To Seek a Thousand Treasures

I have written several times about Governor Terry McAuliffe’s goal of preserving 400,000 acres during his term. (See here and here.) This goal has been quite tentative, to say the least, during the past year or so. But now we finally have a definite answer as to Governor McAuliffe’s conservation goal for his term:

Instead of preserving 400,000 acres, he wants to preserve 1,000 treasures.

Let’s take a look together at the new initiative and how it might impact conservation efforts in Virginia. Continue reading To Seek a Thousand Treasures

A New “First Stoplight” in Chesterfield

My car rounded the bend, and suddenly I felt a tick of annoyance at what I saw.

Great. A new stoplight.

A Moving Target

Many of us who live in Southside Virginia drive along U.S. Route 360 through Chesterfield County to get to Richmond, and those of us who travel that route with any regularity at all usually have a pretty good memory of where the “first stoplight” is. The “first stoplight” is the stoplight more or less marking the western edge of the high-density urban sprawl around Richmond. It’s the point at which open highway through endless forests and fields (punctuated by the occasional gas station) gives way to crowded suburbia. Continue reading A New “First Stoplight” in Chesterfield