Latest and Greaterest

by David Alpert

The Times: A NYT editorial yesterday argues Obama must "give mass transit the priority it deserves and the full financial and technological help it needs and has long been denied" in the upcoming transportation bill. According to the Times, the current stimulus proposal floating around Congress would allocate $30 billion to "highways and bridges" and $12 billion to transit, a "far healthier mix." It's especially healthier if most or all of that $30 billion would repair roads and bridges rather than adding new ones to nowhere. Via Louise and The Overhead Wire.

The Post: The Washington Post endorses the light rail Purple Line. "Two decades of dithering is long enough," they say. "Community support is coalescing around light rail. The onus is on Montgomery officials and state leaders to support the route. The County Council, which will vote to recommend a route late this month, is expected to overwhelmingly support light rail."

The citizens of Greenbelt: At recent visioning sessions to collect input on the future of Greenbelt, residents favored "maximizing available transit resources to provide efficient services throughout the community, improving pedestrian and bicycle experiences throughout the community and improving overpasses," says the Gazette. Well, two out of three ain't bad.

Baltimore Sun letter writers: In a letter published Saturday, Greg Cantori of Pasadena, MD explains that it's not too late to cancel the ICC. Just look at "the nightmarish 1970s-era Interstate 70 bypass that was supposed to run through central Baltimore and would have bisected Leakin Park, Federal Hill, Fells Point and Highlandtown and, imagine this, involved a bridge across the Inner Harbor." Despite construction also having begun, activists managed to block that and save many precious Baltimore neighborhoods.

Plus other stuff: Rob Goodspeed discusses the pros and cons of brick sidewalks, a topic hotly debated recently in Dupont Circle; some Washingtonians are moonlighting as pedicab drivers to make more money amid bad economic times; and Parking Today has some choice words for a recently-revealed unpublicized NYC policy to reduce parking tickets by one-third for anyone who asks.

If we add bike lanes, the terrorists have won? During the 2005-2006 Maryland State Police surveillance of peaceful protest groups, writes the Post, "troopers monitored — and labeled as terrorists — activists devoted to such wide-ranging causes as promoting human rights and establishing bike lanes." Watch out, maybe those scary people will use Twitter to plan their bicycle route to commit the terrible act of promoting civil rights! The only solution is to violate their civil rights!

by Cavan Wilk

For many years, one of the main points of debate over the Purple Line route between Bethesda and Connecticut Avenue in Montgomery County has the interim Capital Crescent Trail, an unpaved section along the old railroad right-of-way that the light rail Purple Line would also use. Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, after largely staying out of the debate, weighed in on the matter through two columns last month. Fisher took a common, but incomplete, approach that framed the debate as "Trail Lovers" against transit advocates. Other articles in the Post have framed this issue similarly. This approach shortchanges the potential of paved off-road trails in urban places.

Currently, bicyclists make up many of the patrons on the interim trail. While many cyclists ride for recreation, many people use bicycles as practical transportation, especially on the completed section of the Capital Crescent Trail between Bethesda and Georgetown. That's feasible on the completed part of the trail because it connects centers of activity. It is not feasible on the incomplete part of the trail because the eastern terminus does not connect to anything. Today, the trail ends almost two miles short of downtown Silver Spring.

According to a 2006 survey by the Coalition for the Capital Crescent Trail, the interim portion of the trail east of Bethesda gets much less usage than the completed portion between Bethesda and Georgetown. If Maryland builds the light rail Purple Line, they will also build the final portion and pave the segment between Bethesda and Silver Spring.

Fisher's framing of the debate assumes that paved trails in urban areas are only for recreation. I'm not trying to lambaste Mr. Fisher. In fact, I found his coverage of the Purple Line to be a good read. However, his view of the role of trails shortchanges their full potential. When a trail connects places that people want to go, enhances mobility within a region. Many bicycle owners would use a completed Capital Crescent Trail, running alongside the Purple Line, for practical uses like commuting to work, visiting a friend, or shopping (after attaching a basket or trunk to their bicycle). Over the long term, more people will use the trail for practical transportation because of its convenience. Just as shiny new highways induce more traffic because they make discretionary automobile trips seem more convenient, a completed Capital Crescent Trail between Bethesda and Silver Spring will induce more bicycle trips. Many of those induced bicycle trips will replace automobile trips.

