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PEC Reconnecting
Virginia
VCN
PRESS
RELEASE
For Immediate Release: September 18, 2004
For more information contact:
Chris Miller, Piedmont Environmental Council: 540.347.2334
David Kovacs, Virginia Conservation Network: 804.644.0283
For local contacts,
please call the Piedmont Environmental Council at 540.347.2334
Reconnecting
Virginia
Statewide Conference Offers New Vision for Addressing
the
Commonwealth’s Transportation Needs |
At their joint annual meeting today, the Virginia Conservation
Network (VCN) and the Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC)
released a vision for reconnecting the state’s communities
through diverse transportation options.
“Reconnecting Virginia invests in the great communities
that already exist throughout the state and expands the
transportation choices available to connect them. This vision
is especially timely given current discussions about how
to finance transportation needs. Reconnecting Virginia offers
a fiscally prudent way to offer people more choices by better
connecting development and transportation through wise planning,”
said Chris Miller, PEC President.
Reconnecting Virginia offers a new set of options that can
accommodate the mix of agricultural, commuter and local
uses by expanding the range of transportation choices available
and investing in more efficient use of our existing rail
infrastructure.
Directors and members of both organizations, and other special
guests, including state and local officials, heard from
renowned transportation innovator and keynote speaker Hank
Dittmar of Reconnecting America. Combining a national and
international perspective with specific examples from I-81,
the City of Charlottesville, and the I-95 corridor, Dittmar
provided a comprehensive look at the connection between
land use, the Commonwealth’s major rail and road transportation
corridors and our environment.
Mr. Dittmar noted, “Virginia has an amazing opportunity
to make transportation and development decisions that are
fiscally sound and create vibrant, healthy, and desirable
communities. But the state must seize this chance and not
be tempted to follow the status quo that has lead other
states to the pattern of traffic choked communities with
irresponsible debt that become unattractive for companies,
residents and tourists. Virginia is fortunate to have thoughtful
people ready to assist because they understand the value
of Virginia’s history, culture and landscape.”
Lieutenant Governor Tim Kaine addressed the gathering of
three hundred at the historic Barboursville Ruins in Orange
County, Virginia, with a response to this new vision for
Virginia’s overtaxed transportation infrastructure. He commended
the Commonwealth’s conservation community for its dedication
to protecting Virginia’s public health, history and communities,
including its investment in a new transportation vision,
Reconnecting Virginia. He noted his concern that poorly
planned land use lies at the core of our transportation
problems and threatens the fiscal health, quality of life
and competitiveness of the Commonwealth. “We need to put
land use planning and transportation planning together,”
he said. Attorney General Jerry Kilgore was unable to attend.
Reconnecting Virginia presents a sharp contrast to the Virginia
Department of Transportation’s VTRANS 2025 plan. VTRANS
plan focuses most of its emphasis on roads despite the citizen
input and polling information that identified the need for
more coordinated multi-modal planning, more transportation
alternatives in both urban and rural areas, more coordination
among the transportation agencies, and most importantly,
more coordination between transportation and land use. Highway
construction has enormous impacts on communities, often
destroying the character of the localities they bisect.
Many studies, including VDOT’s own, show that congestion
increases after new highways are built.
“While Virginia develops its 20-year transportation plan,
we have a chance to shift away from business as usual,”
said Martha Wingfield, Chair of the Virginia Conservation
Network Board of Directors. “This gathering represents a
bi-partisan group of concerned citizens whose spectrum of
involvement extends statewide throughout many different
communities.”
“The key to solving our traffic problems is how and where
we locate jobs, housing, and services,” said Chair of the
PEC Board of Directors Eve Fout. “Reconnecting Virginia
exemplifies how this can happen at the local, regional and
statewide scale, while respecting the countryside we all
love.”
Members of the press and citizens of all ages attended the
one-time conjunction of VCN’s annual Virginia Environmental
Assembly and PEC’s 2004 Annual Meeting. The event featured
a day-long children’s program and workshops on transportation,
land conservation, watershed protection, historic preservation
innovations, and agriculture.
The event took place at the Barboursville Ruins on the grounds
of the Barboursville Winery in Madison-Barbour Rural Historic
District of Orange County, Virginia. The site was the home
of James Barbour, governor of Virginia from 1812 to 1814.
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The Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC)
was established over 30 years ago to promote and protect
the Piedmont’s rural economy, natural resources, history
and beauty. We are locally driven and regionally coordinated
to respond to the broad range of issues facing the Piedmont.
540.347.2334 www.pecva.org
The Virginia Conservation Network (VCN) was
established to protect the Commonwealth’s air, lands, and
waters for the benefit of the people as guaranteed by the
Virginia Constitution. VCN strives to build the capacity
of its member organizations and conservation-minded individuals
of the Commonwealth to effectively protect these vital resources.
804.644.0283, www.vcnva.org
Hank Dittmar, President and CEO of Reconnecting
America., co-founded Reconnecting America to expand
the mission and work of the Great American Station Foundation,
which revitalized historic rail stations to improve rail
access and intermodal connections and stimulate community
development. Previously Mr. Dittmar was Executive Director
of the Surface Transportation Policy Project, where he managed
the coalition's campaign for passage of TEA-21, the landmark
transportation bill. 615 E. Lincoln Avenue, Las Vegas, New
Mexico 87701, 505.426.8055, www.reconnectingamerica.org
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