Sunday was an awful, cold and rainy day so I ended up on the sofa reading The New York Times by the fire with my German Shepherd who wasn’t feeling well.
Imagine my surprise when I turned to the magazine and saw Old Virginny mentioned in “The 9th Annual Year in Ideas.” Among the great idea snippets such as putting artificial sound machines in hybrid cars so you can hear them coming and prevent accidents was the state being praised for severely limiting cul-de-sacs from future subdivision development.
The real estate development complex loves cul-de-sacs because they can be touted as safer for parents of young kids and lots on them sell at a premium. But critics, the Times notes, say that they “funnel cars onto clogged arterial routes and restrict access to neighborhoods when emergency vehicles need to respond.”
The Times credited Gov. Tim Kaine with pushing the pioneering legislation through. Future subdivisions need a new level of connectivity and if developers don’t go along, the state, which provides 83 percent of road services, will cut back on things such as maintenance and snow removal.
We wrote about this in “The Road to Ruin” series on this blog. So, it is nice to see that the state is getting some attention for being forward looking rather than the opposite, which is all too often the case. The Times says that other states are likely to follow Virginia’s lead.
Peter Galuszka
