It’s interesting to note that Gov. McDonnell touts merely the total number of projects that his transportation funding plan supports instead of focusing on the quality of the improvements to be made.
Instead of worrying about how many projects are being undertaken, it would be better to focus on making high-quality adjustments to Virginia’s transportation infrastructure. One such adjustment would be high-speed rail, something glaringly absent from McDonnell’s transportation projects.
What McDonnell also failed to mention was the cronyism that is rampant in the contracts being granted under the transportation funding plan. Not surprisingly, those who contributed to McDonnell’s gubernatorial campaign are being given first dibs on highway construction contracts and other transportation projects.
Left out of these debates as well is the environmental toll that these new transportation projects will have and consequently, the economic impacts as well.
In other words, the McDonnell administration completely fails to “get it” when it comes to energy and environmental issues. Specifically, they don’t understand that building more highways just encourages sprawl. In addition, they clearly don’t understand that: 1) sprawl worsens our oil addiction, while harming our national security and our economy; 2) building more roads, as opposed to investing all-out in “smart growth” options, delays the inevitable – and crucial – transition from a 19th/20th century (dirty) energy economy to one suitable for the 21st century; and of course 3) all of this harms the environment, both locally and globally, not that the dirty-energy-funded, Pat Robertson-educated types like Bob McDonnell care about that, given that the Rapture is coming soon (so who cares what we do to the planet).
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