HRPDC and HRMPO Spring 2009 Publications available

Hampton Roads Planning District Commission's "Hampton Roads Review" Newsletter, Spring 2009 www.HRPDC.org

In this issue:

• Hampton Roads H2O – Help to Others – Program
• Regional Water Supply Plan
• HR CLEAN Brings Regional Attention to Plastic Bag Litter
• Localities Gather Data, Assess Sanitary Sewer System
• Climate Change Impact Study Underway
• Updating the Regional Green Infrastructure Network
• Hampton Roads Watershed Roundtable Holds Green Building Meeting
• Regional Pollution Prevention Training Spurs Local Actions
• Bacteria TMDL Status (Total Maximum Daily Load)
• Build-Out Scenarios Studied for Northwest River
• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: A Hampton Roads Perspective
• HRPDC Joins Regional Task Force on Ending Homelessness
• Region to Host 2009 VA Association of Housing Counselors (VAHC) Conference
• Update on the Hampton Roads Labor Market
• Proposed State Budget Cuts Dissolve Disability Service Boards
• Rural Long Range Transportation Plan (RLRP) Public Meeting Held
• FEMA Region III Administrator Visits the Regional Emergency Management Technical Advisory Committee (REMTAC)
• Moving Towards a Regional Capability Assessment, Evaluates Readiness Level of Emergency Management and Homeland Security
• Debris Management – Filling the Gaps
• Healthcare Organizations Emergency Preparedness Seminars (HOEPS): Survive and Thrive 2009!

Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Organization's "Crossings" Newsletter, Spring 2009 www.HRMPO.org

In this issue:

• Letter from the Hampton Roads Transportation Technical Committee Chair Jeffrey K. Raliski, AICP
• Navigating the Future of the Region's Transportation System
• Chesapeake Regional Airport Terminal Opens Expansion
• VTrans2035-Continuing the Journey (Commonwealth’s statewide transportation plan)
• HRMPO Holds Annual Retreat: A Successful Step toward Regional Cooperation
• Transportation Funding for Hampton Roads in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009
• HRMPO Selects Local Projects to Receive $41 Million in ARRA Funds
• Draft Transit Vision Plan for the Region Released
• The State of Transportation in Hampton Roads UPDATE
• Roadway Travel in Hampton Roads Decreased in 2008

A Voice for Hampton Roads

by James F. Babcock

“Who Speaks for Hampton Roads?”

This excellent question, raised by Louis Guy in a Virginian-Pilot (V-P) Dec. 27, 2008 op-ed, is especially pertinent now as the region faces a perennial crisis in transportation funding, the possible loss of an aircraft carrier, a decline in tourism, a weakened economy, and budget cuts all around.

The answer is, “No one entity ─ it depends on the issue.” Numerous private regional associations exist to speak out for particular interests: the Retail Alliance for retailers, HRACRE for commercial realtors, the Chambers of Commerce for business in general, the Cultural Alliance for the arts, and so on.

On public issues, however, where the right to answer for the general public depends on legitimacy conferred by election, the only regional organizations that can speak for the region are those in which the region’s legislators or its mayors and county chairs serve. These include the Legislative Caucus, Planning District Commission, Metropolitan Planning Organization, Mayors & Chairs Caucus, and Hampton Roads Partnership.

Each of these entities was created at a different time for a particular limited purpose. None can be said to do an especially effective job of involving the public in its decision making. And each suffers limitations that would not apply, say, to a full-blown regional government, which the public doesn’t want. As a result, as Mayor Paul Fraim observed in his year-end V-P op-ed, “No one is in charge.”

Over the past few years, the Future of Hampton Roads, a volunteer organization, through its Regional Structure Project, has sponsored conferences and study groups to produce thoughtful recommendations for improving the performance of these regional organizations without either merging our municipalities or creating a regional government. Detailed reports have been submitted in the past year to the Metropolitan Planning Organization, Hampton Roads Partnership, and Mayors & Chairs.

One study group report soon to be submitted to the elected leadership specifically deals with the urgent need identified by Mr. Guy to create an authoritative voice for Hampton Roads. Based on successful regional models elsewhere (Metro-Dade, Twin Cities Metro, etc.) but adapted to our region’s unique circumstances, the recommendation is to obtain a state charter for a Hampton Roads Metropolitan Council.

The proposed Metro Council would undertake key tasks not now being performed. It would:

• oversee the regional aspects of economic and tourism development;
• direct periodic updating of a comprehensive regional vision;
• coordinate preparation of an annual regional legislative agenda; and
• strengthen regional decision-making.

Supported by Planning District Commission staff, the proposed Metro Council would establish working relationships with the other regional organizations. For example, an updating of the regional vision every five to seven years might best be performed on behalf of the Council by the Hampton Roads Partnership. Also, the Council could engage the Hampton Roads Center for Civic Engagement to assist in creating essential public participation in basic decisions.

