13 frames from last evening during the storm:

1. Every year the Virginia General Assembly meets in Richmond, and every year they debate hundreds of proposed bills having to do with transportation. Some bills are good, some are bad, and others, well, who cares. One of the worst bills up this year is hilariously numbered Virginia House Bill #666, like as in the Devil’s legislation. The bill would require that at least 50 percent of the proceeds of Virginia transportation capital bonds would be used for new highway construction. Not transit, not maintenance of existing roads, not anything but new highways. It would literally make it illegal for Virginia to spend more bond money on transit than new highways. That’s some heavy-handed social engineering for you so-called Libertarians out there.

   The good news is that according a source in Richmond, Lucifer’s legislation died a quick death in committee this afternoon. No official confirmation yet, but hopefully correct.

2. The FTA announced grants today that will support the construction of over $11 billion worth of major new transit investments, most notably in Denver, Honolulu, Minneapolis, and San Francisco. These grants come from the same pot of money that FTA is using to support the Metrorail Silver Line to Tysons Corner. The DC area didn’t get any new money this year, but our funding agreement for the Silver Line is already in place. Here is the full list of funding agreements, new and existing.
3. Yesterday I promised some Northern Virginia transit planning hotness from DRPT. Unfortunately the study I had planned on posting isn’t publicly available yet, so readers will have to wait. Sorry.

DRPT’s vision. Blue lines are light rail.

When I put together the BeyondDC Hampton Roads Transit Vision last week, I had no idea that Virginia’s Department of Rail and Public Transportation adopted a similar vision last year.

DRPT’s official vision is shown at right and is available for download. It more or less duplicates BeyondDC’s Virginia Beach and Naval Station extensions of the light rail starter line, but veers dramatically from my plans from there. Absent is any line to the airport, but present are lines to the peninsula, and a more logical Portsmouth connection.

Good on DRPT for such a forward-thinking document.

Tomorrow BeyondDC will share some more of DRPT’s recent planning work, this time from Northern Virginia.