RICHMOND — Virginia’s House of Delegates voted unanimously Friday to repeal restrictions recently imposed on a college tuition program for military families, but Senate leaders do not intend to take the bill up when that chamber meets Monday, saying they want to limit any repeal to one year.
Virginia
Virginia Avenue traffic median creates car crash hot spot
![Virginia Avenue traffic median creates car crash hot spot](https://www.gwhatchet.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20222304_VirginiaAveCrashes_TK-1000x670.jpg)
Popped tires, damaged bumpers and scattered hubcaps have change into indicators of a string of site visitors crashes alongside Virginia Avenue this month after not less than 5 automobiles have crashed on the similar location.
Witnesses of the crashes mentioned automobiles driving eastbound seem like hanging the middle median of the 2400 block of Virginia Avenue avenue subsequent to Columbia Plaza Residences and Shenkman Corridor. The middle median bisects the road into two diverging lanes, one connecting to twenty third Avenue and the opposite persevering with alongside Virginia Avenue with a tunnel.
Rita Champagne, a retired State Division worker and longtime Columbia Plaza Residences resident, mentioned she has seen greater than 100 automotive crashes at that lane separation from her condo since she moved there in 1976.
“Each time I hear a bang out right here, I do know what’s taking place,” Champagne mentioned.
She mentioned town as soon as put in reflectors on the median, however they have been destroyed one month later following a automotive collision, by no means to get replaced. She mentioned working to alert metropolis officers of the issue is “losing your time” as a result of they’ve by no means adopted up on her site visitors security considerations.
Champagne mentioned she has tried to forestall the crashes all through her time dwelling within the condo, portray the median and putting cones, which has amounted to little success in stopping the crashes. She mentioned she cleans up particles that’s typically left behind from crashes due to the shortage of a metropolis response.
“You’d suppose that when the police have been there, they may decide up the trash,” Champagne mentioned.
The Metropolitan Police Division declined a request for remark concerning the incidents at that location.
She mentioned whereas the crashes occur year-round and infrequently late at evening, snow masking the median throughout winter months makes the median particularly tough to note whereas driving.
Champagne mentioned she “feels unhealthy” for the drivers whose automobiles get broken working over the median, and whereas she doesn’t personal a automotive, she want to make security modifications to the median on her personal accord to assist stop these crashes from persevering with to occur.
“If I can assist save individuals’s automobiles a bit of bit, I’d be glad to try to do this,” she mentioned.
Zhengtian Xu, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at GW, mentioned Virginia Avenue’s site visitors hazard could possibly be solved if town put in reflectors and indicators on the median or painted the street to point a median was up forward. Metropolis officers haven’t positioned any signage or reflective materials on the barrier.
“This isn’t tough in any respect,” Xu mentioned. “You make the portray extra seen and set up some indicators so it doesn’t contain the restructure of the geometries of these lanes and roads.”
Xu mentioned metropolis officers will typically prioritize fixing the areas that trigger probably the most accidents or fatalities, and since most of Virginia Avenue’s crashes aren’t extreme – leading to largely car harm fairly than pedestrian or driver accidents – the avenue hasn’t been receiving consideration from town.
There have been no accidents with accidents recorded on the block of Virginia Avenue between the start of the yr to current, in line with the Imaginative and prescient Zero Deadly and Damage Crashes Dashboard.
Mayor Muriel Bowser and the District Division of Transportation launched the Imaginative and prescient Zero Initiative in 2015 to get rid of critical site visitors accidents and fatalities within the metropolis by 2024 with safer streets and sidewalks and harmful driving prevention.
DDOT, which oversees the Imaginative and prescient Zero Initiative, didn’t return a request for remark.
Visitors fatalities have elevated since 2012 with 40 recorded in 2021 – the very best quantity since 2008. Statistics like these prompted the District Auditor to start a 10-month investigation into Imaginative and prescient Zero’s lack of success in September 2021.