An alternative to creating the Council might be to refashion one of the present regional organizations. In any case, having a Metro Council with definite power to make decisions on a short list of key regional issues would provide a vehicle for more assertive regional leadership and to fill the present gap in high level policy formulation.

The huge challenges the region now faces warrant serious attention to implementing this structural improvement. We should accept Louis Guy’s advice. Let’s get organized.

Mr. Babcock, retired Chairman and CEO of First Virginia Bank Hampton Roads, is a founding member of the Hampton Roads Partnership, Vice Chairman of the Future of Hampton Roads, Inc. (FHR) and manager of FHR’s Regional Structure Project, whose reports are posted on http://www.fhrinc.org.

Hampton Roads flag, the first regional flag in U.S.

It is flown and shown - on sign posts, lapel pins, etc. - all around the Hampton Roads region. How do you share the regional flag? Send us a picture!

Creation of a regional symbol

The flag of Hampton Roads is named for one of the finest natural harbors in the world and the surrounding Southeastern Virginia metropolitan area of the same name. The flag was created in 1998 in a highly public process sponsored by the Hampton Roads Regional Identify Task Force. As one of a number of measures to promote recognition of the region’s historic name, Task Force Chair (and current Hampton Roads Partnership Board member), Jim Babcock, proposed a contest among high school students to create a regional flag. Assisted by noted vexillologist (the study of flags) Peter Orenski, the contest produced over 1,000 designs which were winnowed by the region’s seventeen school districts to 83 finalists. From these, a jury appointed by the region’s mayors selected three final designs that were then voted on by the general public through the media.

At a celebration on 15 June 1998, the contest winner, sixteen year-old Andrew J. Wall of Frank W. Cox High School in Virginia Beach, raised the new regional flag for the first time to the mast of the Spirit of Norfolk, moored in the Harbor. Used for several years by the ship, the first flag was subsequently framed and donated to the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, which displays it in the lobby of the Regional Building at 723 Woodlake Drive in Chesapeake, Virginia. A local company, U.S. Flag and Signal, manufactures the flag in various sizes for residential and business display.

The region of Hampton Roads In Southeastern Virginia, Hampton Roads includes among its sixteen municipalities--symbolized by the flag’s stars--such famous cities as Norfolk, Williamsburg, Newport News, Hampton, Portsmouth, Chesapeake, Suffolk and the most populated and largest tourist city in Virginia: Virginia Beach. The original name, “Southampton Roadstead,” was given in the early 1600s by then royal governor, Lord de la Ware, in honor of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, an energetic financial sponsor of Virginia colonization (and principal patron of William Shakespeare).

The nautical term “roadstead,” meaning a safe anchorage, evokes the area’s great history as a naval base, port, and center of shipbuilding since our nation’s beginnings. Renowned research facilities in aerospace, particle physics, oceanography, modeling and simulation, together with tourism, higher education, health care, and high tech manufacturing, characterize the area’s modern economy. Its famous museums and myriad of world-class performing groups make Hampton Roads the arts capital of Virginia. The new flag is itself historic; it is the first flag ever created for a metropolitan region of the United States.

The symbolism of the flag
The blue panel evokes the predominantly maritime character of Hampton Roads, which is the largest naval base in the world and the East Coast’s second largest seaport. It recalls the first European settlers at Jamestown in 1607, the first battle between ironclad ships in 1862, the importance of its shipbuilding and ship repair industry to the nation, as well as maritime commerce, fishing, recreational boating, and the major military and government installations around the region’s shores.

Agriculture, the environment, tourism, industry, and a healthy quality of life are symbolized by the lower panel of green.

The white wavy line represents the sand dunes and surf that help make the region one of the nation’s most visited tourist destinations - from Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown to Norfolk’s Chrysler Museum and the famous resort area at Virginia Beach. The three crests in the wave suggest past, present, and future.

The sixteen white stars, symbolizing the region’s cities and counties, are displayed in a circle, the classic symbol of unity, all pointing inward to represent regional cooperation.

Water is the central theme. It touches all components and binds them together, as we are bound together as a region.

The flag as a whole stands for the strong sense of community and unity shared by the region’s 1.6 million residents in “Hampton Roads: America’s First Region.”

To learn more about flags, visit the “Flags of the World” website.

To purchase the Hampton Roads Flag, visit www.FlagMaker.com.

Stimulus Intelligence

Tom Frantz of Williams Mullen, and Dwight Farmer, Executive Director of the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission (HRPDC) recently led a discussion with the help of a summary distributed by Williams Mullen Strategies International regarding President-Elect Obama’s proposed economic stimulus package.

