Category Archives: Transportation

One of My Pet Peeves

Posted on May 21, 2023 by | 69 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

State law exempts from registration fees trucks, trailers, and other motor vehicles, used solely for farm purposes either on highways near a farmer’s land or for hauling farm products to market (see here and here).    This is one of the most abused Code provisions.

The picture above was taken in my neighborhood.  Take my word for it:  there are no farms anywhere close.

This picture was taken on one of the main streets in Richmond or Henrico (I forget which).  Unless the driver of that truck was taking a sofa that he had grown on his farm to market to sell it, he was violating the law.  Violation of the statutes is a traffic infraction and punishable by a fine up to $250.

Until 2022, law enforcement officers were authorized to require drivers of vehicles claiming this exemption to provide the address of the lands owned or leased by the vehicle’s owner and used for agricultural purposes and the address of the vehicle’s owner.  I doubt that happened often.

Beginning July 1 of this year, persons wishing to operate farm vehicles without regular license tags must attach an official placard provided by DMV to the vehicle.  To obtain the placard, the owner of the vehicle must file an application with DMV identifying the farm and the commodities that will be transported on the exempt vehicle along with a statement that the vehicle will be used only for the exempt purposes set out in law.

If this requirement is enforced, there should be fewer “farm use” vehicles seen in urban areas.

69 Comments

Posted in Agriculture & forestry, Transportation

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Gas Taxes, EV Fees Will Rise Again July 1

Posted on April 26, 2023 by | 47 comments

Add the retail tax and storage tank fee in the first table to the wholesale tax in the second table to get the total tax per gallon.  Click for larger view.

by Steve Haner

Virginia motor fuel taxes will rise again July 1, to just over 39 cents per gallon on gasoline and just over 40 cents per gallon on diesel. This will be the second automatic increase in gas taxes since the 2020 General Assembly voted to index the gas tax to inflation. Continue reading →

47 Comments

Posted in General Assembly, Taxes, Transportation

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RVA 5×5: Valet Parking

Posted on April 23, 2023 by | 11 comments

by Jon Baliles

There was a lot of talk and coverage this week about the City of Richmond’s Planning Commission unanimously approving the removal of parking minimums citywide with the full City Council expected to take the matter up at its meeting Monday night.

The ordinance as written would allow developers to decide how much parking to include in new developments anywhere in the city — or if they need to include any parking at all to serve the development. For decades, the city-required developments to also provide a certain number of off-street parking spaces based on the size of development, the number of dwelling units, type of use, or total floor area.

The end goal is to allow developers to determine how much parking to provide in their developments and if they don’t have to provide expensive parking, they will then increase the supply of needed housing units. The city recently declared a “housing crisis,” and the need for more housing across the entire region is urgent. The proposal is one of the recommendations from the Richmond 300 master plan, which is in favor of less “auto-centric” zoning and more in favor of denser and more walkable mixed-use neighborhoods.
Continue reading →

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Posted in Blogs and blog administration, Economic development, Government Oversight, Housing, Infrastructure, Planning, Transportation

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Snow Day in April: Something in the Water

Posted on April 19, 2023 by | 2 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

When the first Something in the Water Festival came to Virginia Beach in 2019, some lemon-sucking locals balked at allowing school buses to be used to transport revelers  from satellite parking to the resort area.

How will bus drivers be able to drive festival goers until 11 p.m. on Sunday and be rested enough by Monday morning to safely transport kids, they fretted.

As if bus drivers were toddlers who need 10 hours of sleep.

What if the festival goers leave their drugs or guns on the buses and the kids find them on Monday morning? whispered others.

Puh-leez. Continue reading →

2 Comments

Posted in Economic development, Education (K-12), Freedom, Governance, Leadership, Transportation

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Planes, Planes, Planes, and Some Space Ships

Posted on April 7, 2023 by | 22 comments

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

Friday afternoon I visited the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum at Dulles Airport, officially known as National Air and Space Museum Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.  It has been on my list of places to visit for a long time.  If you haven’t been, I heartily recommend it.

As with anything the Smithsonian does, the number of objects on display is astounding. There are cavernous halls with planes and other aviation-related displays laid out all over the place—big planes, little planes, planes from the early 1900’s, modern planes, Nazi war planes, a Soviet MIG, satellites, a space shuttle.  In addition, there are almost as many planes suspended from the very high ceiling.  All of this can be viewed from three levels.

For someone who is not an aviation aficionado, all these items tend to blend together fairly quickly.  It is almost impossible to take it all in in one day.  It is best to take small bites, which is what I plan to do.  I come to Northern Virginia frequently to visit my daughter and her family, so I can do that.  (Admission is free, but there is a $15 parking fee.)  If one can’t go back easily, but can devote most of one day to the facility, I recommend choosing a sunny day and take some lunch.  After spending a couple of hours or so in the facility, go outside, eat your lunch, and then go back in, with your mind somewhat rested from all the stimulation. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Science & Technology, Transportation

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Maglev & Light Rail: Once-Shiny Objects Now Tarnished By Reality

Posted on March 23, 2023 by | 23 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Gosh. It isn’t often the local newspaper provides two examples of “shiny object stupidity” in one week.

