See a need for "Visioning"?

With more and more articles (and public comments) such as this published everyday in Hampton Roads, in print and online, it only reinforces the dire need for a community-wide, grassroots "Visioning" process.


From the pages of the Daily Press:


Tolls and more
Leasing the bridges and tunnels will get you only so far

August 26, 2008

Dwight Farmer has a long-standing habit, inconvenient for tax-a-phobic public office-holders, of sticking to the facts when it comes to roads and transportation. Recently he showed up before the Williamsburg City Council, true to form.

And what he said is worth contemplating, especially as the Labor Day weekend traffic jams loom.

Tolls won't get Virginia out of its congestion problems, said Farmer, executive director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. Not by themselves. And not without some driver pain and political pushback when the tolls get implemented.

Yes, leasing infrastructure is one way to get a public-private push behind road building. The state essentially subcontracts its tolling authority and lets a private business handle the toll collections, thereby providing a revenue stream to build and maintain highways.

And tolls are paid by the users, which is the right principle for road-funding.

But to tout tolls as the be-all and end-all, the easy way to the bright, far side of a darkening tunnel of congestion? No, says, Farmer. You can't get there from here just by tolling. The state — that means the taxpaying public — is going to have to put up some major dough.

And that's the part many state legislators pray to avoid — avoid like the plague, in fact, because they have consistently held out the absurd proposition that you get new roads built without the bother of new taxes.

Now it's going to get more problematic, as news rolls out of significant revenue shortfalls in the state budget. And that means shortfalls for everything, not just roads. With education funding now in direct competition with road needs, along with other state priorities, the overall situation promises to be strained, indeed.

Further, with highway maintenance needs digging deeper into the state budget, Virginia may lose its ability to draw down federal matching highway funds, perhaps as soon as 2014.

Even if fiscal life at the state Capitol was all roses and sunshine, the heavy lean on road tolling has a half-life that can be measured by the amount of time it will take drivers to figure out they're still paying the bill.

In order to romance road leasing, state legislators have loudly referred to "private funding," while whispering the part about "big tolls." Farmer calculates that if the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel had been built and maintained by tolls alone, adjusting for inflation, drivers today would be forking over $10 every time they crossed.

Or, how about the proposed re-building of Route 460 along the south side of the James River between Petersburg and Suffolk? As once envisioned, passenger cars would pay $10-$12 each way, with trucks paying $30. And the state would still have to throw in another $50 million per year to finish the project.

What does Farmer predict, failing a big push on road funding by the state?

"Eventually we'll lose economic connectivity between the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads, and they will develop as two separate areas," he said.

Now, there are some in Williamsburg and even lower on the Peninsula who wouldn't mind that. But such fragmentation spells less and less political power, and less and less economic power.

That is not a formula for prosperity.

# # #

Be sure to read the comments, too, to gauge the range of public sentiment, at least the vocal ones, on topics such as this. Now, we need to find out how everyone feels, not just the vocal few.

Special note to commenter Reid: "flying cars"? sounds a little like the chaos of the movie "The Fifth Element", huh? :-)

Want to know more about "Visioning", leave your comment here with an email address and I'll share!

To share this post, here is a short URL: http://tinyurl.com/Visioning1

GRIDLOCK: What's the cost of doing nothing?

Kimball Payne of the Daily Press summarized the issue very well. Just keep thinking $1 Million out of pocket EVERY DAY...

What won't happen?

• There will be no increase in the state's 17.5-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax, which — despite repeated efforts — has remained unchanged since 1986.

• There will be no regional tax or fee increases to improve the overworked local transportation network.

• There will be no big construction projects started from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach.

• No high-tech tolling or high-occupancy tolling programs will be started in Hampton Roads.

What will happen?

• Traffic bottlenecks and backups at the region's bridges and tunnels will continue to worsen as traffic increases in a stagnant space.

• The cost of some top projects will keep skyrocketing. When voters rejected a sales tax increase in 2002, the price tag was about $7.7 billion. Six years later, the cost has ballooned to upward of $11 billion. Inflation lifts that local price tag $1 million a day. Fuel, steel, concrete and asphalt prices are surging because of demand in China and other rapidly growing countries.

What might happen?

• High gas prices and a sagging national economy could curb travel and tourism, thus providing some relief from daily backups. The reduction is unlikely to make any substantial progress in opening up commutes.

• There could be progress at the Midtown Tunnel. Upgrading that clogged two-lane link between Portsmouth and Norfolk is being shopped to private companies, and the improvements could be paid for by using toll revenues.

Local projects stuck in limbo:

• Widening Interstate 64 from Bland Boulevard to Route 199 to improve traffic flow between northern Newport News and Williamsburg

• Overhauling the four-lane Route 460 south of the James River to give drivers an alternate link among Richmond, Hampton Roads and points south

• The long-debated third crossing to link the Peninsula with South Hampton Roads and alleviate congestion at the local bridge-tunnels

• Upgrading the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel with either an extra two-lane tube or an overarching bridge to provide daily commuter relief

Republicans, democrats blame each other for transportation impasse.

