The Danville Register-Bee today endorsed Republicans Jerry Kilgore and Bill Bolling, along with Democrat Creigh Deeds. Of Deeds they write:
Deeds – a self-described “country lawyer” – has deep roots in rural Virginia. Despite working for a year in Danville, Deeds has spent most of his career in his native Bath County.
In the Virginia Senate, Deeds worked for passage of “Megan’s Law,” the sex offender registry and Amber Alert to help find missing kids. He was a leader in the effort to make hunting and fishing a constitutional right in Virginia. In a surprise during this year’s race, Deeds, a Democrat, won the National Rifle Association’s endorsement.
“I want to be attorney general to make Virginia safe and secure,” Deeds said recently. “…I can’t think of a better place to put surplus (budget) dollars than public safety.”
What I find interesting is that they endorse Deeds wholeheartedly while going out of their way to express reservations about the Republicans:
While our support of Kilgore and Bolling is unwavering, we don’t agree with them on every single issue. Both have criticized last year’s tax and budget reform package — a stand contrary to both our entire local General Assembly delegation and common sense. Additionally, Kilgore supports holding statewide referendums for future tax increases, but that position is just plain wrong. Over the next four years, Kilgore and Bolling will have the financial resources to enact their agenda thanks, in part, to the political sacrifices they now scorn.
It’s funny that the Register-Bee is opposed to the the centerpiece of the campaign run by these men, yet still endorses them. I don’t know if this indicates a stubborn reluctance to endorse the right man (and woman) for the job, or an impressive willingness to see past promises being made that can’t possibly be kept.
There is a part of this endorsement that makes me sad:
Kilgore also understands the importance of road construction in rural Virginia — which is more important than ever as the General Assembly prepares to take up that issue. Kilgore has boldly promised that he will force construction of the U.S. 29 bypass around Charlottesville — a promise he should be held to.
Both Danville and Lynchburg have long labored under the impression that building this quarter-billion-dollar bypass around the heart of Charlottesville traffic will make some kind of a difference to them. That view is demonstrably altogether wrong. The bypass is situated in the thick of traffic lights, shopping centers, and new housing developments — it bypasses nothing at all. Worse still, we already have a bypass — this would be a bypass bypass. And worst of all is the latest study, which demonstrates that the overwhelming majority of the traffic on 29 is local, and the installation of the bypass would consequently have no effect on traffic.
The one satisfaction that I’d get out of the construction of this bypass — one of the most expensive ever built, were it to happen — would be the complete lack of benefit that it would provide to Lynchburg or Danville. 29 south of Charlottesville is completely devoid of traffic for 60 miles. I drove to Lynchburg just last week. The constantly buildup and installation of new traffic lights from Charlottesville clear to Washington D.C. will prevent the road from ever being a through-road. 81 and 95 are and will long be those roads in Virginia; there is no change that will be made to 29 that will change that.
I know Charlottesville makes a convenient scapegoat for Southside’s woes, and if we can be useful to them in that capacity, I guess that’s nice. But I hope that the Register-Bee and Jerry Kilgore recognize that there is simply no reason to believe that a Charlottesville bypass bypass will get so much as one more car driving south of C’ville. It’s just not going to happen.
Charlottesville and Albemarle have had years to provide quality input into this discussion. Since the chose a tactic of delay and confuse, it is no wonder that the rest of the state has grown tired of their games.
People in the area need to realize that it is not some victory over development to postpone construction. What it is really doing is making the local people less relevant to the discussion. One day Charlottesville will wake up and wonder why they no longer have a seat at the table. The answer is simply that the no one cares to hear the locals whine any more and have chosen to ignore them.
To phrase another way – the local governments were given ample opportunity to be part of the planning. They chose to obstruct the process and hope that people would forget the road was needed. The rest of the state has decided that Charlottesville has had long enough to give input and has decided not to act responsibly. Hence, others will make the decision without them.
All that may well be so, but the road still won’t do anybody any good. :)
Lynchburg and Danville think so.
I know. That’s the trouble. :)
Simon,
Charlottesville has been making this case for the last 10 years or so. Are you going to refute Waldo’s case on the merits or are you actually suggesting that hundreds of millions of public dollars should be wasted on this project simply because Charlottesville has opposed the project?
Lynchburg and Danville are economic failures today because of NAFTA and the fact that they no longer have anything of monetary value to offer to the world. The idea is absurd that businesses are lined up around the block to bring the textile business back to Virginia but won’t do it because traffic on Route 29 adds half an hour to the drive past Chrarlottesville. People, get your heads out of your asses. There are no business plans for Southside being scrapped because of 30 minutes of traffic en route to DC. You’re just going to piss away hundreds of millions of dollars on nothing. Virginia’s own ‘bridge to nowhere.’
Who did they endorse for Governor?
Was it my blog entry or the article itself that is unclear to you?
Waldo – You are looking at this bypass issue from a Charlottesville perspective and trying to argue that it makes no sense to Lynchburg. Your argument doesn’t work. Say I live in Lynchburg. What do I care that 90% of the Charlottesville traffic is local if a bypass is built? If I’m going around Charlottesville, that means fewer vehicles on the bypass and a faster trip for me from Lynchburg to northern Virginia.
Danville has a similar bypass, and I’m glad every time I drive to Atlanta that I don’t drive through Danville anymore. Charlottesville’s bypass would do the same thing for someone from Lynchburg – bypassing a ton of traffic lights which are a whole lot more congestion than “nothing at all,” as you put it.
The bypass is needed – all you need to do is look at the backups on 29 southbound at Angus Road to see that. Maybe the study is right and only 10% of the traffic is through traffic, but much of that 10% is truck traffic that is more dangerous than car traffic – slower to start, slower to stop, and, when fully loaded, causing something like 250 times the wear to the roads as a car. Traffic is often backed up all the way to Hydraulic, and increasing numbers of cars are cutting through the neighborhoods to save time. A bypass would take many of those trucks off of 29 in that corridor and make the area more livable for the residents in the area because the auto drivers won’t be speeding down residential streets cut time.
Jeff, the problem is that a bypass and continued development of the 29 corridor are mutually exclusive.
Let’s pretend that we build the bypass. As planned, it would begun at the river, next to Wal-Mart, on the northern edge of Charlottesville. But right after the Wal-Mart, north of the proposed bypass, we have one of the largest housing developments in Central Virginia. And then there’s the “Hollymead Town Center” shopping center that just went in, with something like 300,000 square feet of retail. Then we’ve got the airport. And then Ruckersville. And between Wal-Mart and Ruckersville, there is nearly uninterrupted sprawl, with traffic light after traffic light, and it gets denser every week, because it’s targeted for increased density.
So, fine, build a bypass. But what’s being bypassed is Albemarle County’s synchronized traffic lights, that ensure that you can drive clear through the to-be-bypassed area hitting a maximum of one red light. What’s not being bypassed is mile after mile after mile of sprawl, traffic lights, and traffic.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because we did it. We built the 29 bypass a few decades ago. It bypassed the traffic lights and the sprawl. But there was no restriction on development on either side of it. So 29 got so built up north of the bypass that now Lynchburg and Danville demand a bypass-bypass. Which, if we build, will quickly become useless, just as our existing bypass is.
We can either have a bypass or we can have continued development along the 29 corridor. We cannot have both. I’d be happy — seriously — with either choice.