Has Virginia has given up any pretext of being a market- or innovation-friendly state? The Department of Motor Vehicles has issued cease-and-desist orders to the Uber and Lyft ride-sharing service and slapped the companies with a total of $35,000 in fines. Their offense? Operating order-a-ride-with-a-smart-phone services and giving traditional taxicab...
During the last few weeks three refreshing perspectives on urban transit have crossed my screen, which I’m pleased to summarize and encourage you to read in full. In the first piece, Henry Grabar recounts how transit consultant Jarrett Walker is helping Houston reconfigure its bus transit system, converting it into...
The headline is hard to believe. The request in the Federal Register on May 7, is not. The solicitation is from the Inspector General’s office and was published at 2:03 p.m. in FedBizOpps.gov. Does the U.S. Department of Agriculture need submachine guns to police farmers? According to the National Review...
(Part I of this article was run in the Jefferson Policy Journal on May 8, 2014) Fortunately states and local governments are assuming a larger role in funding transportation, thus lessening the pressure to increase the level of federal assistance. Having concluded that they no longer can count on a reliable and growing stream of federal revenue,...
As the fiscal year comes to an end on June 30, the General Assembly has not yet agreed to a two year budget. The stumbling block is that the Governor and the State Senate want to include a huge increase in Medicaid coverage to as many as 400,000 people not...
On May 17, Virginia and the nation recognized the 60th Anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board decision declaring state laws establishing separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional. The anniversary was accompanied by commentaries recognizing the importance of the case – but few also recognized the...
Virginia transportation policy is driven overwhelmingly by a desire to mitigate transportation congestion and, to a lesser degree, to promote economic development. Rarely does traffic safety enter into the discussion of which transportation improvements we finance. As evidence that congestion is one of the state’s foremost pressing concerns, elected officials can point...
President Reagan was one of our country’s greatest leaders because he valued fair opportunities for the American people over political manipulations that waste taxpayer money.The “Great Communicator” listened and connected with Americans and then acted in the best interest of our nation. This is why Reagan and presidents from both...
In the case of climate change, those making the assumptions demand that we act immediately to avert planetary crises based solely on their computer model predictions. It’s like demanding that governments enact laws to safeguard us from velociraptors, after Jurassic Park scientists found that dinosaur DNA could be extracted from...
The 60th anniversary of the historic Brown v. Board decision declaring state laws establishing separate schools for black and white students to be unconstitutional was accompanied by commentaries recognizing the importance of the case — but few also recognized the pivotal role Virginia played. For while the case is named...
