Blog on Roads

Do citizens need to demand public input on private sector businesses?

2/26/2015

Do we have citizens checking up and demanding input for free enterprise businesses? Do we need accountability, on an institution that consumers of a good or service, have choices whether to use that business? In the free market, this just does not happen. Profit and loss is accountability in the free market.

Roads can and should be within the free enterprise system. There are a few more challenges with roads because of the limited competition of roads to choose from to get from point A to point B. Issues of the needed contiguous real-estate is a real issue.

Those challenges can be dealt with by creating a structure with ratings listed in ‘ROADS.’ The negative externality of socialism in the current road structure is far worse. Because there are a few challenges, it does not require massive socialism in that sector of the economy. The free enterprise benefits are lost with a massive government takeover.

Below is a story about roughly a dozen mayors across Hampton Roads VA coming together to decide how to spend Billions of tax dollars for roads. This has fundamentally high incentives to be corrupt. This does not even need to be intentional, road builders and their subcontractors could be contributing to the mayor's campaigns, and some of these could be well hidden by layers of contractors.

Hundreds of businesses around the area will be highly financially impacted by their decisions on where the roads go or which roads are improved. Real estate developers among others have high stakes on transportation around their property. Some politicians even have consultant businesses on the side that business owners could hire in ‘no show’ jobs or highly inflated rates, to compensate politicians/consultants that vote in a way that helps that business.

While public input is highly significant, it is incredible that the Libertarian Party is fighting over these versus calling for the government to turn this sector of the economy over to free enterprise. Price is the best tool for achieving the optimal amount of roads and the best placements and quality of the roads.

A push for more public input at powerful road panel

By Dave Forster
The Virginian-Pilot
© February 21, 2015 VIRGINIA BEACH

The Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission will decide over the coming years how to spend billions of dollars in tax revenue and whether to impose tolls on the region's biggest road projects.

It's that kind of power that makes it a no-brainer to some who follow the commission that the public should have a larger voice along the way.

Members of the Hampton Roads Tea Party are pushing for the public's right to speak on every agenda item as it comes before the commission, rather than having only one chance to talk at meetings - near their start - as is done now.

The idea has found support in the General Assembly, where a bill on the issue passed a Senate committee 12-2 this week. There is some opposition back in Hampton Roads, however.

"As I recall, we do allow public comment at the opening of the meeting," said Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms. "To the best of my knowledge, that's been quite sufficient."

Sessoms was the lone dissenter on his City Council this past fall to a provision in its legislative agenda that asked the Assembly to pass a law allowing public comment on any agenda item, resolution or motion by the Transportation Accountability Commission.

Sessoms said Friday that he would support allowing additional public comment on items if they are added late to an agenda and not publicized.

The commission's voting members are five state lawmakers and the chief elected officer from 14 cities and counties. They control a revenue stream from regional sales and fuel taxes that will be used to fund Hampton Roads' most expensive road, bridge and tunnel projects. Those taxes generated $170 million in 2014. The General Assembly created the commission last year to manage the money and finance projects.

Waverly Woods, chairwoman of the Hampton Roads Tea Party, said her group is seeking the same opportunity for the public to speak on matters before the commission as people have at their city council meetings.

"Why wouldn't our input be valuable since we are footing the bill?" she asked.

The commission allows people to speak for five minutes near the beginning of meetings. Reid Greenmun, a Hampton Roads Tea Party member who often takes time away from his job as a business analyst to attend the commission's early afternoon meetings, said "it's impossible to deal with all the things they're going to cover" in that time.

A bill (SB1459) by Sen. Jeff McWaters, R-Virginia Beach, and Sen. John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, would require the Hampton Roads commission to allow five minutes of public comment before each vote on a project, facility or service.

It passed the Senate Transportation Committee on Wednesday. Sen. Frank Wagner, a Virginia Beach Republican who serves as vice chairman of the commission, is also listed as a patron of the bill; he abstained from Wednesday's vote.

Greenmun said he'd like to see time for public comment on agenda items as they come up, not right before a vote, "when everybody's already made up their mind."

He nonetheless supports the bill that's moving through Richmond.

"It's still more than we have now," he said.

Dave Forster, 757-222-5005, [email protected]

11 Comments

Corporate Ownership: Different Models

11/8/2014

0 Comments

Many business models will emerge with likely differences for the different types of roads. These are only ideas and not requirements. These are given in order to spark different thoughts so that people can realize the possibilities of free enterprise roads and not having to rely on government controlled socialized roads. Governments could set minimum rating limits; however, the free enterprise system would increase the ratings by people's choices.

People would most likely buy stocks in the roads they use the most and through their ownership rights, demand the quality of roads they would like to see. Many would require sidewalks, excellent landscaping and accept the higher tolls that come with the extra expense.