Sophomore Maddie Billet mentioned she has witnessed not less than 10 automotive accidents by the site visitors median within the final semester from her room in Shenkman Corridor, which overlooks Virginia Avenue.
Billet mentioned in most accidents she noticed, automobiles hit the median and most drivers pulled over to evaluate the harm to their car – normally flat tires or damaged bumpers and hubcaps – earlier than driving away in the event that they have been ready. In three of the crashes she noticed this semester, Billet mentioned the drivers couldn’t drive away with out the help of emergency companies.
She mentioned she helped an aged girl name 911 late final month after she heard a loud bang exterior her dorm and noticed the lady’s automotive totaled on the facet of the avenue.
“That’s the place she needed to name a tow truck,” Billet mentioned. “She was fairly shaken up so I referred to as 911 as a result of I didn’t know if anybody else had.”
Billet mentioned she filed a street restore report with town after the accident late final month in hopes that officers would repair the “complicated” lane cut up with further signage or reflective materials on the median. She mentioned metropolis officers promised to resolve the issue, however they painted a five-foot white line on the road outlining the median final week as a substitute of putting in signage or reflectors.
Ria Gupta, a sophomore who additionally lives in Shenkman Corridor, mentioned she noticed 5 crashes on Virginia Ave final week from her Tenth-floor room.
“It’s normally at 2 within the morning,” Gupta mentioned. “However after we hear a loud screech, we normally stand up and look, and it’s a automotive that hit the divider or being very loud.”
Gupta mentioned town ought to prolong the painted divider markings farther down the street as a result of they enhance the median’s visibility from a distance.
“I’m from New Jersey, so all of the dividers I see normally have a line, a drawing round them and the form of a triangle that goes out loads additional,” she mentioned. “So you’ll be able to see from loads earlier {that a} divider is arising.”
Gupta mentioned throughout a few of the crashes she’s witnessed, automobiles’ airbags have been deployed and a few automobiles “ricocheted” backwards after hitting the median, whereas others have been straddled on high of the divider and left caught, unable to reverse. Gupta mentioned nobody has gotten damage from the accidents she’s seen to date.
“It takes some time for the ambulance to return, like 15 to twenty minutes later,” she mentioned. “We’d fall again asleep after the crash, after which get woken up once more by the sound of the fireplace vans and the ambulance and police automobiles.”
Grace Chinowsky contributed reporting.
This text appeared within the April 25, 2022 difficulty of the Hatchet.
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Virginia
Trump steps up ground game in Virginia after Biden’s shaky debate
![Trump steps up ground game in Virginia after Biden’s shaky debate](https://thehill.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2024/06/Virginia_062924_Photo_Getty.png)
Virginia
Youngkin looks to unify GOP at massive Trump rally: ‘Virginia is in play’ – Washington Examiner
![Youngkin looks to unify GOP at massive Trump rally: ‘Virginia is in play’ – Washington Examiner](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Youngkin-Trump-Rally.webp)
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) joined former President Donald Trump for a massive rally in Virginia as the vice presidential hopeful makes a bid to flip his state red this November.
“It is time to elect strength back into the White House,” the Virginia governor proclaimed to thousands of enthusiastic rally attendees as he introduced the president. “Let’s join together and welcome the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump!”
Trump, freshly victorious from a debate deemed a disaster for his opponent President Joe Biden, beamed as Youngkin doled out glowing words for his former rival.
“Mr. President, this is the best Trump rally that you’ve ever had, and you’re doing it in Virginia,” Youngkin told the presumptive GOP nominee Friday. “And yes, on behalf of 8.7 million Virginians, Mr. President, we are going to go to work and get you back in the White House!”
Massive crowds roared as the two shook hands, cementing a show of goodwill over a past mired in conflict.
“He’s got the policies that made America great,” Trump said of Youngkin, widely rumored to be on the vice presidential short list. “We’re proud of him. He’s done a great job.”
