Submitted by RefrigeratorRater t3_zu9po8 in rva
Everything is smooth in Short Pump and the west end but in the city I’m whipping side to side dodging meteor strikes in the ground. What gives? Is it a difference in tax funding or a difference in tax usage?
Henrico is one of a few counties in the state that maintains its own roads. They get funding from the state, but all the work is contracted by them. So the difference is it’s not VDOT maintaining the roads.
VDOT doesn’t maintain Richmond City roads either.
We can tell
The only other county in the Commonwealth is Arlington, and these two counties not only are able to select their own contractors, but have the equipment to do the work themselves for many projects...
> but have the equipment to do the work themselves for many projects...
They did a sewer repair near my house, a truck rolled in with Henrico stickers hauling a paver thing. Could have been a henrico-only road contractor who just bought the stickers but it looked like county vehicles.
The county does own several pieces of road paving equipment, you can seem them sometimes coming out of our going into the DPW facility off of Woodman. They'll also use their backhoes, front loaders, and other heavy equipment to clear the roads after a snowstorm. When they installed the new sewer system in Lakeside though, they contracted that out and the company that did it did not have any Henrico stickers on their vehicles, and the paving equipment was different than what I've seen the county use. The contractor did, however, manage to pave over each of the manhole covers, which the county had to come out and fix with their trucks...
>The only other county in the Commonwealth is Arlington,
Whut? This isn't accurate. There are 95 counties and 38 independent cities in Virginia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_and_counties_in_Virginia
Each one of those counties has its own county seat and county government. Independent cities are equivalent to counties and also have their own governments, budgets, courthouses and city managers/government. And they all maintain their own stuff.
I think they're saying "the only other county in the Commonwealth [that maintains their own roads] is Arlington"
Again, whut? Am I missing some subtle English syntax here?
Counties and independent cities in Virginia maintain their own stuff, not VDOT.
Fairfax country maintains it's own roads. Rockbridge county maintains its own roads, etc, etc, as is done across the state.
Ah, now I see what you mean.
My understanding is that VDOT is responsible for maintaining all roads across the Commonwealth, including in counties, except in Henrico and Arlington and independent cities (like Richmond) and towns.
I only recall seeing "End of VDOT Road Maintenance" (maybe in slightly different wording) when I enter Henrico County from the surrounding areas.
At least from this page on VDOT's "Report a Road Problem" page, it says (emphasis mine):
>Note: VDOT does not maintain roads in cities, towns, or in Henrico and Arlington counties, except for interstates and major primary roads.
>
>VDOT does not maintain all sidewalks, or pedestrian or bike paths. Some may be maintained by localities.
Chesterfield doesn't maintain its own roads. VDOT does.
It seems to depend on the road, and perhaps where it is within the county, vs town inside the county. Looking at their street projects, some are funded by VDOT, others by CVTA, some are grants from federal funding, and some is paid for by the county.
From my past reading on the CVTA, that money is just granted to the county and many of the other towns/cities/counties in the central Virginia area. Chesterfield I think is one of the largest recipients. But still it's not really given in a management capacity, it's considered revenue on the county budget. Interestingly VDOT maintenance isn't accounted for in the budget, which is something I've been trying to learn more about. Like how does VDOT allocate money per county and what is the invisible expense that isn't on the county ledgers because they fall under VDOT discretion?
The counties can all fund their own projects but they have to be accepted by VDOT (other than Henrico and Arlington).
The only exception is VA and US routes in Henrico are still VDOT maintained.
Roads are first built with funding then adopted for maintenance. That's VDOT for most of the state other than the 2 x counties mentioned.
This is not true. Due to the Byrd Road Act of 1932, the vast majority of roads in Virginia are maintained by the state directly.
Very interesting read. Thank you for the clarification.
>The Byrd Road Act was an Act of Assembly passed in February 1932 by the Virginia General Assembly. Named for former Governor Harry F. Byrd, the legislation was originally presented as measure to relieve the financial pressures of the Great Depression upon the counties, as the state offered to take over responsibility and control of most county roads, creating the Virginia Secondary Roads System. Under state auspices, much was accomplished in improving the state's roads, most of which were not hard-surfaced when the system was created.
