Campbell County board supervisors appear to be a step ahead of their peers in other municipalities when it comes to confronting the implications of the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform act of 2007. (Either that or the Lynchburg News & Advance is a step ahead in its local government coverage.) Quoth the newspaper:
Paying for maintenance of new roads in rural counties could get tricky in the years ahead. More than that, it could get expensive because the localities would have to maintain some of their new roads, a service now covered by the state.
How about that: Road maintenance is expensive. That lesson is sinking in now that localities can’t undertake any land use decision they want and fob off the road-maintenance consequences to the state any longer.
One of the more important changes in state regulations is a requirement for new subdivisions to have at least two connections to state roads. That would discourage “unconnected residential development,” explains the newspaper. This point requires a bit of elaboration. In the “pod” form of development that is pervasive across Virginia, many subdivisions have only one outlet to state roads. When subdivisions don’t connect with one another, there are fewer alternate routes for people to get places. The result is that all traffic funnels into a finite number of roads, the roads get crowded, and people howl for more state money to build more roads.
Supervisors aren’t happy about the regulation. They’re thinking of writing Secretary of Transportation Pierce Homer. “If the roads that are needed to serve a high-density subdivision are not advantageous to other roads connecting in that area, says Concord District Supervisor Eddie Gunter., “they’re saying it will be up to the county and developers to take care of that.”
And your point is….?
But that’s not all that has Gunter disgruntled. “Road costs and road maintenance are very expensive,” he says. “If the county has to take over maintaining roads, that means we would have to set up a department like a mini-VDOT. There are a lot of counties in the state that could not do this.”
Yes, Mr. Gunter, road maintenance is expensive. Maybe you need to take that into consideration next time Campbell County updates its master plan. But, no, you don’t have to set up your own mini-VDOT. Perhaps Mr. Homer will share with you what he’s learning about “outsourcing” — something that VDOT is doing a lot more of these days.
