Home | Virginia
Politics
| National
Politics
Menu

Make a New Account

Username:

Password:



Forget your username or password?


Poll
How Enthused Are You About Tim Kaine for Senate?
Wildly Enthused, I LOVE Tim Kaine!
Strongly Enthused, I like Kaine a lot, Allen sux
Moderately enthused: Kaine's fine, Allen sux
Not enthused about Kaine, but Allen sux
Not at all enthused about this race
I'm voting for George Allen

Results

Weather

Search




Advanced Search


Blog Roll
Virginia Blogs
All Politics is Local
Augusta Free Press
Bacon's Rebellion
Coarse Cracked Corn
Crew of 42
DemRulz
Dixie Pig
Equality Loudoun
The Fix (WaPo)
Greater Greater Washington
The Green Miles
Leaving My Marc
Leesburg Tomorrow
Loudoun Progress
Moonhowlings
New Dominion Project
Not Larry Sabato
Off K Street
Old Dominion Blogs
Ox Road South Blog
Renaissance Ruminations
Richmonder
Richmond Sunlight
RTD VA Politics blog
Roanoke Times blog
Shad Plank
SlantBlog
Too Conservative
True Adventures of the Doorbell Queen
VB Dems
Virginia Education Report
WaPo - Virginia Politics Blog
Waldo Jaquith
Waldo's VA Political Blogroll

Progressive Legal Directory www.criminallawyervirginia.net
www.virginia-duilawyers.com
www.virginia-personalinjurylawyer.com
www.recklessdrivinglawyer.net
www.helpdisabilitylawyer.com
www.criminallawdc.com
www.duilawsdc.com

ADT Home Security in Virginia

On Transportation, Bob McDonnell turns Virginia "back toward the 1950s"

by: lowkell

Tue Oct 25, 2011 at 17:11:19 PM EDT


The always on-point David Alpert GreaterGreaterWashington nails Bob McDonnell, and deservedly so, for escalating his ongoing war on smart growth/transit-oriented development. What McDonnell's doing here is almost the exact definition of "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results," aka "insanity."  It's also a guaranteed way not only to keep us addicted to dirty, expensive fossil fuels, but actually to increase that dependency when we should be moving in the exact opposite direction. Here's an excerpt from Alpert's article, but definitely read the entire thing:
...[Virginia's] making a U-turn as the Commonwealth Transportation Board threw out the new standards at a meeting last week.

This step is just one of many from Virginia statewide agencies in recent days that decisively push toward a 1950s view of growth, one which neglects established communities and crumbling infrastructure in favor of brand-new sprawl in the farmlands which ultimately creates even more traffic.

State officials are giving the thumbs down to Metro, light rail and bus transit in favor of highway lane expansion, skipping small but significant improvements that help neighborhoods or key growth areas like Tysons Corner to instead spend billions on megaprojects that drive the region farther apart, and lose focus on key repair needs while weakening the street connectivity standards.

If you live in Virginia, please speak up at a hearing tonight at VDOT's (non-Metro-accessible) Northern Virginia office in Fairfax, or send in written comments.

I'm tempted to go, except that, appropriately enough, I have no desire to battle the insane traffic to get to this meeting. And if you think it's bad now, just imagine how awful it will be if sprawl-crazy, anti-smart-growth, ignorant ideologues and corporate tools like Bob McDonnell and Bob Chase's Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance get their way. Ugh.
lowkell :: On Transportation, Bob McDonnell turns Virginia "back toward the 1950s"
Tags: , , , (All Tags)
Print Friendly View Send As Email

Transportation (0.00 / 0)
I don't see anybody in the state repug or dem doing much about our transportation system. People in northern Va spend a heck of a lot time idling along commuting to work every day yet it seems it is foolish to vote republican because you know they will do nothing. Yet the democratic governors did very little. A republican friend reminded me just today that Gov Warner shut down DMV offices at some expense.

Given that Republican'ts refuse to raise revenues (0.00 / 0)
except perhaps with crazy schemes like "abuser fees," that's not exactly surprising. Also, at least Democrats aren't actively working - as Bob McDonnell and Company are - to make matters (much) worse!

Follow me on Twitter.

[ Parent ]
Virginia Forward from 1930's (0.00 / 0)
The 2011 General Assembly session was the most productive in terms of progress made for transportation in a long time.  The work was done in a bi-partisan team effort.

Two Delegates from Fairfax County deserve special recognition for their efforts in transportation.  Delegate Scott Surovell (D-44) has been working to bring Virginia forward from the 1930's.  The representative composition of the Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) is stuck in the pattern of 1930's Congressional districts.  Scott has been advocating for us to update the composition to represent the 2010 population distribution by way of our new Congressional districts and to automatically update after each decennial census.  

The proposal is being reviewed by the Governor.  Although, I am not certain how much time should be required to review the concept of fair representation in Virginia.  Obviously, when the CTB was established fair representation was considered important or they would not have distributed representation along Congressional districts at the time.

Delegate Jim LeMunyon (R-67) has been advocating for us to apply computer models to ensure we first invest in traffic mitigation where it can make the most impact in the most lives of our residents.  

Jim also sought to provide Supervisors in Fairfax and Loudoun a greater voice in whether tolls are increased on the Dulles Toll Road.  This would have been an effective advocacy tool this year in dealing with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA).

The incumbent Fairfax County Chairman was ambivalent as to whether she wanted increased power for local government at no cost to our community.  She prefers to complain rather to possess local responsibility and accountability.  I prefer our Board of Supervisors having the power to approve or disapprove toll increases proposed by MWAA.  Yes, Peter Parker fans, with great power comes great responsibility.

Thank you for letting me share.  Vote November 8.

A. Will Radle, Jr.
Independent Candidate for Chairman,
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors


[ Parent ]
Worse (0.00 / 0)
What about toll roads. That apparently is the repug way for roads rather than raise the gas tax a few cents which nobody would miss.  

Yeah, they have a knack for doing things (0.00 / 0)
the bass-ackwards way, definitely not the smart or progressive way. But then again, this is the party that brought us George W. Bush, Rick Perry (who makes Bush look like a genius), and Herman "999" Cain, so what else would we expect.

Follow me on Twitter.

[ Parent ]
And unfortunately (0.00 / 0)
Too many Democrats go along with such ideas.  

[ Parent ]
Advertising

Donate to Blue Virginia

About
The purpose of Blue Virginia is to cover Virginia politics from a progressive and Democratic perspective. This is a group blog and a community blog. We invite everyone to comment here, but please be aware that profanity, personal attacks, bigotry, insults, rudeness, frequent unsupported or off-point statements, and "trolling" (NOTE: that includes outright lies, whether about climate science, or what other people said, or whatever) are not permitted and, if continued, will lead to banning. For more on trolling, see the Daily Kos FAQs. Also note that diaries may be deleted if they do not contain at least 2 solid paragraphs of original text; if not, please use the comments section of a relevant diary. For more on writing diaries, click here. Thanks, and enjoy!

P.S. You can contact us at lowell@raisingkaine.com and you can subscribe to Lowell's Twitter feed here. If you'd like to subscribe to Miles Grant's Twitter feed, click here. For Teacherken, click here. For Kindler, click here.

P.P.S. To see the Blue Virginia archive, please click here. To see the Raising Kaine archive, please click here. To see the Blue Commonwealth archive, please click here.



RSS Feed

Subscribe to Blue Virginia - Front Page


Powered by: SoapBlox