Transportation in Hampton Roads – working towards a solution
This is the first in a series of posts dedicated to a dialogue about our transportation challenges and how we can work together to fix them without undue partisanship and a strident tone. – J.R. Hoeft
Guest post by Mike Barrett, member of the Board of Directors, Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce and SPSA and CEO of the Runnymede Corporation
Even non-bloggers are beginning to show up commenting on the deplorable conditions of our highways, bridges, and roadways.
Of course, some conditions, like pot holes, abandoned bridges, closed rest stops, shuttered maintenance facilities, tall grass on interstate medians, faded pavement markings, missing signage, damaged railings, are easy to see. But pavement degradation, structural bridge deterioration, and deferred maintenance are not as easy to see, but the Commonwealth just got a D- from the civil engineers who know what they are talking about.
The congestion indicators also can’t be missed; six mile backups at the HRBT, four mile backups at the mid town tunnel, lines back to Bowers Hill crawling toward the high rise bridge, and these are just normal conditions. Who can forget the chaos when we have a real problem like flooding or a leak in the tunnel!
We have grown weary of uncertainty; how long should I plan for a trip to Williamsburg? Church starts at 11:00 AM, must we really leave at 9:30 AM to be on time? How do I get out of Hampton Roads on a Friday afternoon? Who can justify the estimated $1,000 we all spend on lost productivity and car repair? And for those in business who expanded to the Peninsula, or to the Southside when the tunnels were expanded, can you still justify doing business on the other side given the extra cost of delay and confusion about on arrival times?
These are the everyday manifestations of a transportation system that is nearing collapse. Of course, none of this happened all at once; it has been a slow and steady degradation as the value of the funds we commit to transportation have lost their buying power. The effect statewide, over time, is profound, and our failure to conserve this important and vital asset, that is, our transportation infrastructure, will increasingly lead to lost productivity, lost opportunity, loss of more and more family time, the re-balkanization of Hampton Roads, and more isolation from the transportation networks around the country.
No one in political office can deny these conditions, nor their effects on the lives of their constituents. Yet attempts in the past, like the “Yes” Campaign, the legislative process that culminated in HB 3202, and even special sessions devoted to finding a solution to this funding problem, have failed. Now, despite the prominence of transportation funding issues in the last race for Governor, the issue has once again been shunted aside to deal with other pressing matters.
Yet who would wish to leave executive or legislative office with the reputation of having presided over the steady destruction of our transportation system. Is not conservation, sustainment, and improvement of transportation infrastructure one of the most important functions of government?
Yes, it is, and in my next installment, I will opine what we should do.
Category: Government
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“Yes, it is, and in my next installment, I will opine what we should do.”
I love reruns!
The complexity of the transportation issue adds to problem. The subparts of the issue include not only funding streams but also
-which projects to pursue and prioritization of them?
-How to protect the funding streams from diversion to other uses
-What should be basis of prioritization of projects, the port, congestion relief etc.
-should projects be planned to minimize sprawl and encourage development in better served areas? (should we grow inward or outward)
Obviously these questions address transportation enhancements more than maintenance.
IMHO the conversation should address all of these issues. Fixing one part of them problem without addressing the others accomplishes little
Brian – if you have a post, or someone who you would like to have post, with a different opinion of the problems (or perceived problems), challenges (which might be people looking to raise taxes), and solutions – be my guest and have them write here.
My goal is to keep the snark out (or to a minimum, at least) of these posts and discuss this in a positive way.
SE VA MWC Alum – this is the first in a series of posts – hopefully by a multitude of authors. Your suggestions on what to write about are right on the mark. Hopefully they will all be addressed over the course of this series.
Sorry. I’ll keep quiet until after Mike says the same thing he’s been saying for a decade or more about the impending doom of this crisis. Then I’ll wait for candidates to propose his ideas during a campaign and get elected.
More propaganda from expand government, raise taxes, Democratic Party shill Mike Barrett. Now on Bearing Drift? How sad.
As Brian points out, Mike and his growth lobby pals keep pushing bogus so-called “economic development” pet projects that cost billions instead of any meaningful support for directing our significant transportation funds towards real needs.
Mike Barrett, a developer and former appointed SPSA Board member that ran that taxpayer funded regional entity into massive debt and had to be replaced by his own Democratic Governor keeps beating the same old Hampton Roads Partnership regional drum. When the voters of our region are given the opportunity to vote on Mike’s transportation tax and toll increase proposals – they REJECTED Mike’s “Yes Campaign” by a 2-to-1 margin, in spite of the many distortions and misleading propaganda talking points being put out by Mike and his business lobby friends.