Bicycles are non-polluting, inexpensive, and are urban-friendly because they don't require huge parking structures. Practical bicycle transportation infrastructure also makes nice recreational hiker/biker trails. That's why bicycle advocates like WABA have endorsed the light rail Purple Line option to also complete the trail. Building the Purple Line isn't about the trail versus transit. It's about having a useful trail and transit at the same time.

by Michael Perkins

"The websites [infosnack.org and greatergreaterwashington.org] do not serve to provide information to the general public, therefore we find that you are not a representative of the news media."

So says WMATA's chief of staff, Shiva Pant, in a letter denying my appeal of their October decision that blogs aren't "news media." I asked for reduced information request fees under the "Member of the News Media" and "Public Interest" sections of WMATA's Public Access to Records Policy, or PARP. The PARP derives from the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), and according to the letter, "WMATA interprets and applies the PARP consistent with federal FOIA law and practice."

I request information from WMATA to write articles about their activities. Most of my articles come from their press releases, board and RAC meeting reports, and information posted on wmata.com. I also request information from staff contacts. More recently, WMATA staff have initially declined some of my requests, and directed me to use PARP. For example, I recently analyzed bus reliability data. I originally asked the press office, who directed me to the PARP office. This process can take months, and if the information requires extensive searching, can be expensive. Ordinarily, the person requesting the information must pay WMATA's costs.

Like federal FOIA, PARP allows members of the news media to obtain documents without paying for search time. For some recent information requests, I invoked the member of the media provision based on my writing for my own blog as well as Greater Greater Washington. After WMATA denied it, I submitted the matter to administrative appeal.

WMATA based its decision on an interpretation of outdated federal law. They cite two cases, Judicial Watch, Inc. v. United States Department of Justice (No. 99-2315, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 19789 *9-12 (D.D.C. August 17, 2000) and 185 F. Supp. 2d 54, 59
(D.D.C. 2002)) and Electronic Privacy Information Center v. Department of Defense, 241 F.Supp. 2d14 (D.D.C 2003), both denying "news media" status to organizations. WMATA also seems to suggest, though doesn't explicitly say, that they consider the readership here at Greater Greater Washington too small to be considered the "general public". However, at the end of 2007, the Open Government Act of 2007 clarified the definition of a member of the news media for FOIA, and thus to PARP, as:

any person or entity that gathers information of potential interest to a segment of the public, uses its editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work, and distributes that work to an audience.

This new law, which WMATA apparently never considered, acknowledges that some members of the media need information that is of interest to only a "segment" of the general public, and only needs to reach "an audience." There's no set size needed for an audience to count as "the general public" in the original FOIA law, and this act makes that explicit.

WMATA claims that "a representative of the news media must disseminate the information not merely make it available." But the new law also clarifies that "disseminating" information includes the Web:

These examples [newspapers and broadcast radio or television] are not all-inclusive. Moreover, as methods of news delivery evolve (for example, the adoption of the electronic dissemination of newspapers through telecommunications services), such alternative media shall be considered to be news-media entities.

In fact, the EPIC case ruled that EPIC was a member of the news media, despite using new technology and publishing its newsletter to a small segment of the general public. WMATA seems to believe that because EPIC emailed its newsletter and Greater Greater Washington simply posts information on the Web, it does not count as "disseminating." This is wrong on two counts. First, Greater Greater Washington does email posts daily to many subscribers; you can sign up for that service here. And second, splitting hairs between email and the Web as delivery mechanisms simply based on which party initiates the Internet connection completely misses the point of the Open Government Act's insistence that the news media is not tied to specific technologies.

Judicial Watch simply posted documents obtained through FOIA on its Web site, to encourage journalists to write about them, instead of writing articles itself. The Open Government Act emphasizes, which a court first wrote in 1989, that the member of the news media must "use editorial skills to turn the raw materials into a distinct work." I create new works (articles) based on the information, using my editorial skills, and disseminate that new work though Greater Greater Washington.

