governor who was so unprepared for the special session that he couldn’t even get his own party to introduce his bill in the state Senate. This comes from a governor who made zero effort to reach out to the opposition Republicans and, instead, stumped the state in series of public hearings, hoping to generate public sentiment — that never came — to pressure the Rs into capitulating.

    News flash: The entire special session was “about nothing.” If you want to point the finger, point it at the guy who called the special session. That wasn’t Sen. Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, chief muckety-muck of the senate. It wasn’t Del. William Howell, R-Stafford, head honcho in the House.

    Hands down, the transportation special section has been the biggest gaffe of the Kaine administration. The sooner the governor drops the subject and moves on to other things, the better of he’ll be.

  • It’s All Over But the Name Calling

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    James A. Bacon

    The special General Assembly session on transportation collapsed in a heap yesterday, with no one agreeing on much of anything. None of the three major proposals for raising revenue to fund transportation improvements managed to get any traction.

    There were three major proposals on the table, one submitted by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, one by the Democratic-controlled state Senate and one by the Republican-controlled House of Delegates. (Actually, according to press reports, the House trotted out a couple of different ideas.) All died. Predictably, Democrats blamed Republicans, Republicans blamed Democrats and editorial writers wrung their hands at the inability to achieve a consensus.

    Here’s the reason that consensus is so difficult to achieve: When the debate is about raising taxes, the issue quickly focuses on who pays. While most of the constituencies involved want more money to spend, they all want someone else to pay. The real estate industry opposes grantor’s taxes. The auto dealer’s lobby oppose car titling taxes. Defenders of the poor oppose the gasoline tax. Richmonders don’t want to pay for roads in Northern Virginia.

    As I’ve noted before, politics is all about getting someone else to pay for what you want. With the terms of debate framed the way they are, a consensus is unachievable. The tax hikes are a zero sum game. If someone comes out ahead, someone else loses. When there is no electoral groundswell for higher taxes and the agitation comes overwhelmingly from business interests , the debate inevitably pits one set of business constituencies and regional interests against another — a recipe for gridlock.

    The only way to create a political solution is to craft legislation based on user pays principles: If you pay higher taxes or tolls, in return you get improvements to infrastructure that you use. Voters aren’t willing to raise a bunch of money and hand it over to the government — either at the state level or the regional level — where it disappears into a black box where only the special interests can influence how it is spent. Citizens want ironclad guarantees that they get something in return for their money.

    As I’ve preached over and over, the first place to start is with the gas tax. The problem with the Saslaw bill is that it would raise a whole lot of money and distribute it via the same arcane and opaque funding formulas and project-selection processes, subject to manipulation by the special interests, that exist today. To win voter trust, we need to set the gas tax not at some arbitrary level but at whatever level it takes to do two things: (a) maintain state roads and bridges, and (b) provide state matching moneys for federally funded projects. And nothing else.

    In the short run, such a measure would actually provide citizens a tax cut. That would make it easier to sell politically. Over the longer haul, as maintenance costs escalate, the gas tax eventually would float higher than the 17.5 cents per gallon charged today, bringing more money into the system than we have now. But citizens would be willing to accept those increases because they know that their tax money was paying for their share of road maintenance, not funding boondoggles.

    How, then, do we pay for new roads? I’ve explained it all before. Toll roads, whether operated by the state or by public-private partnerships. Congestion pricing corridors. Impact fees. Community Development Authorities. If road projects can’t support themselves in the open marketplace, there is no economic justification for them and they shouldn’t be built. Virginians would soon learn that the transportation “crisis” isn’t a crisis for anyone but the rent seekers who feed at the government trough.

  • The Capital Beltway HOT Lane Deal: Did the Kaniacs Give Away the Store?

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    James A. Bacon

    TheNewspaper.com, a blog that bills itself as a journal of the politics of driving, has made quite a scoop: It has obtained a copy of nine pages excerpted from the “Comprehensive Agreement Relating to the Route 495 HOT Lanes in Virginia Project,” dated Dec. 19, 2007, between the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Capital Beltway Express LLC.

    The blog summary of the contracts seems to confirm many of the worst fears of those who harbor doubts and suspicions about the HOT lane agreement — and I, a staunch advocate of HOT lanes, may well be forced to eat humble pie. In the end, I base my opinions on what the facts are, not what I wish them to be, so I bring this information to the attention of Bacon’s Rebellion readers to dissect and ruminate upon.

