Posts about Bob McDonnell

The high tolls are a direct result of the state's failure to invest its own money in this critical transportation project, placing the burden fully and unfairly on northern Virginians. Instead of making the case to the Loudoun Board of Supervisors for the importance of moving forward, McDonnell's administration is making it easier for them to vote no, endangering the whole project.

The Governor just threatened again, via a budget amendment, to withhold the state's meager $150 million contribution to Phase 2 if his new appointees to MWAA were not seated immediately instead of on July 1st. Fortunately, the Virginia House of Delegates voted yesterday to kill the amendment, stopping this latest threat.

One of the main points of disagreement between the McDonnell administration and MWAA has been Project Labor Agreements (PLAs). These have been successful on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Dulles Rail Phase 1 projects.

PLAs are not just about regulating union labor and wage rates for workers. They also require unions to help secure an adequate supply of skilled trades for these massive projects, and to ensure effective coordination among the dozens of trades and subcontractors, both union and non-union, for smoothly functioning, safe, and timely construction. The preference for PLAs in the bidding process seems a reasonable solution. We should move forward with these provisions.

The governor says he is greatly concerned that Virginia doesn't have a majority of seats on the MWAA governing board, which controls Dulles and Reagan National Airports, as well as the Dulles Toll Road and the Silver Line project. But this regional agency has effectively served our region for a long time, completing major and complex expansions of both airports.

It is true, however, MWAA could be much more transparent and accountable, as the IG report notes. The Coalition for Smarter Growth was among the first to raise this issue in 2006 when the Kaine administration proposed handing control of the project over to MWAA. Pressure from the governor, our federal and state legislators, and local elected officials has resulted in key reforms at MWAA. These reforms should continue, but so should the Silver Line.

The attacks on MWAA may have more to do with securing state control of future toll road revenues, for use on road projects like the Northern Virginia Outer Beltway and other rural highways, than about fixing the governance of MWAA.

We can't know that for sure, but it's very plausible given the administration's power grab at the Virginia Port Authority. After reorganizing the port authority's board to ensure control from Richmond, the administration pressed new board members to approve diverting $250 million to Route 460, a rural highway between Hampton Roads and Petersburg that Hampton Roads leaders say is not their top priority. A similar effort by the governor to secure a controlling majority on MWAA in order to do the same thing would not work to the best long-term interests of Northern Virginians.

McDonnell says that he could not even contemplate funding another $300 million for Dulles rail without raiding other projects throughout the state. But is he setting the right priorities? What money might actually be available?

The governor is proposing to spend over $750 million on the Route 460 project. Another $244 million is being earmarked to the controversial Charlottesville western bypass, a road that appears to be ineffective and a waste of money. Millions are going to the Coalfields Expressway to support mountaintop removal in an area with little traffic.

Even accounting for these projects, there may be another $400 million available in the $1.5 billion Public-Private Transportation Act fund. Setting different priorities would free up hundreds of millions more.

It's hard to respond to the governor's argument that Northern Virginia is getting its fair share of the state's funding without seeing the full picture. A clearer accounting of complicated funding flows would be helpful for both the public and legislators. Certainly, making significant investments in addressing the transportation needs of Northern Virginia should be a priority given the importance of the region to the state's economy.

Perhaps symbolic of the administration's priorities, Virginia Deputy Secretary of Transportation David Tyerar made two recent trips from Richmond to Leesburg to appear before the Loudoun Board of Supervisors. He didn't go to make the case for Dulles Rail. Rather, he spoke to promote the Outer Beltway.

The governor and secretary revived planning for the Outer Beltway, added it as a new Corridor of Statewide Significance, and are exploring the route for yet another public-private partnership. Yet this highway would do little to help massively congested corridors like I-66, Route 50, and Route 7. The contrast between the obstacles put before Dulles Rail by the McDonnell administration and their full-court press for the Outer Beltway couldn't be starker.

If the Silver Line's phase 2 fails, it will be on Governor McDonnell's watch. He should lead the way to compromises that will allow the project to move forward, and focus more of the state's transportation resources on this economically critical project.

The national, and Virginia, Tea Party holds as a fundamental principle that "Governing should be done at the most local level possible where it can be held accountable." Individual counties and cities ought to be able to decide how they want to grow, or not grow. Loudoun, Charlottesville, and Roanoke should make these desicisions instead of the state government in Richmond.

Tea Party groups have been alarmed about "Agenda 21," which they say is a United Nations plan to undermine property rights. There's no UN conspiracy (though planners shouldn't be too quick to dismiss the underlying fears), but Virginia has a very real assault on liberty happening today. Call it Agenda 639.

Agenda 639, or Senate Bill 639 as passed into law, forces each county to match local transportation plans to dictates from the Commonwealth Transportation Board. If a locality doesn't want a particular transportation project, too bad. If VDOT spends money on the project anyway and a county rejects it, they have to reimburse VDOT, even if the county never wanted the project in the first place.