Corporate Proxy Groups would be very important in road corporations. Most people will have ownership in many roads, and they will not have the time to look into every board of director candidate. There would be about a dozen different Corporate Proxy Groups that you could turn your proxies over to, so they can use the power of your ownership rights to fight for the corporate values you desire.

Each Corporate Proxy Group would put out their philosophy of how a road corporation should run and group all the proxies together to have influence in road corporate board elections. These proxy groups would search out good people that match their philosophy and standards to serve on boards.

One idea is that certain people would become highly knowledgeable about serving on the board of road corporations and would serve on numerous road corporation boards of directors. These people would pick a road maintenance company, contract with the police, set a toll amount and select the methods of collecting the toll, etc.

Every road corporation would hire road cops for their road. There would be a high likelihood that private road police would monitor many different roads and they would be mandated to have high ratings on cooperation with other road police. These police would likely also be contracted by the government or police corporations for violent crime as well.

Residential roads that are mostly used by the homeowners in the area could be structured where the land comes with part ownership of the neighborhood roads. This is currently done within some homeowners association. These could have tolls or simply monthly or yearly dues.

City, state or federal roads could come with many models. A specific business or a business park could choose to subsidize a road that is very beneficial to that business or set of businesses in order to not discourage travel to their store with heavy tolls. A government which would generally be limited on how many shares they could own would have greater latitude around government-owned buildings or land.

0 Comments

A Trained Chiropractor and Part Time Mayor Overseeing Billions of Dollars of Roads Construction

7/5/2014

1 Comment

Government control of roads will never be better than the free enterprise system. Even if the most experienced big business CEO with significant road experience ran this board, without free market benefits and competition, the endeavor would fail to achieve the best results. A person whose time is split between a chiropractic business, a mayor’s responsibility and an upcoming reelection campaign, just would not have the time or expertise to oversee such a large budget. Without claiming corruption, someone seeking reelection and having this level of oversight of billions of dollars of road contracts will have plenty of people wanting to stay on his good side.

Area transportation board names chairman after 9 votes

By Dave Forster
The Virginian-Pilot
© July 3, 2014 A new public body that will control billions of dollars in road construction money wasted no time showing just how difficult it can be for the region's leaders to agree on something.

The 23-member Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission met for the first time Wednesday in Chesapeake and promptly required nine rounds of voting to select its chairman.

Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim got things started by nominating Virginia Beach Mayor Will Sessoms. He failed to get enough votes to take the seat. The same fate befell Portsmouth Mayor Kenny Wright and Del. Chris Jones of Suffolk.

"This is not a good sign," Sessoms said.

"Can we arm wrestle?" Wright asked.

Competing voting blocs emerged. Wright banded with leaders from the Peninsula and rural Tidewater, while the mayors from Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and Suffolk sided with the five state legislators on the commission. Neither group could muster enough votes to pass the two-thirds thresholds set out in the bylaws they had just approved.

Fraim was nominated. Then Williamsburg Mayor Clyde Haulman. Nope and nope.

"This frankly is not the kind of start I think we need to have," Suffolk Mayor Linda Johnson said.

Sessoms and Wright were each nominated again and failed again. As was Sen. Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach.

The group finally agreed - with the exception of a dissenting vote from Franklin - on Chesapeake Mayor Alan Krasnoff.

The room filled with applause. Then, nominations for vice chair. Votes for Jones, Haulman, Hampton Mayor George Wallace and Del. David Yancey of Newport News came and went. The members settled on Wagner by a sudden voice vote.

One of the commission's voting thresholds gives greater weight to localities with larger populations, but the experience Wednesday showed that even a coalition of the region's largest cities will still need support from their smaller counterparts as they attempt to reshape Hampton Roads' transportation network.

The group was created by the General Assembly to choose which highway mega-projects to build with the revenue coming to Hampton Roads from regional sales and fuel taxes. The area expects to see $200 million a year, which could be leveraged into amounts several times greater than that with bonds.

The new commission also has the power to set tolls to help finance projects. Its next meeting is at 12:30 p.m. July 17 at 723 Woodlake Drive in Chesapeake.

Dave Forster, 757-222-5005, [email protected]

1 Comment

I am Not for Tolls and Taxes

2/15/2014

0 Comments

Many people have to travel through tolls now, and they still pay the gas tax. I am not for a half and half system. Some people drive 60 miles there and back to work and never hit a toll, while others travel 5 miles both ways and hit the tolls both ways. This is simply not a competitive system that will bring lower costs and better roads.

Haley2024 calls for all roads to be private in a very structured system.

Haley 2024 system for Roads

People look at many factors when deciding the roads they travel or if they travel at all. Some just will not go if the price is too high. Gas prices and time of travel are a big concern to some. Some will travel further to avoid a toll, and others are willing to pay the toll to save time thus realizing the value of someone’s time. Whether it is making the family dinner or their child’s sporting event, everyone puts a value on everything. An extra toll has proven to change the behavior of drivers.

