Posts from April 2008

Traffic

Obama really sticking to his guns on gas prices

by David Alpert   •   April 30, 2008 9:28 pm

Good for him:

I do wish the bullet points at the end mentioned more than just a plan for alternative fuels... something like:

• Take the train or bus instead of driving
  
• Move somewhere you can walk to work or to the store

Track Twenty-Nine makes a similar point.

Still, I'm extremely impressed with Obama's excellent position and fortitude on this issue. It's fairly clear that President Obama would have the best energy, transportation, and urban policies of the three remaining candidates.

Public Spaces

Klingle gets the ax

by David Alpert   •   April 30, 2008 6:22 pm

As predicted, the Committee on Public Works and the Environment voted 3-2 (Brown, Cheh, and Alexander versus Graham and Bowser) not to spend lots of local money to rebuild a high-speed bypass through Rock Creek Park that we've done fine without for 18 years.

Jim Graham is disappointed, and wants to hear from citizens. I encourage anybody who thinks parks should be for recreation, not highways, to attend the meeting or email grahamwone@gmail.com.

Thursday, May 8
6:30 pm
John A. Wilson Building (the Council building)
1350 Pennsylvania Ave NW (Pennsylvania between 14th and 13½th)
Metro: Metro Center or Federal Triangle

Update: According to City Paper, Cheh also added an amendment allocating $2 million "for environmental remediation of Klingle Valley and construction of a recreation trail." Graham still plans to fight for the road. And Mayor Fenty is fine with whatever the Council decides.

Traffic

Gas prices: Obama still gets it; Friedman slams Clinton

by David Alpert   •   April 30, 2008 5:50 pm

Barack Obama reiterated his belief that the solution to high gas prices is more rail transit. At a lunch with a Beech Grove, Indiana couple (one of whom works for Amtrak, the other in a local hospital), the candidate had this to say:

Some friends meet a pro-transit
candidate.

The irony is with the gas prices what they are, we should be expanding rail service. One of the things I have been talking about for awhile is high speed rail connecting all of these Midwest cities—Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis. They are not that far away from each other. Because of how big of a hassle airlines are now, there are a lot of people if they had the choice, it takes you just about as much time if you had high speed rail to go the airport, park, take your shoes off.

This is something that we should be talking about a lot more. We are going to be having a lot of conversations this summer about gas prices. And it is a perfect time to start talk about why we don't have better rail service. We are the only advanced country in the world that doesn't have high speed rail. We just don't' have it. And it works on the Northeast corridor. They would rather go from New York to Washington by train than they would by plane. It is a lot more reliable and it is a good way for us to start reducing how much gas we are using. It is a good story to tell.

Meanwhile, Thomas Friedman calls out Hillary and McCain's shameful pandering on the gas tax:

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer's travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is
money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit. The McCain-Clinton gas holiday proposal is a perfect example of what energy expert Peter Schwartz of Global Business Network describes as the true American energy policy today: "Maximize demand, minimize
supply and buy the rest from the people who hate us the most."

Good for Barack Obama for resisting this shameful pandering.

Unfortunately, Friedman doesn't follow Obama in endorsing the best solution to high gas prices: transit.

Transit

Silver Line back on track

by David Alpert   •   April 30, 2008 8:04 am

The Post is reporting that DOT Secretary Mary Peters will approve the Metro extension to Dulles, reversing her and the FTA's earlier surprise objections. It must be because I asked her about it on Monday!

Traffic

Breakfast links: skyrocketing gas price edition

by David Alpert   •   April 30, 2008 7:08 am

Even Californians can do it: Transit villages like one in Hayward, CA (on BART) are becoming popular and making converts out of people who would never have imagined living without a car. SF Chronicle via Richard Layman.

Please, God, let us keep sprawl: Some people are responding to the gas crisis by using prayer, reports Streetsblog. Meanwhile, truckers responded to pricey gas by wasting it.

Drop out already, Hillary: Hillary Clinton is buying into McCain's bad ideas by calling for a gas tax holiday which would not solve the problem and just emphasizes the framing that our solution to energy shortages is to make gas cheaper. Obama, to his credit, is standing firm in calling it the bad idea it is.

Google did it first: Companies from Schering-Plough to Microsoft are rolling out Wi-Fi-enabled commuter buses, kids are putting off learning to drive and transit ridership is at the highest levels since the interstate highways were built. Via Freakonomics.

Development

Preservation versus taxidermy in Takoma Park

by David Alpert   •   April 29, 2008 5:10 pm

On the post about dwelling density, Alex B. writes,

The idea of preserving an evolving thing (a city) is somewhat troubling to me. We preserve things that are dead (like animals taken to the taxidermist, for example). Preservation gets caught up in the idea of one sudden snapshot of a city that's suddenly worth preserving - an inaccurate perception, in my mind. All I can think of is little cities (almost as if they were snow globes) encased in jars of formaldehyde.