    While the agreement asserts VDOT’s “unfettered right” to make transportation improvements, in the interpretation of theNewspaper.com it contains measures that would, in fact, curtail VDOT’s latitude to make improvements to the I-495 Beltway and other projects that might threaten HOT lane toll revenue. Writes the blog:

    If [VDOT] determines that additional traffic lanes on the Capital Beltway Corridor are in the state’s best interests, the department shall consult with the concessionaire [Capital Beltway Express, a joint venture of Transurban and Fluor] as to an appropriate strategy to implement such additional traffic lanes. At the department’s sole discretion [it shall] permit the construction of additional lanes as part of the project with a view to minimizing any detrimental impact on the project or its ability to generate revenues…”

    As theNewspaper.com boils down the meaning of that last phrase, the agreement is structured “to ensure the area remains sufficiently congested so that motorists will have an incentive to pay to use the toll lanes.”

    The contract considers any improvement to the Beltway to be a “Department Project Enhancement,” which could trigger a “compensation event.” In such an event, Virginia taxpayers could be required to pay Transurban/Fluor compensation for lost toll revenue. Observes theNewspaper.com: “Given VDOT’s stated lack of funding, adding an extra monetary premium to the cost of any improvements effectively gives the foreign company the ability to prevent such projects from happening.”

    Compensation events are not limited to Beltway improvements. They extend to improved connections between the Beltway’s general purpose lanes and Interstate 66, and the Dulles Toll Road, says theNewspaper.com. In such an event, an “independent engineer” would conduct a traffic impact study and determine the compensation due the concessionaire.

    (I’m not sure that I read the agreement that way. From my perusal of page 69, the agreement specifically permits VDOT to make the improvements mentioned above, at its own expense, provided that… blah, blah, woof, woof… a bunch of impenetrable legalese follows. Readers better versed in reading contracts than I are invited to weigh in.)

    The agreement also contains provisions to discourage any increase in the number of motorists sharing rides, says theNewspaper.com. Quoting the agreement, “The department agrees to pay the concessionaire, subject to Section 20.18, amounts equal to 70% of the average toll applicable to vehicles paying tolls for the number of High Occupancy Vehicles exceeding a threshhold of 24% of the total flow of all permitted vehicles…”

    Bottom line: If escalating gasoline prices revives the popularity of carpooling, taxpayers could wind up making multimillion-dollar payments to Capital Beltway Express.

    The blogger casts this contract, which he regards as highly beneficial to Capital Beltway Express, in the light of recent revelations that Transurban, an Australian company, had mistakenly made $172,000 in contributions to various PACs of both parties. Recognizing that foreign contributions are illegal, the company has asked for its money back. See “Bring Your Own Checkbook” for details.

    (See also a discussion of how the firm benefited from federal financing in “Federal Subsidies for HOT lanes,” and the revelation that Capital Beltway Express will be required to maintain minimum HOT lane speeds of only 45 mph in “HOT Lanes at 45 MPH Not So Hot.”)

    I have contacted the Kaine administration press office asking for a response. With the General Assembly convening for the transportation special session, the spokesman I talked to said he could not promise to get back to me immediately, but would do his best. I will post the response as soon as I get it.

    (Hat tip: Jim Wamsley.)

  • The Latest Salvos in the Energy War

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    James A. Bacon

    Wise County coal plant: The Wise Energy Coalition for Virginia has vowed to fight in court the construction of Dominion’s hybrid energy plant in Wise County. Although Dominion has obtained needed approvals from the State Corporation Commission and Air Pollution Control board, opponents say they intend to challenge the legality of the air pollution permits on the grounds that they do no require Dominion to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

    Last week a state judge invalidated an air pollution permit for a planned coal-fired plant in Georgia because the permit established no carbon dioxide limits. The judge relied upon a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows carbon dioxide to be regulated as a pollutant, reports the Roanoke Times. But the federal government has yet to issue such regulations.The environmental battle against coal is gaining momentum. The Coalition notes approvingly on its website that New York’s Attorney General started an investigation of Dominion, “questioning whether the company adequately disclosed investor risks associated with new coal-fired power plants.” If built, Dominion’s proposed coal-fired power plant would worsen global warming, accelerate mountain-top removal coal mining, encourage the construction of new transmission lines and further pollution Virginia’s air, land and waters.