Why is this all important? Access to information is vital to good reporting, whether through more traditional media like television, radio and periodicals, or through newer media forms like blogs and news websites like Greater Greater Washington. The Washington Post and the DC Examiner both have beat reporters working on transit issues. There's a limit to the amount of coverage they can provide, whether from space in the newspaper or reporter or editor time. As Scott Gant, author of "We're All Journalists Now" explains on this video, blogs and news websites cover issues more deeply than more generalized news outfits could. By providing access to information, whether through press passes, access to press amenities, granting interviews, or through FOIA and its equivalents, government agencies enable news to become effective reporters on government operations.

by Steve Offutt

Last spring Arlington approved a new cab company, enviroCAB, to provide taxicab service in the county. It was the first new taxi company in Arlington in at least twenty-five years. All its vehicles are hybrids, challenging the status quo of the Crown Victorias other companies use. Most of the time a cab carries a single passenger, so providing a more fuel efficient choice seems like a no-brainer: why drive around in a Crown Vic to just carry one person?

They appear to be doing very well. I, for one, now call them first for all my taxicab needs. I used to be a Red Top customer and still feel they have excellent drivers and service, but given the choice, I'm going with the hybrid. I've ridden numerous times and have gotten very positive reviews from the drivers. They like the company, they like their cars, and they save a lot of money on gas.

Most exciting of all, now the other companies, are running many hybrid taxis, too. By approving enviroCAB, the Arlington County Board has begun transforming the taxi market in the county. Do you know if this has started spilling over to the adjoining jurisdictions? DC still has no hybrid taxis.

At an Arlington hearing last year, where enviroCAB argued its case for introducing the service, many competitors presented insubstantial and shortsighted arguments for keeping enviroCAB out. Fortunately, the county saw past those arguments and made the foresighted decision. Next time you are cabbing in or out of Arlington, you can call them at (703) 920-3333.

by Paul Sieczkowski

Large mixed-use development projects at the McMillan Sand Filtration site and Armed Forces Retirement Home will add density and thousands of residential units to an area far from Metro. Current Bloomingdale residents are concerned about increased traffic, as the area is already a bottleneck, pinched between parks, universities and cemeteries that have severed the street grids. Upstart anti-McMillan development blog No Drilling at McMillan cites an old WMATA study stating that the Washington Hospital Center is the "most dense commuter destination not served by transit rail." Can we we add some transit serving this area?

Richard Layman suggests that DC should require these developers to pay into a fund for future transit enhancement, as Arlington County often does. Streetcars or priority bus corridors along the congested North Capitol Street are distinct and viable possibilities.

But maybe it's worth thinking bigger: how about heavy rail using the Red Line? The Northeast leg of the Red Line followed the railroad right of way rather than a path to maximize TOD, such as Georgia Avenue. Many residents of Brookland and Takoma strongly oppose development, and neither is among the top stations in ridership. What about a separate branch of the Red Line?

Alternating eastbound Red Line trains could split off after the New York Avenue station and service new stations before ultimately linking back up at Silver Spring. This would increase the coverage of Metro to DC residents and add TOD opportunities with minimal impact to travel times for suburban commuters headed downtown and to NoMa. In the long run, this segment could get its own service entirely as part of a possible Brown Line.

Top priorities for the North Capitol route include serving the new developments and the hospital, the commercial nodes of existing communities, preserving the Fort Totten Green Line transfer, and accessing areas with more opportunity for infill stations in the future. Along the existing Red Line track I also added a Kansas Avenue infill station, located in an area of light industrial that could be prime for TOD redevelopment.

Stations along this route could include:

• Bloomingdale: Rhode Island Ave at First Street NW
  
• McMillan: Michigan Ave at First Street NW
  
• AFRH: Irving Street NW at North Capitol Street
  
• Fort Totten: On parallel platform
  
• Brightwood: Missouri Ave at Georgia Ave NW

Future infill stations could go at commerical nodes like Kennedy Street at 3rd Street NW, Georgia Ave at Piney Branch NW, and Georgia Ave at Kalmia Road NW.

What's the best way to serve the cluster of McMillian, AFRH, and Washington Hospital Center? With the Hospital at the physical midpoint, one station to serve these three areas would be the least costly. However, the groups making the most trips would probably be, first, residents of the new communities, then hospital workers, retail customers of the new developments, and finally patients. Residents and retail customers would be more sensitive to long walks or shuttle buses, while workers are more likely to view a shuttle that connected the two nearby metro stations and circulated the hospital campus as an amenity.

