The plan for a regional transit authority is apparently dead, Brian Wheeler writes for Charlottesville Tomorrow. The city and the county have been looking at consolidating their efforts by creating a single entity to oversee mass transit, and while they’ve got permission from the General Assembly to do so, there’s no funding to make it happen, nor is there likely to be any time soon. The result is that the city is reluctant to expand the bus lines to include more of the county (such as out to MHS and Mill Creek), since the county isn’t funding those lines.
News and meta-news about Charlottesville, VA, since 2001.
Sideblog
Police announced this afternoon that their investigation into what was initially believed to be a fatal fire on Rugby Avenue is now a homicide investigation. #
The Virginia Supreme Court has denied George Huguely’s appeal. His second-degree murder conviction will stand, WRIC reports. #
In a carefully worded story, and not citing specific sources, WTVR reports that forensic evidence belonging to Jesse Matthew Jr., the main suspect in the disappearance of Hannah Graham, matches forensic evidence collected during the investigation of Morgan Harrington’s 2009 murder. #
In the wake of Hannah Graham’s disappearance, and the evidence that came from private security footage, city officials are revisiting the question of installing security cameras on the downtown mall. #
Both Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta and former Electoral Board member Stephanie Commander have turned themselves in to the police on
foursix and four felony counts of embezzlement, respectively. #Ten years ago, the National Institutes of Health budget doubled and schools like the University of Virginia built massive new research facilities. A decade later, those buildings remain largely underutilized. NPR visits UVA in this story on the effect of federal binge and spurge spending in the sciences. #
In 2012, Council approved a new student housing complex on West Main—now some council members are questioning whether what they were shown matches what was built. #
The Architectural Review Board has approved a bike-themed mural on West Market, below the McGuffey Art Center, although at least one member expressed concerns that it might look like the bicyclists were riding away from Charlottesville’s downtown. #
City Police Chief Tim Longo is meeting with city leaders to work on protocols regarding the use of military surplus police weapons in Charlottesville. #
A 100-year-old Colonnades resident received military honors for her service in the WWII Women’s Army Corps #
-
Archive for Sideblog »
The national organization Center for Neighborhood Technology just released a map to show the affordability of different parts of our region. The map factors in both the housing and transportation cost burden on families.
http://www.htaindex.org/mapping_tool.php#region=Charlottesville, VA&theme_menu=0&layer1=23&layer2=24
The DC region fares much better. According to WAPO this is mostly on account of their excellent transit:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304037.html
Nixing transit because money is tight is backwards.
But who’d want to live in the DC area? I know Charlottesville is not perfect but its a damn sight better than living in the DC/urbanNoVa area.
And another thing, you can’t compare a huge city like DC to a much smaller one like Charlottesville. Really, would there be any way a transit system on the scale of the DC area’s be cost effective here?
The study is not an attempt to measure quality of life or transit feasibility – just affordability of living.
In other words, we may well choose, as a community, that the motoring life has enough value to us that we are will to shoulder the cost burden necessary to sustain it. That’s a value issue, not a point data can make.
I think the biggest affordability issue in this area is lack of jobs paying decent wages.
The DC area on the other hand has a lot of well-paid government workers. Here, outside of higher-level UVa and local government employees there is not a lot. So many people working in retail and service occupations and not making much money.
Darn, if it had gone through it could have been C.A.R.T. (Charlottesville/Albemarle Regional Transit) instead of C.A.T. And they could have a wooden ox cart as their new logo.
Come on, Dahmius, you can’t possibly design a new logo without paying at least five figures for it. Six, of course, would be better.
The regional transit authority would respresent another bottomless pit for taxpayer monies. Take a look at the buses. They are 90% empty the majority of the time. What a waste of natural resources. The bus system should be shrinking rather than thinking about expanding. Wake up people there is a big difference between needs and wants. The transit system just carries the same old dead beats, homeless, etc. etc. around day in and day out. I refuse to ride the bus because of the undesirable characters you have to put up with on the busses.
Yes, clearly, you do not ride the bus. Because, if you did, you would know that you are embarrassingly wrong. I ride the bus regularly. Today, in the middle of the day, I had to wait to get a seat. The bus was about half full of middle eastern immigrants, plus a few parents with young kids, a few students riding downtown. In the mornings and evenings, they’re packed.
Let’s all pause to recall the time that you declared that mass transit is a total failure in Manhattan, and that everybody there drives.
Yes, let that sink in.