Last week, the Washington Post confirmed the obvious . . . . that drivers in Northern Virginia and the D.C. Metro area generally, have one of the worst commutes in the nation.

Washington area workers are more likely to travel to jobs outside their home counties than commuters in any other region in the nation, according to a new study.

A higher percentage of Virginia residents live and work in different counties than commuters in any other state; Marylanders ranked second, according to “Commuting in America III,” a national report on commuting patterns and trends published yesterday by the Transportation Research Board.

The Washington region is second only to New York for the percentage of workers with “extreme commutes,” which the study defined as 90 minutes or more each way. Of the 12 counties with the highest percentage of long commutes, the region had three: Prince William, Prince George’s and Montgomery.

While traffic hasn’t really emerged as a major issue in the high profile Allen Webb campaign (they’ve decided to take the low road and focus on Senator Allen’s apparent penchant for racial slurs and Jim Webb’s fondness for pedophilia) it has emerged as an issue in our local congressional campaigns and will almost certainly be the leading issue in next years state elections.

As a resident and commuter in this area for almost 10 years, I have very definite opinions on the subject, having made the commute into D.C. from the McLean/Tyson’s Corner area in nearly every way possible.

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From Leesburg Today:

Loudoun County lost its only seat on the Commonwealth Transportation Board after Gov. Timothy Kaine (D) replaced Leesburg attorney Robert Sevila with E. Dana Dickens III, of Suffolk, as one of two at-large urban representatives on the board.

 

In addition, Kaine appointed Fauquier resident Peter B. Schwartz, who is a member of the Piedmont Environmental Council’s board of directors, as the at-large rural representative to the CTB, replacing Hunter R. Watson, of Farmville.

 

Schwartz represents the second appointment by Kaine of PEC-affiliated campaign contributors to state-level positions. [Snip]

 

Schwartz, who ran unsuccessfully to unseat Del. Clifford “Clay” Athey Jr. (R-18) in 2001, contributed nearly $50,000 to Kaine’s lieutenant governor and gubernatorial campaigns and inaugurations from 2001 to 2006.

Call it a convergence of political cronyism and anti-growth ideology. I guess the idea is to preserve Western Loudoun county as an artificial “nature preserve” for the super affluent at taxpayers’ expense.

In the mean time, the growing middle class exurbs in Eastern Loudoun will subsidize the rest of the state while the county’s own ballooning transportation needs go unmet by Richmond.