The House land use/transportation reform package is getting negative feedback from local government officials, according to Mason Adams and Cody Lowe with the Roanoke Times. Legislators are trying to solve the growth problems of Northern Virginia with tools that don’t seem appropriate in western Virginia.
But Del. Clifford “Clay” Athey, R-Front Royal, is undismayed. He welcomes the feedback, saying that he was hoping to kick-start a conversation with local governments. The three bills in the legislative package are still subject to change, he says.
The House proposal that seems to be generating the most consistently hostile reception would ban the acceptance of neighborhood roads into the state road network for purposes of maintenance. Such roads would have to be maintained either by local governments or homeowners associations. The RT quotes Roanoke County Supervisor Richard Flora as saying, “Instead of the state actually solving its transportation problem, it’s looking for a way to shift the problem to local government, just like they do with everything else they possibly can.”
But Athey gave a good response:
Athey said the bill wouldn’t necessarily prohibit all subdivision roads from being accepted into the state system. Instead, he said, VDOT would evaluate each road on an individual basis. If it’s a “local collector road” that links to adjoining parcels, then VDOT would accept it. But if it’s a road that ends in a cul-de-sac and only serves subdivision residents, there’s no reason the state should pay to maintain it, Athey said.
“If you put interparcel connectors in, where there is a system built where more than one subdivision exists, we’ll be accepting those because the general public uses them,” Athey said. “But subdivisions created on dead ends, when there’s only 50 or 100 people traveling on them 99 percent of the time, if we keep doing that, the bank is going to break.”
Athey is addressing an issue I described in my column, “Pod People” — a pattern of development that strings subdivisions and shopping centers along collector roads like pods on a vine. None of the pods connect, forcing motorists onto the collector roads for greater distances than they otherwise would have to drive, and overloading local road networks.
County supervisors may perceive the state as “shifting the problem to local government.” But, in fact, local government largely created the problem in the first place. It will be impossible for VDOT to ameliorate traffic congestion, even with an extra $1 billion a year that some lawmakers are asking for, unless local officials to pay more attention to connectivity issues. State government don’t approve rezonings and subdivision submissions — only local officials do.
Kudos to the Roanoke Times for its solid coverage of an important issue.