When Mike Barrett’s light rail/self serving TOD scam was placed on the ballot in Virginia beach voters REJECTED Mike’s abuse of our transportation funds.
Mike Barrett and the HR Chamber of Commerce opposed a Constitutional amendment to protect the TTF (Transportation Trust Fund); he doesn’t want to support efforts to prevent much needed transportation funds from being robbed to pay for “other stuff”. And the Democratic Governors that Mike supported did rob the TTF and frittered away those funds.
Mike and his pals, both RINOs and Democrats pushed through HB 3202 and created the unconstitutional HRTA (Hampton Roads Transportation Authority) – another form of REGIONAL taxation without representation!
Myself and a few other citizens had to sue the General Assembly and enlist the help of Pat McSweeney to put a stop to THAT abuse of government.
Mike once again paints a picture of transportation in our state that is over blown and invents a “crisis” that isn’t really there.
The “crisis” we suffer from is due to guys like Mike Barrett and his growth lobby pals that have bought off our political process and installed elected “representatives” that do their bidding, not ours. State and local governments that have run up MASSIVE DEBT and expanded the growth of government while increasing the tax subsidies to special business interests all called “economic development” – which is a nice term for political corruption and bribery.
The all-appointed MPO, now rebranded as the TPO, is one of the worse in the nation when it comes to the proper and meaningful role of citizens in the regional decision making process. The federal Quadrennial Review stated such. the newly appointed CTAC is a nightmare of corruptions and conflicts of interest! The CTAC is the CITIZEN committee to advice the TPO – and it is packed with more growth lobby shills and even people that do business on government funded transportation contracts!
Don’t even get me started on the HORRIFIC WASTE OF BILLIONS of tax funds on the very slow “high speed rail” line being pushed by the same growth lobby – wasting much needed transportation funds an another useless “want” instead of addressing a true transportation NEED.
But … the poster child of wasteful transportation spending guys like Mike Barrett and the HR chamber support is the use of over a million tax dollars to subsidize the wooden schooner Virginia. Yes friends – Transportation funds were used for THAT boondoggle!
Mike Barrett and his ilk cannot resist wasting our tax funds for their pet projects while pretending to worry about the actual true NEEDS that are left untended.
Mike will rave on about pot holes – but he keeps supporting wasteful spending for developer wants like massively expensive “light rail” to be used to benefit developers hoping to enrich themselves from TOD development.
Is this about Mike?
Of course it is about Mike Barrett – and his “friends”. THEY are a major reason our region has a mess in regard to our transportation funding and prioritization of projects. Mike is simly a mouth piece for special interests.
I ? Histrionics.
Here in Southside, we’re having problems just fully funding the school systems this year. Tidewater (are we allowed to use that name anymore) got itself into this situation by not seeing trends & planning ahead.
This calls to mind a phrase from Blazing Saddles: “Son, you’re on your own.”
Reid highlights one of my recent problems with Mike Barrett:
“Mike and his pals, both RINOs and Democrats pushed through HB 3202 and created the unconstitutional HRTA (Hampton Roads Transportation Authority) – Reid Greenmun
Indeed, I have seen Mike’s support for this elsewhere and he does leave the indication in his posting that HB3202 would’ve been a positive step towards a solution.
If that were all there was too it, I would simply think that Mike was mistaken in his views about HB3202 and what would best solve our problems. I can respect disagreement and will even be open to at least examining your arguement. I try to temper my passion and conviction with the reality that as an imperfect being, I sometimes get it wrong.
However, there’s more to it. Frankly, it paints Mike in a poor light. While he defends HB3202 in some places, he’ll attack Gov. Bob McDonnell for the same thing. Hypocritical and unseemly. It turns one off to the rest of your arguement.
“It is ironic that the Governor has been a part of the greatest deterioration of our transportation infrastructure in the history of the Commonwealth, yet is offered up as a role model by national leaders of his party for his performance.” – Mike Barrett
“as Attorney General, he was right in the middle of the failure of the House to structure a plan that approved new funding and eventually was declared unconstitutional because the required taxes and fees were not approved by Legislature.”- Mike Barrett
*Mike Barrett quotes taken from BD here:
http://bearingdrift.com/2010/01/28/leave-the-blogging-to-blue-virginia/
Attacking a political ally for the sake of pure partisanship, Mike?