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Henrico & Arlington maintain their own secondaries. VDOT maintains primaries such as US 250 (W Broad St) and Rte. 33 (Staples Mill Rd.). Primaries are route numbers under 600.
VDOT maintains interstates and state routes. Most streets (and schools, government, infrastructure) inside a town or city are maintained by the county or city in which they exist.
According to VDOT, they maintain secondary roads for all counties except Henrico and Arlington
Interesting. Today I learned.
However VDOT also states that they don't maintain roads in cities and towns (town are inside counties, and most Virginia cities are independent, thus responsible for their own stuff (like the City of Richmond.)
>Note: VDOT does not maintain roads in cities, towns, or in Henrico and Arlington counties, except for interstates and major primary roads. VDOT does not maintain all sidewalks, or pedestrian or bike paths. Some may be maintained by localities. Please submit a separate report for each request.
>https://my.vdot.virginia.gov/#0
Several factors. Newer roads in the Short Pump area, designed and built in the last 20ish years, compared to city roads that were built a century or more ago. Henrico's overall infrastructure is newer, and without digging up budgets, I'd hazard a guess Henrico thus doesn't need to spend as much money in water/sewer/drainage maintenance and can focus more on road maintenance, whereas the city has to maintain a dense and aged infrastructure network.
Density makes it cheaper to maintain actually. Sprawling roads like the ones in Henrico normally mean less tax dollars per mile for funding. Richmond overall has far more services to maintain, is massively disorganized, and also struggles to maintain its tax base.
Richmond also has more concentrated poverty than the surrounding counties which isn’t really something easy or cheap to fix
Ya its just alot of issues that Henrico doesn't really have to even think of. Henrico and other surrounding counties also don't have to really think too much about how to draw in people because RVA does that for them. The counties score big time on just having to focus on basic services while Richmond is tasked with heading regional efforts to maintain tourism, population growth, transport, etc. Henrico, Chesterfield, Powhatan, and Hanover can all just aboard the revenue stream that is Richmond.
Eastern Henrico would beg to differ.
Fair enough
This is also why we are setting up regional tax for transportation. Tourism is also handled at the regional level
A lot of the city is also made up of state government and VCU, which don't pay taxes and minimal service fees.
A lot of suburbs in the U.S. are going to be facing economic issues as sprawly infrastructure starts to get old, decline, and have less people per unit of area paying in. They'll never face the issues you mentioned with services systems being older than most people alive, but it's going to get interesting for them, especially as many run out of space to be able to keep the growth cycle going.
Very true. I moved here recently and came from a city with lots of huge suburbs. Even just replacing the sprinkler system in the 3 parks were blowing the budget apart. Let alone a bunch of other common area issues that are cropping up.
Many cities have fully banked on the associations to do maintenance and code enforcement so it’s not like they can just come in and fix things either. Should be interesting to watch at least.
> compared to city roads that were built a century or more ago
It seems like they just pave asphault over the cobblestone, right?
because Henrico votes for a competent goverment and still has the city manager system Doug Wilder got rid of in Richmond because it was holding him back from being a complete disaster
Richmond doesn’t get their taxes despite most of them working in the city.
What about the buildings that people are working in, does the city get property taxes from those?
Yes, but not from any State property, including all of VCUs and and state governments holdings.
But our city roads are bad because of years of neglect and mismanagement. Believe it or not, they're somewhat improved over what they used to be just a few years ago.
I don’t even think we mill the roads when we resurface them in the city. Add in 100 year old infrastructure with all the old pipes and rails and stuff. Along with a virtually non-existent tax base to keep up maintenance for roughly 40 years and a bunch of ass clowns at city hall pissing away the new revenue, you too can have significantly worse roads than your municipal counterparts.
