Monderman at a sign-less intersection in Drachten. Photo by sociate on Flickr.

Learning traffic from Proust: Wilson Quarterly discusses the legacy of Hans Monderman, the revolutionary traffic engineer who convinced the Dutch town of Drachten to remove all traffic signals and signs. Contrary to decades of standard practice, it made traffic flow better and more safely. (Also, I didn’t know that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a traffic engineer.)

A new VRE line? VRE is evaluating a potential new branch from Manassas to Haymarket. My transit future map includes the route, which is currently single-tracked. Funding, of course, is the elephant in the room. Via WP Get There.

Why should the rate be different? An Emeryville architecture firm has started paying employees 58.5 cents per mile if they bike to official meetings—the same as the official IRS rate for driving, reports the SF Chronicle. It’s a great inducement. From a public policy standpoint, why should we reward people more for taking a more expensive and more polluting form of transportation? Tip: Ben T.

Hill loves parking, could do without youth: Residents of Capitol Hill discussed principles for redeveloping the Hine Junior High site last week, and voted for principles they found most and least important by putting colored dots on a board. “Maintain historic character and moderate density” and “housing accessible to a broad range of income and age groups” were among the most voted-for principles (27 each), but “Add underground parking accessed from 7th St” ran away with 45 green dots.

As for principles residents marked with red dots (a priority they opposed), parking was fifth (with 5), restoring C Street third (10), and the number one red dot vote-getter: “Maintain focus on youth with educational services, library or other youth oriented facility.” In fairness, “maintain focus on” does suggest a youth use to the exclusion of others, which I can understand not being the right priority. Full voting numbers here.