HB3202 is one of the biggest things I have against McDonnell, I agree with Mike’s point, unfortunately, I don’t believe that he does.
So, William, it does become about Mike, unforunately. I’m interested in the truth. A truthful thoughtful discussion was what this was for right? If you talk about a political figure and the issue he was allied with you on in a negative way and support the same issue, how do we know you even believe what your saying or trust your other arguements?
Reid,
When you actually support a transportation improvement, people might start to take you seriously. However, you oppose everything: each and every roads plan, light rail, High Speed Rail, etc.
Until you actually come out with a concrete, realistic, and constructive plan, you should be left for joke fodder.
Yep, there it is. Let’s not talk about transportation. We can just beat each other up the same way it’s always been done since the old Talknet days. Nice try JR, but the animosity runs too deep. Turn off the mic, no one cares what the message is.
Darrell, I care. Maybe Mike will surprise me and come up with a new solution that he hasn’t been offering for the past decade. I suspect it will be the same old thing – tax increases. But I could be wrong.
Thanks, Darrell… I was thinking the same thing.
Let’s please see commenters (and guest bloggers) talk about transportation issues/solutions and not specific people, politics and personal issues. As a fairly recent import to Hampton Roads, I’ve got to point to that as the core problem with getting anything accomplished.
From what I’ve read over the past two years since arriving here in the tidewater of Virginia, we know what the problems are, now we need to develop creative solutions and move forward.
(Kinda like substance abuse, once admitting to a problem, only then you can work on fixing it.)
What’s so creative about a tax increase?
Hello, Missy.
I don’t think anyone suggests that transportation doesn’t need improvement. If we continue to grow then transportation will also need a greater capacity. The only disagreement is in whether people are being honest in their assessment of severity, or the effectiveness of their solutions.
There is also the problem where our elected representatives have been stealing our funding for other purposes all the while insisting we have some sort of transportation crisis. Doesn’t make sense.
Keep in mind that the public is becoming increasingly informed and we scour the informations sources to see if the rhetoric matches reality. Government will have to take a different and more honest approach when marketing their ideas with their constituents.
I would guess that you have a bias given your Hampton Roads Partnership gravatar and the link to the smartregion.org site, but that’s ok. I have my opinions. I’m still willing to listen to what you think would work.
…..and you are right, because Mike has interjected politics into HB 3202 recently, partisan resistance has popped up. Ears deaf by politics. We weren’t ready to listen to Mike attempt to come up with something new.
Likewise, I’m not sure consultants playing SIM CITY with our real lives understand that like NOVA, residents in Hampton Roads/Tidewater feel taken advantage of by the rest of the commonwealth. A local resentment coupled with the economic difficulties we all face make it difficult to negotiate and cooperate with those we see continually suggest that we have to pay more (taxes) and sacrifice more.
Why don’t we forget about funding for a moment? There’s plenty of disagreement on what would even work. Funding might be more easily tackled if you can get people to see something as workable first.
Do you think we are in a “crisis”? Either way, and in summary, what are the problems? What are unrelated transportation opportunities and what is the payoff? Missy, what specifically do you think will work in the interests of residents in the area?
Missy, Transportation is political. Mike Barrett is a Democratic Party political operative as well as a politically influential and well connected local business lobbyist. He’s track record is relevant to this discussion. Mike wants to try to hit the restart button – over and over and over – and he wants to pretend that the plans and taxing schemes he and his cohorts in the Hampton Roads Partnership/Chamber crowd keep pushing have not been soundly rejected by voters – and the Supreme Court of Virginia.
We have true NEEDS here in Tidewater. But we can’t get them addressed because Mike and his well connected friends keep buying off the political process and pushing their pet projects instead.
The poster child and proof of this is the failure to add new lane capacity to the HRBT in the MPO/TPO list of priority projects.
The real humor and irony was that recently a new computer model was used to assess the region’s true priorities based largely on reducing traffic congestion and improving safety – and the HRBT was near the top of the list. The PORT LOBBY’s precious $5B T-Connector so-called “Third Crossing” wasn’t even in the top 10.
The locals that think they run things around here went nuts! Guys like Paul Fraim. Now they want to reprogram the model to raise the importance (weighted value/factoring) for non-quantifiable so-called “economic development”. They seek to skew the results in favor of the same old, same old – the same list of rejected pet projects – instead of addressing true NEEDS.