Cities ought to be alive. I much prefer the term and concept of adaptive re-use. How can we keep the historic elements intact, maintain that connection to the past, and still adapt the structure and the neighborhood to a modern use?

This dynamic is at work in Takoma Park today. Activists there cut their teeth blocking the North Central Freeway, which would have run right through the neighborhood. Then they fought to preserve beautiful Victorian houses from being torn down and replaced with bland, square apartment houses, winning historic districts in both DC and Maryland.

That freeway was worth fighting because it would have created vast expanses of concrete devoid of humanity and ruined the street life. Now, the same activists, "caught up in one snapshot of a city," want to retain the large, bland WMATA parking lot that separates the Metro station from the neighborhood. Where once that parking lot was a lively commercial street, WMATA proposes to build a village green and a few blocks of townhouses without taking away the existing parking or bus loading. That would restore a streets in the area where they once existed. To some, however, townhouses are just as noxious as a 12-lane freeway.

Richard Layman writes about the generational difference among activists between those who fought to stabilize their neighborhoods as cities were shrinking, and those who now strive to improve cities as they grow again. The guide who led our tour for WalkingTown DC (a member of the earlier generation) referred to the "small town" feel of the neighborhood, and residents' desire to keep the town small. The City of Takoma Park, Maryland has over 17,000 residents. WMATA wants to build 90 townhouses. Are new residents so undesirable?

Our guide also disputed the value of two-car garages under each townhouse. On that, we agree completely. Transit-oriented townhouses next to a Metro station need one per unit at most; shared spaces and ample Zipcars would be even better. Fewer spaces could alleviate residents' reasonable concerns about heavy traffic. But if residents just oppose more residents, that's neighborhood taxidermy, not preservation.

Below, more photos of Takoma Park from the walking tour.

Traffic

Suburbanites enjoy amenities but have no time for them

by David Alpert   •   April 29, 2008 1:01 pm

The Post asked readers to write about what they loved about their homes, and Marc Fisher has a summary. Everyone, city and suburb, enjoyed public spaces and contact with neighbors. Only the manner of that contact varied from county to county, with more neighborhood restaurants and churches in Prince George's, more intercultural interaction in Montgomery.

Fairfax residents love nature but seem least happy overall, lamenting the congestion, long commutes, rising housing prices and lack of Metro. "Many suburban residents love where they live but labor to pry open hours in which they can take advantage of what they've worked so hard to be near. City residents lose out on amenities such as libraries and recreation programs, and on essentials such as strong schools, but gain something some find equally precious: time."

Development

Multi-family conversions, alley and accessory dwellings under attack

by David Alpert   •   April 29, 2008 9:40 am

Mark your calendars for next Monday, May 5th, 6:30 pm. Smart Growth needs you.

May 5th is the next meeting of the Low & Moderate Density zoning meeting. The attitudes of the citizens who attend this group will determine whether DC's zoning code makes it easier or harder for existing buildings to house more people.

Should it stay legal for property owners to add rentable units in their basements? Should we limit the number of condos one can make out of an existing building? Should alley dwellings be legal? Last week's Historic Structures meeting comprised many people who want to restrict most of this.

Under the rubric of historic preservation, they pushed for rules which would essentially prevent new residents from coming into old neighborhoods. And while we should preserve worthy buildings including the townhouses in our historic neighborhoods, increasing unit density without much changing the buildings is an important way to allow people to live in our city at reasonable prices.

There weren't very many people fighting for the don't-let-anything-ever-change position. But there were almost no people fighting for an alternative viewpoint either. These meetings aren't large—about 20 people total at the last one, with maybe five doing most of the talking. But these meetings are far from useless. If most of the people in the group push for a particular change, then the Office of Planning can't ignore the consensus.

For example, right now someone can convert their townhouse in an R-4 district (like Capitol Hill or Mount Pleasant) into a multi-family building as long as they have a 2700-square-foot lot and each unit is at least 900. But the group had been pushing to limit this to bigger buildings and fewer units in historic districts, which would restrict the people that can move into a neighborhood. In their draft recommendations, the Office of Planning folks suggested that the issue be referred to the Low & Moderate Density working group to come up with a city-wide rule instead of one rule for historic areas. Since this rule doesn't have anything to do with changing the building itself, it's hard to see how restricting it would "change the character of the historic district" as some argued, unless having more and often younger people in your neighborhood is an adverse impact to your neighborhood character.

Despite OP's recommendation, almost everyone in the room supported changing the rule to allow only two units per building. I was the only one to speak against it, and without my opposition, OP would have been forced to put the rule in. Instead, it got pushed off to the Low & Moderate Density group.

But the same people are going to be at the Low & Moderate Density group too. When that group considers whether to relax the rules against alley apartments, we need to be there to support them. When the group considers how many condos one can make out of an existing building, we need to keep them from excessively restricting the number. Even five people at that meeting would tip the balance. I hope you will come.

Low and Moderate Density working group
Monday, May 5th
6:30-8:30 pm
441 4th St (One Judiciary Square)
South Lobby, 11th Floor