    Offshore drilling: Meanwhile, General Assembly Republicans are still pushing offshore drilling. Although Democrats have killed an offshore drilling bill on the Senate side, Republicans pushed a measure, HB 6006, through the House Rules Committee in a 12-3 vote. The bill would dedicate future revenues and royalties from offshore drilling to Virginia’s Transportation Trust Fund.

    The Virginian-Pilot covers the issues here.

  • Virginia’s Transportation Debate with Oil at $150 Per Barrel

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    James A. Bacon

    It’s amazing how, in just a year or two, energy issues have pushed themselves to the forefront of the Virginia public policy agenda. Electric power… offshore drilling… transportation and gasoline consumption… Climate change and conservation… It’s equally astounding how little lawmakers’ thinking has actually changed.

    Energy policy was quiescent for more than two decades following the collapse of oil, coal and natural gas prices in the early 1980s. Virginia lawmakers were somnambulant, spending billions of dollars yearly on a transportation system designed around the premise of cheap energy. Even as soaring oil costs simultaneously (a) push up the cost of laying asphalt on new roads and highways and (b) depress demand, only a small number of state legislators appear willing to rethink transportation policy in a fundamental way.

    The contours of the transportation debate have changed little since petroleum was selling at $20 per barrel in 2002: There’s nothing wrong with the system that more revenues and more construction won’t fix. What passes for enlightened thinking today is the idea that instead of just throwing money at roads, we now need to throw money at roads and transit — but without enacting the land use reforms required to make transit work.

    It was only last September when I was blogging about the impact of oil at $100 per barrel. (See “Quality of Life, Human Settlement Patterns and $100 Oil.”) Not long ago, the price busted through the $150 per barrel level. What will it take to change attitudes? Oil selling at $200 per barrel? $250?

    I came across a short piece written by Jeff Rubin with CIBC World Markets. Demand in China and other developing countries continues unabated, often stimulated by subsidies, he writes. Recent Saudi promises to increase oil production by 200,000 barrels per day are meaningless compared to the four million-barrels-per-day decline in oil production expected for the rest of the globe this year. Meanwhile, supplies are restricted in oil-producing regions by under-investment in nationally owned oil companies (Venezuela, Mexico), political instability (Nigeria) or environmental restrictions (the United States).

    Rubin projects oil selling at $200 by 2010, only two years hence, which, under prevailing refinery margins, will translate into $7-per-gallon gasoline. He continues:

    As gasoline prices climb inexorably, American driving habits are going to have to undergo a massive change, mimicking the driving habits long adopted by Europeans who have faced much higher gas prices. Average miles driven will likely fall by as much as 15%, while the market share of light trucks, SUVs and vans will be literally halved, reversing the trend of the last fifteen years. But the most fundamental, and unprecedented change will be in the number of vehicles on the road.

    Over the next four years, we are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history. By 2012, there should be some 10 million fewer vehicles on American roadways than there are today — a decline that dwarfs all previous adjustments including those during the two OPEC oil shocks. … Many of those in the exit lane will be low income Americans from households earning less than $25,000 per year. Incredibly, over 10 million of those American households own more than one car.

    Soon they won’t own any.

    Let me repeat a couple of key phrases: Average miles driven will fall by as much as 15 percent…. We are likely to witness the greatest mass exodus of vehicles off America’s highways in history… Soon, some 10 million poor American households might find themselves unable to afford a car…

    The debate over transportation funding is based on the same assumptions that underpinned the Warner-era VTrans2025 study, which listed $108 billion in “unmet transportation needs” over the next 20 years based on anticipated population growth and vehicle miles driven. To persist in such a debate in the face of soaring oil prices is breath-taking folly.

  • VCU and Tobacco: A Long and Profitable History

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    James A. Bacon

    Back in late May, I posted an opinion piece suggesting that The New York Times was correct in questioning the contractual relationship between Virginia Commonwealth University and Philip Morris USA. VCU seemed to be giving away the shop with research contracts that forbade discussion of their existence and required VCU to inform the tobacco giant right away if regulators or the media asked questions.