That's not all. Virginia has for many years used a formula to allocate transportation money to the various counties and cities. That gave local levels of government more say over their transportation. Agenda 639/SB 639 moves hundreds of millions of dollars out of the formula, giving the CTB unprecedented control of how it's spent. The governor in Richmond will now have more power to spend tax money than local leaders. That's the opposite of "the most local level possible."

If Virginia's small-government conservatives aren't alarmed at this, they should be.

One of the debates on the national transportation bill is to what extent the federal government should mandate that states and localities spend money on specific types of projects, even if those are projects, like paving sidewalks, that many people support to improve safety and economic development of an area.

The House transportation bill simply eliminates these set-asides. This has led many people in cities where people walk and bike in large numbers to worry that their state departments of transportation would refuse to fund such projects.

A bipartisan amendment from Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Thad Cochran (R-MS) found a common sense and small government approach to this issue: let local communities, or regional metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), choose how to spend the money themselves.

This is the right strategy for both liberals and conservatives. There's little enthusiasm for making more transportation decisions in Washington. Even in Washington, we'd rather make the transportation decisions at 55 M Street, SE (the District Department of Transportation headquarters) than inside 1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE (the US Department of Transportation), 2 blocks away.

Look at the saga over streetcar tracks on the 11th Street bridge. Federal regulations made it impossible for DC to put tracks on a bridge, a project local voters supported and would have paid for with local money. Too many transportation projects are too expensive and take too long because of federal rules.

Let's get rid of many of these federal rules and give the power to "the most local level [of government] possible." Transferring federal power to big state governments isn't enough to advance liberty. Give the power to local counties and cities.

With this bill on his record, Bob McDonnell might well turn out to be Virginia's most big-government governor ever. Let Northern Virginia decide what Northern Virginia wants, let Hampton Roads choose what's best for Hampton Roads, and let the Appalachian west set its own course.

If a locality rejected a project outright, local taxpayers would have to reimburse VDOT for any money it has spent, even if they've rejected it based on hard data, or if the locality never wanted the project in the first place.

Governor Bob McDonnell has until mid-April to either sign the bill into law or use his line-item veto authority. Local officials and groups such as the Virginia Municipal League and the Virginia Association of Counties are asking McDonnell to remove the provisions giving VDOT its new powers, as are smart growth advocates, and many local governments.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) has an action alert for Virginia residents to ask local governments to challenge the bill, and to contact the governor directly.

Stewart Schwartz of CSG says, "VDOT is notorious for failing to consider a range of alternatives and community impacts, but can now punish local governments and local taxpayers for daring to offer alternative solutions or for recommending cancellation of ill-advised projects based on information about environmental or community impacts. In the end, the state will waste billions of dollars."

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, who cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate to pass the bill, described the legislation as "a modest effort to ... improve the coordination of land use planning and transportation planning."

Critics might substitute "coercion" for "coordination," and "overreaching" for "modest." In editorials, the Roanoke Times observed that the bill "promotes ill will rather than harmony," and the Lynchburg News & Advance raised the specter of VDOT as a "mega-agency with vast powers over local governments." Both alluded to the bill's incompatibility with Governor McDonnell's professed attitude toward mandates.

The McDonnell administration's approach stands in contrast to a bipartisan 2007 law that required localities over a certain size to designate "urban development areas" (UDAs). These are specific areas where zoning would allow future growth and reduce pressure for more sprawl. The law called for siting UDAs near existing infrastructure that could handle the growth.

At the time, Republican Delegate Clay Athey promoted the concept as a cost-saving measure, since the state pays for roads to serve far-flung developments that come from poor local planning. The state would save money on roads, local governments would save on infrastructure and services, and residents would save on transportation.

The UDA rule enjoyed broad support from smart-growth proponents, fiscal conservatives, and the Kaine administration. But this March, Governor McDonnell signed legislation that makes UDAs optional and allows local voters to abolish them. He portrayed UDAs as "burdensome mandates on localities," despite the fact that the state paid to help 32 localities meet the law's requirements, and despite evidence that compact development saves money in many ways.

Why would the state weaken one bill that coordinated land use and transportation planning to the benefit of both state and local governments, only to replace it with another bill that forces coordination at the expense of local voices and priorities?

The reason may be less about coordination or cost, than a simple preference for highways. VDOT and the governor have been pushing contentious highway projects. Here are some examples:

• Charlottesville Bypass, widely opposed at the local level. VDOT has largely disregarded the better "Places29" alternative.
  
• Widening most of I-81 to 8 lanes at a long-term cost of $11.4 billion.
  
• The Coalfields Expressway in the far southwest, which could cost $2.1 to $4.2 billion.
  
• A new Potomac River crossing and Outer Beltway, which past Loudoun County Boards have opposed.
  
• Route 460. McDonnell replaced most of the Virginia Port Authority's Board of Commissioners to move the project forward, ignoring regional officials' requests to spend the money on bridge and tunnel bottlenecks.

Schwartz believes that Virginia's Secretary of Transportation and VDOT Chair, Sean Connaughton, "isn't interested in better land use at all, but in the ability to force controversial highway projects through communities. In the process, he is destroying the necessary coordination and discussion between local, regional, and state officials."