This concept is admittedly off the cuff. I haven't vetted it rigorously by evaluating bus ridership and capital costs. Streetcars may be more cost-effective. However, while I do support streetcars across the city, I would also like to see us continue to expand heavy rail. This concept could extend the reach of heavy rail with minimal disruption to core capacity. I thought it was worth serving up in raw form for discussion. I welcome feedback and will work it into further refinement of this concept.

by David Alpert

Better buses too: Matt Yglesias suggests better bus service as a transit improvement we should have included in our 2009 wish list. For an easy change, he suggests updating the schedule cards to a more state-of-the-art design.

Yes, stealing bikes is illegal: MPD has been deploying "bait bikes", unlocked cycles left out to attract thieves. According to the MPD, some thieves don't think taking an unlocked bike is even wrong. (City Paper)

Hopefully not just a golden triangle: The Golden Triangle BID (the downtown area between Farragut and Foggy Bottom) is holding a contest to design new, artistic bike racks for the area. I hope they pick something more creative than the fairly obvious design, a gold-colored triangle. (WashCycle)

Call them live/shop lofts? Yglesias discusses the trend toward building housing in malls as a strategy to revitalizing the ailing places. Unfortunately, many efforts to date, like the Natick Mall in Massachusetts, just create an even more isolated condo tower and private park on top of the mall amid the existing giant seas of parking lots. That's unlikely to create a real walkable place with shared public spacee.

NoVa Columbia? Richard Layman calls attention to November's Washingtonian cover feature, about whether Northern Virginia ought to (or could) secede from the Commonwealth of Virginia. Virginian municipalities can only regulate what the state allows them to, and Richmond frequently denies them needed powers (like drive-thru hours?)

Maybe, asks Washingtonian, including DC in the new state could give DC representation in a way more palatable to Republicans. On the other hand, since both of Virginia's Senators live in NoVa, the new state might end up with two Virginian Senators and add two new Republicans from the South, not to mention the electoral college implications. Practically, it's totally unrealistic (not to mention still probably undesirable for DC), but it's an interesting idea.

by Cavan Wilk

Newsweek economics columnist Robert J. Samuelson declared in his December 29, 2008 column that 2008 was "the end of an era." He wrote, "We know 2008, much like 1932 or 1980[?], marks a dividing line for the American economy and society." The economic trends in the commercial real estate market bear out Samuelson's claim.

On Friday, December 26, an opinion piece on Slate's "The Big Money" declared, "Shopping malls are a thing of the past. It's time we closed them all down. The author, Chadwick Martin, pointed out some current facts:

Already, malls are in a considerable amount of trouble. Shopping centers on the block are selling for 25 percent to 35 percent less than they did just a year ago. Retail vacancies are on the rise; nationally, 6.6 percent of stores were empty in the third quarter of 2008, a 20 percent increase from the same quarter last year and the highest mark since 2002. Much of the pain is interwoven with the retail sector, where analysts estimate 148,000 stores will have been closed in 2008.

The changes in these malls are the very opposite of the revitalization of walkable urban places such as in Silver Spring, North Arlington, and Logan Circle:

At the risk of getting Gladwellian, every store that closes has an impact on the shops left behind. Walking through a half-empty mall is an unsettling experience; it feels as dreadful as Dawn of the Dead, just without the zombies.

Many mall management firms are also in financial trouble because of losses from many bubble-era real estate deals. What truly surprised me was the author's conclusion about what to do next:

But why just consolidate? Let's close them all. I'm not saying that all of their tenants should close. Instead, the stores that once filled the malls should go and fill other empty storefronts dispersed across the city. Call it the great chain-store diaspora.

Even writers from the urbanist community don't advocate wholesale closing of malls, acknowledging that malls are private property. While economic commentator Mike "Mish" Shedlock declared that the "Shopping Center Economic Model is History" back in April 2008, he made no comment about where to go from here; as a libertarian-leaning economics and finance writer, urban planning and infrastructure are outside the scope of Mish's blog. As far as I know, no one outside the urbanist community has previously concluded that it would be okay or even positive for malls to go out of business, and for the stores to relocate to Main Streets. What a year it's been.

Read more...

by Michael Perkins

Donald Shoup, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, linked to this video, "Parking Public," on Facebook. It has lots of great 1940's and 1950's footage of the downtown urban environment, and explains the origin of modern parking regulations.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Video courtesy The Temporary Travel Office.

by David Alpert

Several newspaper bloggers released roundups of the year's biggest transportation stories (like the Post's Get There and the Transportation Examiner). One of the potentially biggest stories on neither list was the resignation of DDOT Director Emeka Moneme. A new Director could significantly swing our transportation policy for better or worse. And in the waning hours of this year, Loose Lips' Mike DeBonis discovered that we finally have a nominee: Gabe Klein.