    In Richmond, of course, the latter wasn’t really necessary since the Times-Dispatch, whose top brass has tight ties to VCU, decided there was no story after a very cursory look. I, on the other hand, started getting phone calls and e-mails from current and former members of the VCU community who were greatly concerned about their university and their own careers if VCU was seen as a supplicant for Big Tobacco. VCU’s reputation was already being trashed in the national research blogosphere.

    Thus began a month-long reporting effort funded by Jim Bacon, the newly appointed editor of R’Biz, the business news component of richmond.com which operates R’Biz. The story, “In Pursuit of the Golden Leaf,” is available on today’s richmond.com.

    • VCU’s medical school and predecessor schools had such tight ties with the American Tobacco Company in the 1930s and 1940s that it funded just about the entire pharmacology staffs. So dramatic were the ties that a Stanford University professor is titling an entire chapter on VCU “Sold, American” in his upcoming book on tobacco research. The less-than-flattering title suggest that the Medical College of Virginia had been bought completely by tobacco interests
    • VCU started to improve its research situation in 2000 after a debacle in which federal regulators shut down all human research at all of its schools. The academic research ringer hired to help boosted R&D at VCU but she left in 2005 critical of new ties between the school and Philip Morris USA.
    • Dr. Eugene Trani, president of VCU, and his staff were greatly involved in “Operation Peat Moss,” a secret and ultimately successful plan to convince Philip Morris USA to locate a major research facility at the faltering Virginia Biotechnology Research Park instead of the Research Triangle in North Carolina in 2004 and 2005.
    • While Philip Morris claims that much of the research it does in Richmond is limited to smokeless products such as snuff, evidence shows it is involved in a major effort to use respiration devices used in cigarette research as vehicles for dispensing drugs through the lungs to fight such diseases as diabetes.
    • Both the University of Virginia and Duke have accepted far more research money from Philip Morris than VCU has. But unlike VCU, they insisted on controlling the research and make their relations public.
    • Some VCU faculty say there are fearful of Trani’s wrath if they speak out against the Philip Morris contracts. Yet, there appears to be great confusion on campus about what is going on. Trani’s absence at Havard this summer isn’t helping.
    • Trani has appointed a task force to explore his school’s corporate contracts. But the very administrator who oversaw negotiations with Philip Morris is heading the task force, which has decided he is not a conflict of interest. It remains to be seen if the task force will force change or sweep the controversy under the rug. The first public meeting is slated for July 16.

    There’s a lot more in the opus available on line. Check it out.

    Peter Galuszka

  • The City of Squares… Or, Bring Back the Grid

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    James A. Bacon

    When James Oglethorpe sketched out a design in 1733 for the settlement of Savannah, Ga., he didn’t have “smart growth” in mind. It was some 150 years before the invention of the horseless carriage, and the biggest “green” revolution occurring in his era was the spread of the plantation form of agriculture. Indeed, in laying out the city in the form of identical, easy-to-replicate wards, or squares, he did so with military considerations in mind.

    At the center of each ward was a smaller square, which Oglethorpe left as open space to function as a military exercise ground. The four corners of each ward contained a “tything,” 10 lots for housing. And on the east and west flanks of each square, he allotted larger parcels designated for public structures such as churches, banks or government buildings.

    The original plan called for six contiguous wards. As the city expanded, it replicated the squares repeatedly, eventually creating 24 of them, then re-developing three of them so that 21 remain. The military training grounds were converted into parks, usually focused on a statue to some great American, or a monument to a momentous battle. Wealthy ante-bellum merchants built magnificent mansions facing some of the parks. Most of the historical buildings remain today, although an occasional ’60s-era atrocity did manage to creep in. In the early 21st century, historical Savannah is an urban gem — one of the truly great places of America.

    As I explore in “The City of Squares” this week, the city exemplifies all the traits of smart growth: grid streets, small lot sizes, mixed uses, walkability and abundant green space. As a bonus, historic Savannah has adapted to the automobile remarkably well.

    So, what does any of this have to do with Virginia? Do we need to visit Savannah to embrace the virtues of grid streets and compact development? Well, that wouldn’ t hurt, if you’re looking to be inspired. But here’s what’s really cool about Oglethorpe’s replicatable squares: (a) They contain within themselves a balance of houses, jobs, stores and amenities, and (b) they provide a schema for extending the urban grid pattern incrementally as the city expands, while preserving that balance.