But The Virginian-Pilot delivered.

On Wednesday the newspaper quietly reported on the absolute demise of the failed maglev system at Old Dominion University. That’s magnetic levitation technology for those of you who weren’t around here to experience Shiny Object Fever in the late 1990s that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

The promise of maglev was that beginning in 2002 students would zip around campus on this raised train using futuristic technology. Problem is, it never worked. The rails were sold for scrap years ago and according to a report in The Pilot, the rest of the structure is being demolished without ever transporting a single student.

The thing the reporter failed to mention in her brief story is that the developer borrowed $7 million from the commonwealth — that’s you and me — to build this monument to snake oil. As best I can tell, the loan has not been repaid.

It could have been worse. In 1999, Virginia Beach City Council came close to spending between $20 and $30 million on a maglev line along the oceanfront. Continue reading →

23 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Central planning, Transportation, Uncategorized

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Virginia Rail Safety Inspections

Posted on February 24, 2023 by | 16 comments

Courtesy Norfolk Southern

by James C. Sherlock

After the Ohio disaster, it is timely to review rail safety in Virginia.

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) of the U.S. Department of Transportation is the federal rail safety regulator in cooperation with state authorities.

FRA’s Office of Railroad Safety employs 400 railway inspectors. Federal safety management teams are organized by railroad or type of railroad.

The FRA summary of State rail safety participation states:

state programs emphasize planned, routine compliance inspections; however, States may undertake additional investigative and surveillance activities consistent with overall program needs and individual State capabilities.

FRA both conducts and pays for training of state inspectors.

Code of Federal Regulations 49 CFR Part 212 provides state rail safety participation regulations.

Railroad Regulation represents one of the original areas of responsibility assigned to the State Corporation Commission (SCC) when it was created by the Virginia Constitution of 1902.

Virginia statutory authority is found in Code of Virginia Title 56 Chapter 13.

Virginia today has two Class I (major) railroads (Norfolk Southern and CSXT), nine Class II (short line) railroads, and more than 6,700 miles of track. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Efficiency in government, Federal, Government Oversight, Infrastructure, Public safety & health, Transportation

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Coal in Virginia

Posted on February 22, 2023 by | 53 comments

From Virginia Coal, An Abridged History.

by James C. Sherlock

When we talk of coal today, which is seldom, it is usually not treated well.

It is easy to forget (if some even know) that coal powered the industrial revolution, made America the richest nation in the world and fueled American war production that supported allied victories in both world wars in the 20th century.

Coal powered nearly everything starting in the early part of the 19th century. Power plants, trains, ships, and virtually anything else powered by steam used coal to boil the water.

The iron and then steel-making process depended then, and still does, on coking coal.

Coal — and the co-dependent railroads — played big roles in Virginia history.

I strongly recommend to you Virginia Coal, An Abridged History. It was published in 1990 by the Virginia Center for Coal & Energy Research at Virginia Tech.

Continue reading →

53 Comments

Posted in Business and Economy, Energy, Immigration, Labor & workforce, Mining, Transportation, Unions, Virginia history

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The Future Is Here

Posted on February 20, 2023 by | 61 comments

EV charging station, Henrico WalMart

61 Comments

Posted in Energy, Transportation, Utilities

Potpourri

Posted on November 16, 2022 by | 17 comments

WEAPONS AT AIRPORTS

It has long amazed and puzzled me that people think they can get away with taking guns and other weapons onto airplane flights. On Monday, a woman was  caught at the Richmond airport with a loaded .380 caliber handgun in her carry-on bag. The Transportation Security Administration  (TSA) reports that, as of Nov. 13, 18 guns had been caught at Richmond International Airport checkpoints. Nationally, TSA intercepted nearly 6,000 firearms at airports last year, the most on record.

One of the more inventive methods of trying to smuggle a weapon onto a flight at Richmond was the recent attempt by a Williamsburg man with a double-bladed knife hidden in the interior of his laptop computer. After X-ray machines detected the knife, TSA personnel used special tools to disassemble the computer to get the knife.  The owner of the laptop initially had the standard explanation: he had no idea that there was a knife hidden inside his computer.

LONG-TERM DREAM REALIZED

Opening day on the Silver Line Extension. Photo credit: Washington Post

After many, many years of delays and hundreds of millions in cost overruns, Dulles Airport and eastern Loudon County are finally connected to downtown D.C. via Metro. The Silver Line Extension opened with much fanfare.  Officials expect that, in addition to residential and business development along the line, the direct connection between the airport and downtown will result in additional airport passenger traffic at Dulles.

