Monthly Archive for April, 2009

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BoS Exploring Crozet/Charlottesville Commuter Train

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 5, 2009 in Transportation. 14 Comments
Buckingham Branch Engine
A Buckingham Branch engine idles in the downtown yard.

The Board of Supervisors is exploring establishing a Charlottesville/Crozet commuter train, Sean Tubbs reports for Charlottesville Tomorrow. There’s already a line running from Charlottesville to Crozet, operated by the Buckingham Branch Railroad. The BoS figures it would only get 100-200 cars off the roads each day at first, and that it would cost about $5M to get the service started. The hard costs come from the train itself, establishing fencing the existing track through town, and building a side track to allow the commuter train to pass by a CSX train or Amtrak’s Cardinal train going the other way. They’ve contacted U.S. Sen. Mark Warner to ask about funding options, and they’re looking at getting a consultant to plan it out. With the federal government looking at spending a great deal of stimulus money on transportation infrastructure, now is probably the time to be looking into this.

At $25,000 per car off the road, the cost doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but given the powerful role that rail can play in establishing human settlement patterns, the service might be a strong incentive for concentrating development in the Crozet area. Two hundred cars now might be five hundred cars in five years. This is something that the university might be interested in helping to make happen, given their commitment to non-automobile transit among their employees.

SPCA Requiring a Funding Increase from City, County

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 4, 2009 in Government. 6 Comments

Girl Kitten the FirstThe Charlottesville-Albemarle SPCA wants more funding from Charlottesville and Albemarle and at least the city looks like they’re willing to play ball, Henry Graff reports for NBC-29. The city and the county maintain no animal shelter of their own, and instead outsource that to the SPCA. The contract that the group has with the city and the county brings in about $1.60 for the shelter, care, and feeding of every critter taken in by the group. In an open letter on their website (124k PDF) the SPCA says that the industry standard is between $4 and $7 per animal, and that they’ve unsuccessfully tried to get the municipalities to pay more for several years now. It’s time to renew that contract, and the SPCA says that they’re just not going to sign a deal unless it covers more of the real costs that accompany serving as the pound.

Worst case, the city and county have to start their own pound(s). More realistically, they agree to pay more, since that’s bound to be cheaper in the short or long run than operating a municipal pound.

04/06 Update: Councilor David Brown points out that this funding is per capita, not per animal. So it’s actually wrong to say that the SPCA gets $1.60 for each animal, unless the number of animals they process each year is equivalent the population of Charlottesville and Albemarle, which seems pretty unlikely. What that real per animal funding is, I don’t know, but suffice it to say that it remains significantly lower than the standard cited by the SPCA.

Balloon-Flying Business Faces $3,200 in Fines

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2009 in Business and Government. 3 Comments

A former rug shop owner is facing a $3,200 fine for flying a balloon in front of his 29N business, Lisa Provence writes in The Hook. Mahmood Pasha’s Rug Depot was located across from Wal-Mart—you’ll remember the rugs often hanging out front on a rack—and he promoted his going out of business sale by flying a red, oversized helium balloon in front of his shop, about eighty feet in the air, with the string festooned with small flags.

Section 4.15.7 of the county code prohibits a bunch of types of signs “with characteristics that create a safety hazard or are contrary to the general welfare,” including “a sign that is a moored balloon or other type of tethered floating sign.” (Other prohibited signs include strobe lights, signs that make noise, those on public property, and those that obstruct vision. The logic in balloons is that a large balloon, once it loses a bit of helium or it’s hit by some wind, would bobble right down onto 29N.) The county notified him that he needed to stop, and that he’d be fined $200, but that he could appeal the order. Pasha ignored the notice, and did not appeal. The county checked again on November 21, three weeks later, he still had the balloon up. And again on December 2, January 9, January 21, February 6, and February 17—Pasha kept the balloon up. Now that he’s gone out of business, he’s unhappy about the $3,200 in fines that he’s racked up, and he’s going to court over it.

There’s a history of disagreements between libertarian-minded business owners on 29N, who figure they can put up any sign on their property that they want, and the county, who has some pretty specific restrictions in order to keep Charlottesville from looking like Las Vegas.

Unemployment Doubles

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2009 in Business. 4 Comments

The Charlottesville MSA’s unemployment has gone from 2.8% to 5.6% in the span of a year, Brandon Shulleeta reports in the Progress. That rate is a bit rosier than the statewide 7% average, which is better still than the national 8.9% average. As always, the worst unemployment rate is in Martinsville, the city of 15,000 that’s about three hours SSW of C’ville. Charlottesville fares well, as it long has, thanks to the University of Virginia; those of us who work there have pretty secure jobs.

It would be interesting to see the unemployment rate of non-UVA jobs. Presumably that’s closer to the statewide average.

Students Photograph Calder Sculpture In Protest

Published by Waldo Jaquith on April 2, 2009 in UVa. 8 Comments

Large, black tree-like sculptureLast weekend UVA installed an enormous sculpture by Alexander Calder in front Peabody Hall, across from the West Range. The 12′ black, metal work, entitled “Tripes,” is a long-term loan from the Calder Foundation. In front of the sculpture, the university posted a sign reading, in part: “No photography allowed without written permission from the Calder Foundation.” UVA’s Committee on Public Art insisted that copyright law prohibited any pictures being taken of the sculpture. (As you can guess, no such law exists.)

If there’s one thing that lots of people want to do, it’s what they’ve been told arbitrarily that they must not do. Yesterday dozens of students showed up for a “photo-in” protest, Emily Poe writes for The Cavalier Daily. Organized on Facebook, the goal was to have lots of people simply show up and take verboten photographs at the appointed hour. I counted about fifty people snapping pictures (the sculpture is across the street from my office), and many of their photos have been posted to Facebook. By the end of the day yesterday, UVA announced that they were rescinding the ban, saying that the Calder Foundation had obligated them to make the false statement on the sign, but that they’d received permission to change it to say that only commercial photography is prohibited. While still not quite accurate, it’s not liable to result in a student protest anytime soon.

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