    Each ward is like an independent cell, containing within itself a balance of elements required for a quality life: 40 residential units (unless lots are combined to create larger dwellings), a central green space within a block or two walking distance from every dwelling, and space to accommodate shops, professional offices and small office buildings. Oglethorpian wards are not totally self-sufficient, of course. Residents cannot possibly meet all of their needs within the square, but they can meet some of them. This is the kind of balance of land uses at the “cluster” level that Ed Risse calls for.

    Like the cells of a living organism, Savannah’s wards work together. While the wards are interlaced internally with streets and lanes, providing multiple routes between any two points, the perimeter streets align to create thoroughfares, as can be seen in the aerial photo to the left. (Click on the image for a more detailed picture.) These handsome, tree-lined boulevards enhance the surrounding areas and comfortably accommodate pedestrians.

    Compare that to conventional “suburban” development in which a majority of roadway lane miles are contained in dead-end cul de sacs — private streets, for all intents, with minimal traffic — that provide no public connectivity whatsoever. All traffic funnels into connector roads and arterials that are easily bottlenecked.

    Thus arises the supreme irony: Because all streets contribute to mobility and access, historic Savannah supports a relatively high population density with a minimum of traffic congestion.

    These dynamics are are well understood and fully appreciated in the literature of the smart-growth and New Urbanism movements. What I haven’t heard discussed is how Oglethorpian squares provide a mechanism for extending the grid pattern outward from the core as the city grows. These squares fit together with Lego-like precision, all streets aligning perfectly for maximum connectivity. Plug and play, baby!

    The squares are small enough — 40 residential lots at most, no more than a modest subdivision — that they allow for incremental, organic growth. Furthermore, the internal structure of the squares are incredibly flexible. While Oglethorpe designed his squares with 40 single-family dwellings, lots can be combined for larger houses, or merged to create apartments or townhouses. Developers of the squares have the means to be highly responsive to the demands of the marketplace.

    Bring back the grid. It worked in Savannah, maybe it can work in Virginia, too!

  • With Gas Over $4 Per Gallon, Are You Ready to Rebel Yet?

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    We’ve been preaching energy-efficient growth and development for years now, and we’ve remained stuck on the margins of public opinion. But now, with gasoline prices zooming past $4 per gallon, people are waking up. Oh, yes. Oh, yes, they are. When the Wall Street Journal runs a story on the front page, “With Gas Over $4, Cities Explore, Whether It’s Smart to Be Dense,” highlighting San Diego’s move to smart growth, you know the idea has gone mainstream. (Hat tips: Gay Leahy and Gregory Pimentel.)

    So, whatta you going to do? Read a Johnny Come Lately like the Journal and think you’ve got it all figured out? Or read the latest edition of Bacon’s Rebellion, where we’ve been wrestling with these issues in a Virginia context, practically since the first cave men decided that cave life was too confining, camped in the plains, and got eaten by a saber-tooth tiger?

    Here’s what we have to offer in the July 7, 2008, edition:

    The City of Squares
    The historical core of Savannah, Ga., is one of the great urban places in the United States. Modern-day Virginia could learn a few lessons from James Ogilthorpe’s unique experiment.
    by James A. Bacon

    The Wealth Gap
    Sooner or later, an economy built on wildly unequal incomes, cheap energy and debt-fueled mass over-consumption will collapse. Mass denial will not change this reality.
    by EM Risse

    Let the People Decide
    It’s time to fish or cut bait on the gas tax. Either pass a tax increase to pay for transportation projects or take it off the table so we can pursue other options.
    by Michael Thompson

    Bread and Circuses
    Governments dispense money for ends that the Constitution never envisioned. One way or another, we’re all on the dole now.
    by Norman Leahy

    Bubba Believes in Religion
    (and other true facts)
    by Barnie Day

    Nice & Curious Questions
    Running in Virginia: Triathlons, Duathlons, Adventure Races and More
    by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

  • The Decline of the World’s Greatest Nation State

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Two hundred and thirty-two years ago, our forefathers declared independence from a distant monarch and parliament to preserve their liberty.

    Who can we rebel against? We have no tyrant on the far side of a vast sea to blame our troubles on. The oppressors reside among us. Indeed, perhaps it can be said that we are our own oppressors.