The joint appearance comes as the GOP convention looms. Trump is expected to announce his running mate before then.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
In 2020, Biden claimed Virginia by a solid 10%. Recent polls showing the president in a dead heat with Trump has shocked the GOP into action to capitalize on Republican gains. While Trump and Youngkin have had a fractured relationship, with Youngkin toying with mounting a presidential challenge to Trump and declining to speak at multiple rallies, their joint appearance is intended to signal to Virginians that a unified GOP could flip the state red this November.
As the Virginia governor told Fox News just hours before the rally, “The president coming to Virginia today … is reflective of the fact that Virginia is in play.”
Virginia
Virginia House votes to repeal restrictions on military tuition program
Created in 1930 to aid the families of World War I veterans, the program has expanded over the years to include out-of-state residents, graduate students and relatives of service members with non-combat-related injuries. The price tag has risen exponentially in recent years, from $12 million in 2019 to more than $65 million last year. Universities have borne the cost or passed it to other students.
Amid warnings that the program was unsustainable, legislators and Youngkin agreed to new restrictions, which require participants to tap federal aid, such as Pell Grants, before accessing the state program, and limit eligibility to Virginia residents pursuing undergraduate degrees.
They also require military families to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which uses a formula to calculate how much families can afford to pay for higher education. The wealthiest participants would pay a portion of the “expected family contribution,” expected to be capped at about $3,750 a year.
Current participants were grandfathered in, as was anyone who applied to college before May 15 under the budget language, which also provides $20 million to colleges and universities to offset waiver costs.
Those changes drew swift and vocal pushback from military families, leading Youngkin and the Democrats who lead the House and Senate to promise fixes. But they have not been on the same page about just what to do.
Youngkin and the House have favored fully repealing the restrictions until the issue can be studied, while Senate leaders have leaned toward more limited tinkering.
The House gathered for about an hour Friday to pass a bill to repeal the changes and provide $20 million a year for the next two fiscal years to cover some of the cost.
“It’s often been said if you find yourself in a hole you don’t want to be in, stop digging. Mr. Speaker, today I’m glad that we stopped digging,” Del. Mike A. Cherry (R-Colonial Heights) said on the floor ahead of the vote, praising Democratic and Republican leaders who’d pledged to “not weaponize” the issue.
But Senate Majority Leader Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax) said that the measure will not move forward in the Senate, which on Monday will meet for a second time to try to advance its own fix.
“It will not be considered,” he said.
Senate leaders are backing a new bill to postpone the restrictions until July 1, 2025, provide $65 million over the next 12 months to cover the cost, and require the state’s Joint Legislative and Audit Review Commission to review the program and make recommendations by Sept. 1.
“We’re willing to repeal the new restrictions for one year … and use the surplus to take the burden off other students who are currently funding the program,” Surovell said.
House Speaker Don L. Scott Jr. (D-Portsmouth) said he was confident the two sides will eventually work out their differences.
“Regardless of what happens on Monday, we’re very, very close in concept,” Scott said. “I think everybody recognizes that the way the program is designed now, it can’t go on like that. But we want to make sure that we get it right.”
Scott said he would support means-testing and other restrictions once the issue has been fully studied.
“I’m a disabled veteran as well. I can afford to pay for my daughter’s tuition,” he said. “So I think we need to do some means-testing. We need to get some residency requirements. I think we need to take a look at it and see what’s doable.”
The Senate initially met June 18, when Democratic leaders hoped to pass a bill to lift the Pell Grant and FAFSA requirements for relatives of veterans killed in the line of duty or disabled in combat, but not those with non-combat disabilities. They met for more than five hours that day but did not advance the legislation.
Youngkin praised the House’s action Friday and leaned on the Senate to fall in line with that plan.
“Our veterans, first responders, and their families have spoken, and we have heard them,” he said in a written statement. “Now it is time for the Senate to pass the bill on Monday, so I can sign it immediately. … If the Senate Democrat Leadership does not support a repeal of the language, they are holding our veterans, first responders, and their families, hostage.”
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