I can assure you that the city has very existent tax base which has actually been growing in recent years (see the redevelopment and increased property values in the previous wastelands that are now high growth areas - Manchester & Scott’s Addition - as an example). The city has wasted more money swinging for home run big projects (that fail to deliver a return above the investment or never made it beyond the expensive ‘study’ phase) which has reduced funds and oversight available for routine maintenance. Stoney was elected initially with the promise of getting the boring stuff (ie, routine maintenance) done more efficiently - to which he has successfully failed in spectacular fashion.
Not for the last 40 years, the last few absolutely, which I mentioned they pissed away spectacularly.
The last few years is selling it short - since the Great Recession it’s been trending upwards. The mismanagement is the underlying problem- the tax basis excuse is worn out and needs to be retired (the lack of improvement when the basis has been expanding demonstrates it as not being the ‘cause’). Poor leadership in the elected positions (primarily) and bureaucratic positions (secondary) are the both the constants and the causes.
I agree with you that mismanagement is the problem but you’re missing the nuance of my point while lecturing me on things i’m already keenly aware of. Our poor roads haven’t just been a problem the past few years because of just mismanagement, it’s been an ongoing problem that STARTED with the tax base being crippled and has now continued on as we have elevated our tax base. If you want to nitpick what exact year between 2008-now go for it, but i’m not arguing that the tax base is currently decimated.
And your missing my nuance - the tax base started falling when the middle class residents moved out to the counties and industries moved out- that started back in the ~1960s/70s across the country to include Richmond. Cities had to adapt to the changing tax landscape - some did, many did not which includes Richmond. The inability to sufficiently manage the tax revenues that were available to them, irrespective of them being decreasing or increasing, is a management and leadership issue - not a tax base issue. The mismanagement likely cause further erosion to base for that matter. There is but one root cause - the rest are excuses for politicians.
I agree with you that mismanagement is the problem but you’re missing the nuance of my point while lecturing me on things i’m already keenly aware of. Our poor roads haven’t just been a problem the past few years because of just mismanagement, it’s been an ongoing problem that STARTED with the tax base being crippled and has now continued on as we have elevated our tax base. If you want to nitpick what exact year between 2008-now go for it, but i’m not arguing that the tax base is currently decimated.
Richmond is spending lots of money to tear up perfectly good intersections to put in brick crosswalks that after a couple years sink and then become speedbumps. But hey they look pretty.
Anyone know when they went in at Belvidere? Those crosswalks have gutters in them that are bad for pedestrians and cars.
It’s much different at night. There are street lights at major intersections in Henrico but no where else. In Richmond , they are ubiquitous within city limits. Henrico is fine before 5. After 5, Richmond is much easier to get around. If you can’t see the road it doesn’t matter whether there are meteor strikes or not. How do I know …. Uber and Lyft driving.
Short Pump development is fairly recent. I remember going to the grand opening of the mall. It’s 20 years old next year. It was super country before that.
Also apparently depends what side of Meadow you're on. West of Meadow? Paved every year. East of Meadow? Every ten years. Just try driving down Park Ave between Meadow and Harrison.
Ha! Try biking Park, it’s terrible. Grove gets paid in near west end and fan roads get largely ignored
Meteor strikes... 😂🤣
Well said! 👍👍
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Effective management vs ineffective management
You must be new.
There is also an odd wrinkle (or used to be) in VDOT funding where only driven lane miles are apportioned for funding to the localities. Richmond has a much higher portion of the road itself used for parking and therefore not funded by VDOT money.
Richmond city was a mess for the last few decades. Stoney has turned it around a bit, repaving roads, cleaning parks, and building the first schools in nearly a century, but the infrastructure is still ancient and he hasn’t the time or funds to rebuild it
Money, racism, etc.
Richmond City is a like a Baltimore Jr. A violent, corrupt, racist of a hovel,
Unpopular but true. City kids like to think Richmond is Austin Jr, but it’s heading much more towards Baltimore.
55V35lM t1_j1htfle wrote
The City of Richmond isn’t good at administering much… to include roads