    Such are the thoughts I have on this Fourth of July, having recently finished reading “Supercapitalism” by Robert Reich. (So many others affiliated with this blog have read the book that I felt compelled to do so, too.)

    Reich offers a simple but compelling thesis: Since the Not Quite Golden Age of the 1950s, an era in which industrial oligopolies and labor unions created a stable, growing economy in which the wealth was widely shared (excluding African-Americans, of course, which was why he calls it the Not Quite Golden Age), various economic forces have created more competition and eroded the power of the cartels and unions. Consumers have benefited from better, cheaper consumer products, and shareholders have profited from higher-performing investments. But those gains have come at the expense of Americans in their roles as employees and citizens. Incomes for all but a few have stagnated, and Americans are losing faith in democracy.

    While some might differ with his core thesis — for instance, the prosperity of the Not Quite Golden Age may have owed more to America’s preeminent position in the world following World War II than to its oligopolistic industrial structure — I find aspects of Reich’s book very persuasive. In particular, I found myself agreeing with his analysis in the chapter “Democracy Overwhelmed,” in which he describes how the political process has been taken over by moneyed interests.

    Business competition has become so intense, Reich argues, that “competition has spilled over into politics, as corporations have sought to gain competitive advantage through public policy.” The vast influx of money into Washington, D.C., has transformed the once-dowdy city into an imperial capital with the highest incomes in the country and all the trappings of wealth and excess. The number of lobbyists has increased, the money spent on lobbying has increased, the amount of money spent on campaign contributions has increased. Politically, businesses are nonpartisan. It’s all about gaining the power to influence the machinery of legislatio and regulation to maintain competitive advantage.

    I find this description to be right on target. I differ only in assessing how it came to be. Reich blames the trend on increasing business competition, or supercapitalism. “The demands of corporations seeking to influence the policy process have grown as competition among them has intensified. It has been like an arms race: The more one competitor pays for access, the more its rivals must pay in order to counter its influence.”

    That’s accurate as far as it goes, but it leaves out one important consideration: The business takeover of Washington, D.C., occurred only after the national political class had accrued unprecedented power over the economy. Since the New Deal of the 1930s, government has inserted itself into one economic sphere after another. The political class was a critical enabler to the takeover. Politicians and their minions and hangers on gain prestige and wealth through brokering the transfer of wealth from one industry to another, from one segment of society to another. The rise of Big Government was paved by legions of apologists and justifiers who moved public opinion to accept the need for intrusive government, as well as a multitude of judicial rulings that tore down traditional barriers to the accretion of government power.

    Be that as it may, the biggest “industry” in the United States today is indeed politics. For the most part this industry does not create wealth — it brokers wealth. Unfortunately, the trends that are so grotesquely on display in Washington, D.C., have filtered down to state capitals and courthouses across the country as well. The main difference between politics in Washington and Richmond is the size of the political class, and the constituencies that ply the politicians for favors.

    The corporate and professional interests that dominate the system at the state and local level correspond neatly with the array of legislative and regulatory powers that have accrued to state and local governments. At the top of the list is the cluster of businesses — developers, home builders, Realtors, construction and engineering firms — that make their living through the development of real estate and building of infrastructure. This is the “growth” lobby that we have discussed before on this blog.

    Close behind in power and influence are the electric and gas power companies, whose profits are regulated by the State Corporation Commission. Then comes the financial and insurance industries, the legal profession, the health care industry, and the educational profession. To see who the key players are in Virginia and how much they spend on influence the political process, you need go no further than the Virginia Public Access Project list of top donors by industry.

    As businesses take their marketplace competition into the political sphere, and as the political class enlarges the scope of its powers, the national preoccupation of America becomes the transfer or protection of wealth, not the creation of it. Rather than focusing on innovation and productivity, the real sources of prosperity, we collectively turn to government for what we want, and we battle over who pays for it. Our institutions are increasingly archaic, unable to adjust to the emerging Knowledge-era wealth creating system, and our national character is enervated. Once a nation of entrepreneurs, we hold out the tin cup. I can see no countervailing trend that will change this.

    God bless America. I still love this country, even though I despair for it.

  • POACHED SQUARED ON THE FORTH

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Independence Day is a good day to consider how the leadership of Agencies and Enterprises in the US of A have managed to abandon energy independence over the past 60 years. Yes, the US of A was a net exporter of energy – and almost every other critical resource – 60 years ago.