(see the complete report “A Proposal to Rebuild America” from Minnesota Congressman Jim Oberstar)

With the current price tag of $800+ billion, $175-185 million is estimated to come to Hampton Roads. Most importantly, Hampton Roads needs to (1) fix infrastructure and (2) jump-start the economy. Infrastructure jobs are 95% American, not outsourced, jobs.

The "shovel-ready" criteria, however, is a huge problem for the Virginia Dept. of Transportation (VDOT). A wish list of projects is NOT allowed in any Metropolitan Planning Organization (HRMPO)’s programming plan, so we’re not very far along in the process in Hampton Roads. Federal stimulus money cannot be used for planning, either. While VDOT is heavy into preliminary engineering studies on projects, it will take tens of millions of dollars to get Virginia projects shovel-ready, money which VDOT hasn’t had to get the plans done in the past.

Also, Virginia respects property owner’s rights, and those permissions for rights-of-way could not, for the most part, be obtained quickly enough to qualify projects.

We must be realistic; Hampton Roads share of this federal package will be a small amount. The anticipated money is approximately equivalent to the value of building one highway interchange.

According to the proposal, federal stimulus monies will go to the state, and the state disperses it to regions based on the 2005 formula. Rural Virginia still has an advantage with the allocation formula.

There is not enough money to address the six major HRMPO projects nor address choke points nor address job creation in a meaningful way.

Virginia’s transportation system is broken and could not be more inefficient. The HRMPO designates projects. However, with no money, the HRMPO can only plan projects.

The six HRMPO projects won’t be done anytime soon, if at all; Hampton Roads must do what it can to advance mass transit and congestion management and mitigation. We can continue to plan; however, if it’s 10 to 15 years before there is any money, those plans are worthless as things will have changed. If we had all the money we needed for the six projects, it would be 10 to 15 years before completion.

Our lack of infrastructure has a direct impact on quality of life, our economy, our community’s development. The Ports of Jacksonville and Charleston, areas who have invested in infrastructure, use this in marketing against in Hampton Roads. The Newport News Shipyard reports 5% of employees are late everyday; this is non-productive time. We must emphasize the criticality of this issue with employers.

HRPDC, HRMPO publications

Get the recent publications from the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission and Metropolitan Planning Organization:

HamptonRoadsPerforms.org Regional Profile

Virginia’s Hampton Roads is a region rich in history, situated in the southeastern corner of Virginia, where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Chesapeake Bay, the largest estuary in the United States. The region, comprised of 16 counties and cities, each with unique assets, is enhanced by an extensive system of waterways and a population that has been growing and changing over the last decade. This profile summarizes key demographic, economic and transportation trends. A publication of HRPDC and HRP.

HamptonRoadsPerforms.org Regional Profile

View more presentations from Hamptonroads Partnership.

For the full report (dated 30 Jan 09), click HERE and visit HamptonRoadsPerforms.org for more complete quality of life data on the Hampton Roads region.

HRMPO 101 on WhatMatters.TV

What is the HRMPO? The Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Organization is the intergovernmental transportation planning body for thirteen jurisdictions in Hampton Roads. If you’ve ever been worried about traffic tie-ups in Hampton Roads and you’ve wanted to know how you can find out about the planning process, then you should know about the HRMPO.

Recently, "What Matters" host Cathy Lewis spoke with HRPDC/HRMPO Executive Director, Dwight Farmer; HRPDC/HRMPO member and Newport News Mayor Joe Frank; and Virginia Beach Taxpayer's Alliance Chair, John Moss, for an in-depth look at this little known, federally-mandated, entity that has a major impact on the Hampton Roads transportation issue.


City of Newport News Mayor Joe Frank:
"...it doesn't appear that we're going to have substantial investment in new road programs for the foreseeable future and, I might add, if you had all the money you needed to do these things today, you'd be talking 10 to 15 years before all of the processes took place, the environmental studies, the acquisitions, the engineering studies and the construction so you could actually ride on those roads and then you have the question of what the population is going to be, what are the ridership, what are the needs."

"So, one of the things that I have suggested, and not through the PDC or the MPO, but through the Hampton Roads Partnership, is that they convene the leaders of the largest traffic generators in the region, the colleges, the universities, the military bases, the large manufacturers, the ship yards and so forth, to see if we couldn't voluntarily, because we have no legal basis for requiring it, voluntarily asking these people to consider staggering the times they open and the times they close. If, through that, and you model and simulate that in a very real time way...the data suggests that you could defer the need for all these new road projects for 10 or 15 years, and maybe by that time...you find a way to actually pay for what you've determined you actually need."


Original air date: Fri, Jan 30, 2009
See the complete show: http://www.whro.org/home/html/podcasts/whatmatters/144.mp4