[Klein's] biggest job in transportation is his four years on the job as regional vice president of Zipcar. That's certainly a business that's taken a progressive view of urban transportation and has more likely than not contributed to the removal of personal cars from city streets ...

Since he left Zipcar, he's headed up On the Fly, the vending and mobile catering business that's helped end the street-vending monopoly held by the half-smoke crowd.

DeBonis also notices what could be the best part of all: Klein signed our petition calling for a visionary leader for DDOT in the mold of Janette Sadik-Khan, Harriet Tregoning, or Michelle Rhee. Klein wrote,

I agree, love Michelle Rhee, Harriet Tregoning, and of course Dan Tangherlini. Lets bring someone of that caliber in to take over DDOT, a hugely important position in Washington. For instance, without Dan Tangherlini's vision, carsharing would not be what it is in Washington (one of the top carsharing cities in the U.S.)

Sounds like something a former Zipcar Regional VP might say.

As the months stretched on without a DDOT nominee, visionary or no, I'd started to fear we'd end up with a move-the-cars operations focused administrator uninterested in reforming DDOT's multiple-personality policies. I don't know Klein's opinions on most issues, and as DeBonis points out, he's probably a Fenty loyalist above all. His background is more business than transportation planning or engineering, though that could be just what DDOT needs to develop clear processes and improve their poor customer service.

The bottom line: having a DDOT Director from the carsharing world, and who signed our petition, could potentially be the best news all year.

by Joey Katzen

To expats from Western Europe, one of the most visible and convenient displays of American capitalism is the array of services available every day of every week, late into the evening, and in select cases, absolutely whenever one's heart fancies (like a pair of tube socks from a Super Wal-Mart at three in the morning).

Indeed, many other western nations sharply regulate business hours on a national level. Most stores must to close by a set time, such as six or seven in the evening, with no Sunday shopping. European lawmakers justify this in two ways. First, they argue that no employee should be forced (or, perhaps, allowed) to work at "undesirable" hours. And second, they say that smaller mom-and-pop stores can't afford to stay open late or on weekends; permitting superstores to do so would put those independent haberdashers and bodegas out of business.

America generally knows no such boundaries, and so we have at our overnight disposal, variously, 10 pm treadmill runs at the gym, 2 am iPods at Apple on 5th Avenue, and 4 am Caramellos at the corner 7-Eleven.

A casual walk down a commercial street in virtually any local neighborhood will reveal numerous fast food restaurants seemingly open "late-nite" or "24-hours". But on closer inspection, in virtually every case outside of DC's French Quarter, Adams Morgan, only the drive-thrus serve late night patrons, and then only those in motorized vehicles (sorry cyclists).

For whatever reason, whether it's a desire to keep the dining rooms tidy or to protect cashiers from those would-be lawbreakers who are seemingly more dangerous on foot than in a car, late-night food seekers are forced to get behind the wheel, even if they live directly adjacent to such a restaurant.

Without going into the community merits (or lack thereof) of the availability of the 3 am Chalupa, sampling such a tantalizing offering requires residents to drive, rather than walk. That's often when they're in their least effective, and even possibly intoxicated, states, posing considerable risk to their and others' lives.

I propose we require parity in the treatment of pedestrians and drivers, where such service would not serve as an unreasonable burden on the business. I suggested such to an Arlington County Supervisor, who found the concept novel and worth an investigation.

Unfortunately, in Virginia at least, except for liquor laws, most localities may regulate operating hours only through zoning. As a result, once an establishment has opened for business, the municipality can't impose any new operating-hour regulation. The business is "grandfathered" into its use under the original zoning regulations, even if they are later amended. It might be easier in Washington or Maryland.

Arlington changed their zoning laws in 1998 to prohibit new drive-thrus, except by a "special exception" at the discretion of the governing body. In the future, if any new establishment wanted to open a drive-thru, the negotiation over the necessary permission would let the County to include conditions of pedestrian parity for approval.

Until then, I guess I'll have to take a taxi 200 feet for my late-night fix. Or not.