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Walker- Those Loudoun County stops will have gigantic parking garages for a reason; ie. people will be able to drive from outer Loudoun and further out and take a quick Metro trip in. Areas that are now rural can be developed into exurbs. From the time the Springfield station opened and exurbs exploded in Prince William and Stafford the trend has been the same. Now that the western bypass is on the table again the developers and Loudoun are confused as to which they want priority for.

Density has to do with better utilization of built environment we already have. The waste and under use of buildings in DC is appalling. In any new proposal to cover more permeable surface we have to consider its effect on the ground water runoff problem- that $2.6 Billion is no joke. But we never do. There's all this advocacy to concrete over McMillian Park, concrete over the front lawn of Springarn, build more structures with huge underground garages ad infinitum without any study of how all this new concrete will affect the surface water problem. That is how we got into this problem.

If other urban centers (not just Paris) can stay green while having high density we can too. When "smart growth" becomes just about more and more concrete trashing the environment we've fallen down the rabbit hole.

by Tom Coumaris on Jun 29, 2012 10:02 am • link • report