Finish VDOT contract work quickly, get laid off quickly.

A bridge on a major road outside of Charlottesville had to be replaced, shutting down that road for weeks. VDOT offered an incentive to finish ahead of schedule, and the full-time employees of that contractor worked their asses off to make that happen. They’ll wrap up tomorrow, way ahead of schedule. Their reward? They’re getting …

Did Connaughton lie to the CTB and Albemarle about the Western Bypass price tag?

Sean Connaughton probably won’t sleep very well tonight. A FOIA request reveals that he low-balled the estimate for building Charlottesville’s proposed Western Bypass, which might help explain why he pushed through approval of the thing, getting a four-person majority on the Albemarle Board of Supervisors to hold an unadvertised midnight vote to sign off on …

RTD calls out Republicans on VDOT audit demands.

Even the conservative Richmond Times Dispatch editors agree: Republicans’ call for an audit of VDOT is bullshit.* There have been eight performance audits of VDOT in the past seven years. The call for another one is, in the words of the RTD, a “dodge,” an “excuse for sloth” with which “the voters should not be …