    We have all heard about the experiment: Put a frog in a pan of hot water and he jumps out. Put the frog in cool water and raise the temperature slowly and he poaches.

    Citizens of the US of A have been poached by OPEC and Saudi Arabians. Back in 1973 oil -producing Regions (OPEC) tried to send a message to oil-dependent Regions about messing in their “internal, religious and regional” affairs. However, it was the oil-producing Regions that learned the lesson:

    Cut off the oil supply and / or significantly raise the price of petrochemicals, and consumer Regions will look for ways to be conservative and for alternatives to buying more and more oil. In my home town the number of people who lived and worked in the Beta Community went from 19 percent to 39 percent in just 12 months. Raise the pain of acquiring gasoline and they cut commuting.

    Agencies and Enterprises in the US of A did not learn from the experience. When the oil was flowing again, the energy policy and consumption pattern was again driven by expediency and short-term profit.

    Scattered, dysfunctional settlement patterns grew; a dysfunctional transport system continued to get worse. (See THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.) The temperature has been going up a little at a time for 35 years.

    The Saudi / OPEC poaching strategy was stated publicly at the “summit” held on Sunday, 22 June, in Riyadh. Oil suppliers need to increase the flow in order to lower the cost so that those Regions dependent on oil will not look for alternatives. In other words keep supplies and prices such that those in power in the oil-exporting Regions can sell oil at the highest possible price while they are in power. Long-term sustainability? Who cares, we are all getting richer and the economy is growing.

    OK, the way US of A citizens have been poached is pretty clear. But what is Poached Squared?

    When James Hansen made his I-told-you-so tour on 23 June – the twentieth anniversary of his landmark testimony on the climate change – he acknowledged that humans are condemned to burn up the rest of the petroleum that can be extracted. Hansen did not say it but citizens are condemned primarily by human settlement patterns that Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions refuse to acknowledge as a key problem. More important, to date they have not committed to Transform these generators of economic, social and physical dysfunction and unsustainability.

    Hansen points out that while a intelligent oil strategy may be a lost cause, coal is the bigger problem and there is still a chance to create a sustainable strategy vis a vis coal. As luck would have it, the US of A is the Saudi Arabia of coal deposits.

    And what are the Agencies and Enterprises doing in Virginia and across the US of A?

    Building more coal-fired plants to keep the price of electricity from going up too fast. This in spite of the fact that half of all the energy devoted to the production of electricity in remote plants is wasted in generation, transmission and distribution.

    Oh, yes, there are also the pollution problems, the transmission problems and the power failures due to fragile distribution systems without even mentioning climate change. But, not to worry, “the men and women of your electric utility are working to keep your rates reasonable…” You can do your part by going out a buying new light bulbs and …

    Bottom Line: Citizens are being poached again.

    In a CNN Money poll on 19 June only nine percent of those responding believe the energy future is in oil / gas. The other results: Nuclear 42%, solar 38%, wind 11%. Coal was not deemed to be a “future” option worthy of being among the choices.

    In a CNN Money poll on 27 June 58 percent of those responding say “lack of financial independence” is the worst aspect of dependence on oil.

    We first recall hearing that in 1956 – the Suez Crisis – and every citizen should have known it in 1973 – the OPEC oil embargo. Where was the leadership 52 years ago or 35 years ago? Getting the pot ready to poach citizens.

    Claude Lewenz argues that dependence on oil and Autonomobiles was a intentional strategy planned in the mid 40s to keep the industrial capacity of the war machine humming and the economy growing. I am not sure it was “planned” but I am sure it could have been “unplanned” 35 years ago when it was obvious that the strategy was unsustainable.

    In the meantime, citizens have been poached and are being poached again.

    Happy Fourth.

    EMR

  • More Madness in Fairfax

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has devised one of the most hare-brained schemes I’ve ever heard of: spending $10 million to bail out homeowners threatened with foreclosure and help others buy vacant properties. According to Amy Gardner, who reported the story for the Washington Post, Fairfax is “one of the first communities in the country to tackle the nation’s growing mortgage crisis while also addressing the region’s increasing demand for affordable housing.”

    This is folly. No, it’s worse than folly. It’s madness. Stark, raving, gibbering insanity.

