VDOT By Natasha L. - www.lupinia.net Date: March 16, 2009 ======================== ## 1 - Budget Problems _[Click for Article](http://www.whsv.com/news/headlines/41167682.html)_ Thanks to a state budget screw-up, Virginia is planning to close a ton of rest areas on its interstate highways to save money, including all but two along Interstate 81, the northern and southern welcome centers. Which means that there'll be over 320 miles of I-81 with no guaranteed areas to stop for snacks, drinks, bathrooms, or just to get out and stretch. Of course, there are gas stations and such along the way, but there are parts of the state that are so desolate that there's pretty much nothing. And, with the exception of the semi-major cities along the way (Winchester, Harrisonburg, Roanoke, and Bristol), everything along I-81 closes around 10pm, leaving late-night travelers with, well, nothing. If people stop along the road or on exit ramps, or at closed gas stations, any cops who come by tell them to leave, not to mention the safety concerns of being in the middle of nowhere with no one around. This isn't the only brain-dead idea VDOT is implementing to save money. They're also planning to [cut back on snow removal](http://www.whsv.com/news/headlines/40389452.html), particularly in rural areas. Considering how bad Virginia sucks at snow removal compared to other nearby states (like Maryland or Pennsylvania; even West Virginia does a better job on major roads), I really don't want to see it get worse. All of this is the result of a $2.6 _billion_ projected shortfall over the next six years. How the heck can any government agency _not_ see that big of a deficit coming with at least a little advance notice? To give an idea of the scale of this shortfall, the above-mentioned rest area closings (25 total state-wide) would save $12 million per year, or $72 million over the six-year projected deficit. That makes up about 2.7% of their savings goal. I haven't been able to find information on how this happened (maybe they were counting on revenues from those wonderful "[remedial fees](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_abusive_driver_fees)"?), but I'm not looking forward to seeing Virginia's roads falling into this sort of disrepair. I'm sure the roads in NoVA won't suffer, there's too much traffic to cut back on much there, but that means that all of us rural residents will get "de-prioritized" even more. ## 2 - Youtube Videos In [my last post](http://www.lupinia.net/writing/blog/vdot.htm) about VDOT, I railed the agency for cutting back pretty much all rural services and rest areas because of a budget screw-up that left them billions of dollars short of what they needed/expected. I wasn't able to actually find any information on why they screwed up their budget, but admittedly, I didn't look very hard. The day that my rant was published, I came across [this local news article](http://www.whsv.com/news/headlines/41326477.html), where a local state senator (who I loathe) called out VDOT for wastefully spending money on YouTube videos. I'm not usually one to side with Republicans, especially racist blowhards like Obenshain, but I have to say that this is a ridiculous investment for any government agency. I mean, it's the Department of Transportation, why the heck do they need to make promotional videos? Half of them aren't even useful, it's just worthless fluff from an agency that really doesn't need PR campaigns unless they screw up. Naturally, I had to check out [VDOT's YouTube Channel](http://www.youtube.com/user/vdotweb), and it's rather entertaining just to see the lame tripe our tax dollars are supporting. I think this one is my favourite, just from the sillyness. Do they have salaried full-time employees sitting around with nothing better to do? -- (c) 2009 Natasha L. Original version and further downloads available at https://www.lupinia.net/writing/blog/vdot.htm