VRE Expansion in Spotsylvania?

The Committee of 500 is holding a forum to discuss the pros and cons of extending the VRE to Spotslyvania County.

The panel discussion will take place in Room 212 at Germanna Community College off the U.S. 17 Bypass near Lee’s Hill from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

The Committee of 500 generally supports the idea of public transportation, said Chairman Merl Witt. But the forum is not an opportunity to lobby residents, he said.

Instead, the group hopes people will ask hard questions about the service and think about whether it’s a good idea for Spotsylvania, he said.

“We’re not going to get up there and say, ‘It’s time to get on the VRE,'” Witt said. “We want to force the discussion. We want to bring attention to it.”

The answer should be no, and for two reasons.

First, there is no reason why we should be subsidizing someone’s ride to work at the expense of the taxpayer. Secondly, extending the VRE extends the methods of travelling to Washington, which ultimately creates and instigates more sprawl rather than solving the problem.

I’ll be interested to hear what – if any – alternatives to the VRE extension are proposed. But the VRE is simply way too expensive and too long a trip for folks in Spotsylvania to legitimately consider as a transportation alternative.