The change in behavior from higher prices is a good indication that drivers will force down costs of tolls by changing their path. While more cars traveling down your private road will put more wear and tear on that road, there is also a significant factor of time and weather that also takes a toll on the streets. Owners of roads will be competitive because more cars traveling down their road means more funds coming in.

The payment system will also be a type of toll. The easiest method will attract more travelers, although if toll roads made you stop and throw money out the window, travelers would see that as time wasted and the annoyances of having coins.

0 Comments

Rails on the interstate

1/11/2014

0 Comments

This is not part of any plan, it is an idea that the free enterprise system would likely do if the government would turn over transportation to free enterprise. Imagine if you could, two rails off to the left or right of most interstates. These rails transport container trailers, meaning the trailer part of 18 wheeled tracker trailers. These will not be trains, rather individually traveling units.

The rails also transport container shells that people drive their cars into and allows the track to take them to their destination. There would be a variety of travel cars that you could walk into and just travel without your car. The people’s desires and business necessities will dictate in the free enterprise system what type of cars that will be available. All these would also be individually traveling units.

Container shells for cars are a well build highly aerodynamics empty container that any car could quickly pull into, promptly secure the vehicle and within a minute, traveling 150 plus mph on the rails. You simply have an app on your phone or use one that is in the container car, to let the system know where you want to go. At your destination, you just drive out and do the last few miles of your journey.

You would have the option to tell the system to park your car, and it would take it to a secure lot for this purpose. With your smartphone, you could get your car back shortly at any of the dropoff-pickup points. The main track has separate tracks for each pull-off spot. The computer always knows where your car is and will have plenty of parking. You could pick your car up at any pull off point.

Instead of merchandise trailers pulled hundreds of miles across roads, these rails will take the unmanned containers where ever needed. Tracks will branch off for trailer transfers. Many business parks among other business needs will have tracks for easy access. No one has to accompany the trailer on the long journey, just have someone to pick it up at its local destination. Many local drivers will be needed, and long distance drivers will be phased out.

The power would be safely in the tracks with the whole system connected to the electrical grid. Cars would last much longer only doing short local drives and allowing the rails to handle the bulk of the distance. Bridges for the rails would likely be less expensive then brides for roads.

You could be a thousand miles away from Disney and get in your car at 3am, drive for a few minutes, get on the rails, fall asleep and wake up when the park opens, dropped off near the entrance.

You could live in Hampton Roads VA and work in New York City. Two hours of working on your laptop or watching last night’s TV show you missed. You could set up your car as an office or have your local drop off location park your car and get in an ‘office’ car where you could start your work before you get dropped off at the subway station on NY.

With the rails pulling most of the cars off the roads for the bulk of the distance, new roads needed, due to traffic would be significantly reduced. The speed of the rails compared to road driving would expand peoples’ potential jobs opportunities by many factors without having to relocate.

Your added time, you do not have to concentrate behind the wheel, would increase your productivity significantly by doing paperwork/ computer work while in transit. This is also time you could rest or entertain (computer/TV/ book/ YouTube/ phone calls/ talk to passengers or whatever).

You could drive a few minutes to any drop off point at midnight and sleep during transit, to arrive within a few miles of almost any location nationwide. Most popular destinations will have a drop off point near their doors and then automated parking a few miles away. Ball fields, theme parks, tourist areas among other high priced real-estate will take full advantage of the rails.

Safety would be significantly increased due to many fewer miles driven on the road. A considerable decrease in the percentage of deaths would be very welcome. Rails if maintained right would eliminate driving human error, bringing significant benefits of lives and cost savings due to fewer accidents.

Suspended cars on rails have many positive attributes. Environmentally, they create a smaller footprint on the ground. It would not be affected by floods or snow as much as roads. The cost would likely be much lower. Travel underneath would not be affected, thus animals, people, or cars would not be blocked.

Below is a model in the UK. Again, the free enterprise system would decide the best models. People investing their own money makes better decisions than politicians spending taxpayer money.

0 Comments

Do citizens need to demand public input on private sector businesses?

Corporate Ownership: Different Models

A Trained Chiropractor and Part Time Mayor Overseeing Billions of Dollars of Roads Construction

I am Not for Tolls and Taxes

The payment system will also be a type of toll. The easiest method will attract more travelers, although if toll roads made you stop and throw money out the window, travelers would see that as time wasted and the annoyances of having coins. ​

Rails on the interstate

Contact

The payment system will also be a type of toll. The easiest method will attract more travelers, although if toll roads made you stop and throw money out the window, travelers would see that as time wasted and the annoyances of having coins.