-Kimball Payne, Daily Press


I blame us, the citizens of Hampton Roads and Virginia, for not standing up to be heard. Enough is enough. Stop the partisanship and political maneuvering.

Work it out. BeatTheGridlock and do it now!

BeatTheGridlock.com, this is what Hampton Roads traffic looks like

View Hampton Roads I-64 Traffic cams HERE
and learn more about traffic in all of Virginia here: BeatTheGridlock.com

Photo by Stephanie Oberlander, Virginian-Pilot (Courtesy of WVEC-sky13)

Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel (HRBT)

Monitor Merrimac Bridge Tunnel (MMBT)

"The Tunnel" to locals

Virginian-Pilot file photo

Hampton Roads and NYC comparison from space

Hampton Roads, Virginia from space:

(from Wikipedia) This view from space in July 1996 shows portions of each of the Seven Cities of Hampton Roads which generally surround the harbor area of Hampton Roads, which framed by the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel visible to the east (right), the Virginia Peninsula subregion to the north (top), and the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel to the west (left) and the 3 branches of the Elizabeth River which drain into the harbor from the south (bottom), running through many communities of the South Hampton Roads subregion. To the west of the harbor, are the mouths of the James River (upper left) and the Nansemond River (lower left). Crossing the James River, the 4-mile (6 km)-long James River Bridge is also clearly visible, connecting Newport News with Isle of Wight County. NASA photograph

NYC, NY from space: I chose an image from 9/11 to give an accurate picture of where lower Manhattan is located (the approximate "middle" of NYC).

Public Use Permitted. Credit/Source: NASA. For more information Visit NASA's Multimedia Gallery Credit: Additional source description and credit info from NASA: Plume of smoke on 9/11/2001 from the World Trade Center attacks. As NASA explains: This image is one of a series taken that day of metropolitan New York City by the International Space Station's Expedition 3 crew that shows the smoke plume rising from the Manhattan.

The similarities (vice differences) in the two regions are apparent.

BeatTheGridlock.com, now here's a great suggestion!

From the Daily Press

4-day workweek
June 28, 2008

Virginia's government is meeting to try to fix the state's transportation problems. Unfortunately all the solutions they are looking at will take many years, if not decades, to impact traffic problems. There is a solution that would relieve the congestion problems this year, with many additional benefits and provide immediate cost savings to all Virginians.

The legislature should declare a transportation and energy state of emergency, and require all employers with 10 or more employees to immediately implement a 10-hour workday, four-day workweek with 20 percent of the employees off each day of the week. This would provide immediate relief for the traffic congestion problems of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, as well as providing statewide energy, pollution and cost savings.

There will be an immediate decrease in rush-hour traffic of at least 20 percent, which would greatly reduce traffic jams in the worst bottlenecks. The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission study done five years ago shows the rush-hour traffic volume at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel was 3,600 vehicles per tube each hour (which is maximum capacity) with a seven- to eight-minute delay each way, and we all know it has gotten worse since.

Every worker would see an immediate 20 percent decrease in fuel costs. Workers would have an extra day off each week to spend with family or for recreation.

Ralph DeSimone, Toano VA

What is Hampton Roads? The land and the water and the history...

"Hampton Roads" is this region in southeastern Virginia where we live. Everybody calls it that.

"Hampton Roads" refers to both a body of water and the region of land in the southeastern portion of Virginia made up of the "Seven Cities" of:
Chesapeake
Hampton
Newport News
Norfolk
Portsmouth
Suffolk
and Virginia Beach (also the largest city in Virginia)

and several smaller towns:
Franklin, Poquoson and Williamsburg.

The water area "Hampton Roads" (known locally as "the harbor") is one of the world's biggest natural harbors.

Before "Hampton Roads" was a place to live, it was a place to park your boat. First and foremost, it's the name for the body of water between the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads. More precisely, it's the body of water formed by the meeting of the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers, which then flows out the other end into the Chesapeake Bay.

And how did it get its' name?

It's a condensed version of the original name given it by English settlers:
The Earl of Southampton's Roadstead.

"Roadstead" is an old English word for a protected anchorage, not as enclosed as a harbor but still shielded from the ocean waves.

And the Earl of Southampton? He was Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton (1573-1624). His biggest claim to fame is that he was a patron of William Shakespeare. In return for the financial aid, Shakespeare dedicated two of his long poems, "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," to Wriothesley.

Unfortunately for Southampton, he was linked to the plot by the Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth I's ex-boyfriend, to stage a coup against the queen's government. He was thrown in the Tower of London, sentenced to death.

Fortunately for Southampton, his sentence was commuted to life in prison, and after Elizabeth died and was succeeded by James I, he was released.

The earl was also a backer of the Virginia Company, the outfit that settled Jamestown and the other early settlements in Virginia.

Some things never change. People who put the money up get things named after them.


When driving from Hampton to Norfolk on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT), after you emerge from the tunnel - much of the water you see on your left is the Chesapeake Bay, and much of the water you see on your right is "Hampton Roads", the water.