    “Fairfax, like the rest of the country, is facing a foreclosure crisis that’s unprecedented,” said county Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D), who proposed the idea. “The county has to use its resources and influence to try to stem the tide.”

    Using funds from existing housing programs, Fairfax County will purchase 10 houses outright and provide government-backed, low-interest loans for another 190. Says Connolly in an official statement: “We will offer assistance to those at risk of losing their houses, assist first-time buyers purchase already vacant houses, and in some cases the county or its nonprofit partners will purchase a small number of houses to help stabilize distressed neighborhoods.”

    A Fairfax County website asserts that the county had 4,527 foreclosures last year, and 3,518 in the first quarter of 2008. Somehow, helping 200 homeowners is supposed to “restore stability” to the housing market.

    OK, that’s clearly delusional. But how about the thought that the initiative can help with affordable housing? Gardner elaborates: “One of Fairfax’s primary goals is to expand its affordable housing stock … particularly the category known as workforce housing, which is intended for such middle-income professionals as teachers, police officers and firefighters who otherwise couldn’t afford to live in one of the nation’s most affluent jurisdictions.

    So, for $10 million, the county will provide financial assistance to 200 middle-class households. Where’s the money coming from? $6.3 million will from the One Penny Housing Fund, $2.075 million from existing federal HOME funds, and $2.95 million from existing FCRHA line of credit.

    And what do those funds do? According to county documents, the One Penny Housing Fund was set up to… preserve affordable housing. Indeed, in 2007, the fund was credited with “preserving 1,412 units.”

    House about those FCRHA (Fairfax County Redevelopment and Housing Authority) funds? Let’s see, the mission of the FCRHA is “to provide, maintain, and preserve decent and safe affordable housing for low and moderate-income families.”

    Now, how about those federal HOME funds? According to a U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development website, “at least 90 percent of benefiting families must have incomes that are no more than 60 percent of the HUD-adjusted median family income for the area.”

    So, Fairfax supervisors voted to take money from the One Penny program, which last year preserved 1,412 units of affordable housing, and will use it, along with additional resources, to make available 200 units of affordable housing. Only in a politician’s mind could that possibly constitute a good trade.

    Furthermore, the supervisors’ action is taking funds meant for lower- to middle-income recipients and making some of it available, according to Gardner, “to first-time buyers earning as much as $75,600, or 80 percent of the area’s median income.” Sounds like Robin Hood in reverse: Take from the poor and give to the middle class.

    There is one other option that Connolly and others could pursue to make housing more affordable in Fairfax County: Just stay away! Let the marketplace work. A funny thing happens when there are more houses on the market than people willing to buy them: The prices drop. By definition, when prices drop, houses become more affordable!

    D’oh!

  • Bring Your Own Checkbook

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Jeff Schapiro, the Times-Dispatch‘s preeminent political reporter, has expanded his repertoire from print and PBS radio to video commentary. It’s good to see that the T-D is making progress in melding the resources of its old media newsroom with the new media capabilities of inrich.com.

    The subject of Schapiro’s commentary is a favorite theme of Bacon’s Rebellion: the money nexus between business and governance. But Schapiro’s spin is a little different this time. Instead of emphasizing how big donors manipulate the political process for business advantage, he highlights how politicians from the Elephant Clan and Donkey Clan shake down businesses — manipulating business, if you will, for political advantage.

    Speaking of the role of money in politics, it appears that Transurban USA, the American subsidiary of an Australian company that leases the Pocahontas Parkway and is building HOT lanes on the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia, mistakenly made $172,000 in illegal contributions to Virginia politicians.

    Oops.

    Transurban USA asked that the money be returned so it can donate the money to a Virginia-based charity, the Court Appointed Special Advocate Program for children, reports Tyler Whitley with the Times-Dispatch. Michael Kulper, executive vice president for North America operations, began notifying the politicians yesterday of its apparently illegal activity.

    Donations included:

    • $5,000 to Moving Virginia Forward, the political committee of Gov. Timothy M. Kaine
    • $12,500 to the Dominion Leadership Trust, the leadership PAC of House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford;
    • $12,000 to the Virginia Republican Senate Leadership Trust
    • $10,500 to the Commonwealth Victory Fund, a Democratic Party of Virginia committee

    All told, Democratic organizations and legislators received $73,000, and Republican legislators and organizations received $97,000 between 2005 and 2008.

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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