The game is always rigged at the “regional level”. The new TPO CTAC, secretly chosen in a secret process and packed with the ‘right people’ instead of true CITIZENS that are not part of Mike Barrett’s lobby is another clear example of what is WRONG with were we are going “moving forward”.
The all-appointed regional governance scam is a train wreck waiting to happen. SPSA, HRT, and the HRTA – all clear examples of unaccountable regional decision-making that IGNORES the voters and fights with the desires of the majority of citizens that live here.
Face it, the “public input process” is little more than window dressing that is a charade intended to TRY to pretend that the “regional decision making process” really cares about what the good people of Tidewater think.
If Mike Barrett wants to work towards a solution the best thing he could do is to keep out of the way and let new people step up – make use of regional referenda – and open up the transportation prioritization and selection process to the wider public – and finally – put some decent transportation improvements on the table that actually REDUCE COMMUTER TRAFFIC CONGESTION instead of endless port projects for speculative so-called “economic development”.
If it is best that Mike keeps out of the process it would probably be best if members of the VBTA also were kept out of the process. Because they are just as much of a nuisance as Mike is.
Thanks Matt
But the VBTA isn’t pushing a self serving agenda to enrich our own business interests. We are simply making sure the whole truth comes out so guys like Mike Barrett cannot keep telling the same half truths and outright lies to push their agenda. The VBTA are simply citizens organizing to stand up for the truth and to try to hold our government accountable.
The truth and VBTA rants are mutually exclusive.
The problem with HRBT expansion is that it’s physically impossible to expand beyond two more lanes – to 6 total. While Reid wants to bring up computer modeling, at least two different studies have shown that The Third Crossing is much more effective in the event of trouble at the HRBT than additional HRBT lanes.
Henry, you are a liar – and you prove it every day. You and Mike Barrett desreve each other.
Your post does point out anohter aspect of the lies being pushed by special interests. Here henry does not refute the TRUTH about what I wrote, he tried to refute it by offering “at least two different studies …”.
Guys like Henry and Mike like to invent their own “facts” when the real facts get in their way. The modelling I was discussing was conducted by the HRPDC. Hardly a VBTA shill organization.
Notice Henry doesn’t offer any facts about these “studies”, or WHO conducted them, when???
Henry has a history of claiming “facts” but when he is challenged to support his “facts” he goes into attack mode and eventually, when you pin him down, he admits that he was repeating something someone else told him.
Reid,
Thanks for proving who the real liar here is. One study was commissioned by the TPO, the other was done by ODU students. Oh, since facts like that don’t support your extremist agenda, you simply resort to calling me “a liar”.
Everyone should notice here that:
1. When anyone has the audacity to challenge the VBTA line, Reid simple resorts to name-calling at them.
2. Reid never starts to refute my point about the physical constraints on HRBT expansion.
Game, set, match. Now Reid can go cry to his friend Harvey.
College students?
Yes, let’s decide billions of dollars of public policy based on a school project.
Brian,
The students were using the same software and guidelines that professionals would have. They modeled an expanded HRBT alone vs. building The Third Crossing. I saw the model run – and The Third Crossing won easily.
So why did the professionals’ program give a different result?
Sorry, Henry. Just because you watched doesn’t meet my level of “peer review.”
Brian,
It was good enough that the TPO got the Presentation. That’s where I saw it.
As for the “different result”, Reid and I are refering to entirely different grading systems. ODU’s was on congestion alone; what Reid is refering to is an overall testbed of regional projects.
Henry, the HRPDC and the third crossing study both explain that adding 4 more lanes to the HRBT instead of building a $5B Port Pork Bridge Tunnel reduceing traffic congestion at the HRBT by 37%, while the so-called “Third Crossing” might, in a best case scenario, reduce thraffic congestion at the HRBT by upt to 17% – in 20 years after the Third Crossing was completed.
Those are the facts found in the EIS and the briefings for the CTB when the so-called “Third Crossing” (CBA 9) was selected by the CTB instead of adding more lanes to the HRBT.
Once again, you prove MY point. You don’t like the real facts – you find “facts” that suit your agenda.
And yes, you are a liar.
Reid,
First of all, it’s physically impossible to expand the HRBT beyond 2 more lanes, making your argument moot.
In addition, given that you’re concept of “the truth” is a collection of far right-wing conspiracy theories, over 98% of us are “liars” in that we didn’t buy in to the b.s.
Don’t you just love it when old friends get together?