Photo by justgrimes on Flickr.

SmarTrip gets cheaper

There are only 350,000 of the current model SmarTrip cards left, and the manu­fac­turer stopped making them. This is a good thing, because this fall WMATA will switch to a cheaper card and charge riders less. (Examiner)  

Teaching goes online

Kramer Middle School will shift about half of its coursework online this coming year, allowing for student-guided teaching and giving teachers a chance to work with students where they’re struggling individually. (Examiner)  

Less gravelly?

NPS may adjust the Mount Vernon Trail near Gravelly Point to make its route less circuitous and add a pedestrian path to Roaches Run. (WashCycle)  

House lien sold without notice?

A few homeowners say they never got notices when DC’s Office of Tax and Revenue put liens on their homes or foreclosed

or sold those liens. But officials insist everyone gets 2 final notices in the mail. (Post)  

C’mon, exercise! Everyone’s doing it!

Peer pressure does not have to be bad; it can actually encourage children to exercise more. A study found that kids’ friends had the strongest effect on how much they exercised. (TIME)  

Density resembles transit

There is a strong correlation between residential density and transit mode share, stronger even than job density in a city’s central business district, but that may not be the whole story.  (Old Urbanist)  

What was zoning for?

Urbanists, especially the libertarian ones, tend to criticize zoning for the way it artificially restricts urban development, but the original arguments in favor of zoning codes were concerned with many of the issues urbanists would raise today: development externalities, squatting on a vacant parcel, and safety. (SCC)  

How cars took over

At first, people thought pedestrians had the right to use the road. That changed thanks to public campaigns by car companies, AAA, and corporate-sponsored media. (Scientific American)  

Walkable is expensive

Renting in a walkable community near Metro can cost as much as $1500 more a month compared to car-dependent neighbor­hoods. (Atlantic Cities)