Washington Post reporters tested the line and determined that it took about the same time to drive from downtown to the airport as it would take using Metro.  However, using Metro was considerably cheaper than driving, especially if one assumed a three-day stay in the parking garage, and it was more than $100 cheaper than using Uber.

17 Comments

Posted in Transportation

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Is This a Wise Expenditure or Not?

Posted on October 7, 2022 by | 26 comments

A news release from the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission touts the the fact that it’s Commuter Choice transit program, funded by tolls on the Interstate 66, Interstate 94 and Interstate 395 corridors, has eliminated 3.5 million single-occupancy vehicle trips over five years.

Wow, 3.5 million trips sounds significant. But, wait. That’s only 700,000 trips per year, and 1,920 trips per day on average over the five-year period. (NVTC says it now moves 4,000 people each weekday.) The number of daily car trips taken by Northern Virginians runs in the millions.

How much did Commuter Choice cost? Oh, yes, $92.7 million. That amounts to a cost of about $26.50 per trip saved over five years.

Is that a productive use of resources? I don’t know. Continue reading →

26 Comments

Posted in Transportation

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A Tale Of Two Bridge Projects

Posted on October 7, 2022 by | 14 comments

by Kerry Dougherty

Some would say it’s not fair to compare the rapid repairs to a hurricane-damaged bridge in Florida to the desultory progress of the Laskin Road bridge project in Virginia Beach.

I don’t care.

For those of us getting our cars realigned every few months and learning to zigzag as we attempt to navigate the moonscape that Laskin Road has been for three years – with no end in sight – it was impossible not to marvel at the miracle in Florida.

And pine for Pine Island.

Let’s back up.

When Hurricane Ian unexpectedly slammed Into Lee County on the Gulf Coast, the largely rural Pine Island communities saw their only bridge to the mainland buckle. It appeared that the several thousand permanent residents of the coral island would be marooned for some time.

But then this happened:

Continue reading →

14 Comments

Posted in Efficiency in government, Transportation

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The Greens, Their Quiet Partners, and Trains

Posted on October 2, 2022 by | 39 comments

by James C. Sherlock

I love trains. Always have.

Took my first train ride at a very young age with my mother and brother from D.C. to Birmingham to visit mom’s family.

After the Navy, my private sector work was based in McLean. I had regular business in New York  I took Amtrak whenever feasible.

Trains on the eastern corridor of Amtrak are powered by electricity currently provided by gas-fired power plants. There is a faltering and breathtakingly expensive attempt in California to create a high-speed electric rail system. That is pretty much it for electric trains other than short-haul commuters.

But the freight rail locomotives that transport 43% of America’s long-haul freight and Amtrak passenger locomotives outside Amtrak’s Northeast corridor are powered by diesel. Lots of it.

Axios reported in August that “High-speed rail remains a faraway dream in Virginia.” In dreamy progressive fashion, that article reported “costs” of overseas high-speed train trips as if they included only the costs of the passenger tickets.

Nice try.

The damn-the-torpedoes greens, and the commercial interests that hope to get unimaginably wealthy feeding their obsessions, will leave no stone unturned or dollar unspent to transform trains to electric.

Virginia, of course, has its own “not-for-profit” pushing the profitable part of that agenda. Continue reading →

39 Comments

Posted in Entrepreneurialism, Environment, Transportation

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Last Passenger on the Titanic

Posted on September 26, 2022 by | 22 comments

by James A. Bacon

The good news regarding the Silver Line extension of the Washington Metro rail system to Washington Dulles International Airport is that the service is fiiinnaally scheduled to commence in October after four years of construction delays.

The bad news is that Metro might not have enough rail cars in service to run on the line.

“The rail car shortage arose last year when more than half of Metro’s fleet — 748 of its most modern cars from the 7000-series — was removed from service owing to a wheel-widening malfunction that caused a derailment,” reports The Washington Post. “More than three-quarters of them remain out of service, pending review by the system’s regulatory agency.”

The really bad news is that Metro’s operating deficit, estimated to run $185 million next year, is projected to hit $738 million in Fiscal 2024 and reach $924 million four years after that. With those deficits, it’s hard to imagine service getting any better. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Efficiency in government, Transportation

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Great Moments in the Annals of Virginia Transportation

Posted on September 14, 2022 by | 33 comments


by James A. Bacon

Two recent news nuggets provide a juxtaposition that calls into question the sanity of Virginia’s transportation policy.

Item #1: The Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA) will pay the lead contractor on the long-delayed Silver Line rail extension $207 million more as part of an agreement reached in July, reports The Washington Post. The Silver Line extension to Washington Dulles International Airport is four years behind schedule. Under the funding agreement, the cost of managerial incompetence will be borne… not by MWAA… not the lead contractor… not even the individuals riding the commuter rail system… but by users of the Dulles Toll Road on the theory that they will benefit from the reduction of traffic caused by the diversion of traffic to the rail line.

Which brings us to Item #2. Continue reading →

33 Comments

Posted in Transportation

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