The governor should restore 2007's conservative, cost-saving approach to transportation

The connectivity standards reformed a key mistake in suburban development: building neighborhoods composed primarily of cul-de-sacs. In many neighborhoods, there's just one way in and out for any homeowner, to one or maybe two major arterial roads.

While this gives many homeowners the ability to live on a quiet street, it creates problems for everyone. With few entry and exit points, all the traffic gets focused on single intersections at the arterials, causing significant congestion. Kids can't walk or bike to school or even friends' houses when the only route involves going out to the busiest part of the neighborhood and along a wide road designed for high-speed traffic.

And it costs taxpayers. These neighborhoods are very expansive to plow for snow and time-consuming to navigate for ambulances and fire trucks. Subdivisions in Virginia had to wait days or weeks for plowing during the major snows last year because of the way the plows had to constantly backtrack, and people couldn't get out of their neighborhoods without any alternate routes.

Older suburban areas still primarily comprise single-family houses while providing a grid that spreads traffic around and offers many safe routes for non-motorized users. Areas like Columbia, Greenbelt and Reston win constant plaudits for designing suburban areas that lack these shortcomings, with paths to walk and bike that also build community.

The connectivity rules revolved around a simple premise: Once a developer builds a subdivision, VDOT (except in a few counties) then takes over responsibility for maintaining and plowing the roads. Therefore, they should be able to require certain standards to avoid developers pushing all the costs off onto the taxpayer. The General Assembly in 2007 authorized a change, and Virginia briefly jumped far ahead of most states with this progressive policy.

Last week, however, the Commonwealth Transportation Board, a policymaking body appointed by the Governor, voted to drop the old standards, especially the "Connectivity Index" which created a score based on the degree to which a street network was connected or isolated.

Instead, they set some rules for the number of connections out of a subdivision and onto main streets. A development of 200 homes needs 2 connections, though 1 can be a "stub end" road which connects to an as-yet-undeveloped area. Each additional 200 homes will only require one additional connection. It's better than nothing, but still means a new 200-house development can have just 1 way in and out.

Also, a subdivision can add a "collector road" which gives double credit if that road is part of a county transportation plan. So a developer could build 400 houses, all on cul-de-sacs off one major road through the center, and connect that road only at 2 points to major arterials. A typical suburban house can generate about 10 car trips per day, so there will be 4,000 turning movements onto and off of those 2 arterials every day. It's a recipe for major traffic that will harm every other resident who uses those roads.

While Virginia is weakening rules to create better road networks in new suburbs, it's neglecting established areas in favor of greenfield development and traffic-inducing megaprojects. Governor McDonnell and Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton have made it clear they don't want to contribute to the Silver Line Phase II, even if the federal government, Fairfax, and Loudon all put in more money.

Meanwhile, but McDonnell and Connaughton are eagerly borrowing money to build large freeways like the damaging bypass around Charlottesville or to push an Outer Beltway. Much of the region's future growth will happen in Tysons Corner, but it's not getting transportation improvements it needs. And transit along the Route 1/Richmond Highway corridor is nowhere on the agenda.

Virginia could get far more bang for its precious transportation buck by focusing on local street connections, and most of all repairing crumbling roads and bridges. Instead, the McDonnell administration seems bent on repeating the mistakes of the 1950s: building unsustainable transportation networks at the periphery while letting a more central economic engine sputter. Then, it was center cities across America; now, it's Arlington, Alexandria and Tysons Corner which state officials are looking past instead of toward.

Tonight is an important meeting where Virginia residents can speak up about priorities. VDOT is having a public meeting to hear input on its 6-year priorities tonight, at the VDOT Northern Virginia District Office, 4975 Alliance Drive in Fairfax. Sadly, VDOT doesn't seem to think it's a priority to locate a meeting near Metro. An open house format starts at 6, and presentations by local officials at 6:30 followed by public testimony.

Bob Chase's Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, a group funded by greenfield developers in Virginia to lobby for roads that would feed suburban development on their land, has been pushing its members to attend and push for an Outer Beltway. Chase even argued, with an apparent straight face, that new highway lanes were more important than repairing crumbling bridges during a round of news stories last week concerning the dire condition of the nation's infrastructure.

It's important to get more residents who support good road connectivity, local street improvements, repairing crumbling infrastructure, pedestrian and bicycle projects, and local transit improvements to counter the sprawl lobbyists. If you can't attend, you can also send in written testimony at this Coalition for Smarter Growth page.

According to the Examiner, a state proposal would require local transportation boards to allow Virginia to appoint one member if the board receives state money. Many local boards have agreed to the proposal, though Alexandria, Fairfax, Arlington and the NVTC have so far refused. It isn't clear whether Virginia has actually exercised the appointing privilege for other boards.

It's also unclear exactly where the money at stake is coming from. It could be from the special Northern Virginia gas tax, or it could be from Virginia's annual match to the federal government's $150 million contribution to WMATA, or it could be from another source.

In any case, this is more evidence of the strained relationship between the Commonwealth government and the local governments that provide the majority of Metro's funding and riders.