That bicycle master plan for Fairfax is very impressive. There would have been bike lanes all over where I used to live where I routinely got yelled at for not riding on the sidewalk in areas where there was no sidewalk.

by drumz on Jun 15, 2012 8:56 am • link • report

Good lord, those "bus bulbs" look like a horrible idea.

The growth machine wins one in Loudoun.

by charlie on Jun 15, 2012 8:59 am • link • report

I know some young people who are anti-Silver Line. Seems like a weird categorization you are trying to make.

by Loach on Jun 15, 2012 9:08 am • link • report

@Loach: "some young people are anti-Silver line" is not inconsistent with "the Silver line receives significant support from young people."

Younger Loudoun county residents probably support the Silver Line overwhelmingly, but that doesn't mean that all of them support it.

by Gray on Jun 15, 2012 9:28 am • link • report

I know some young people who think the earth is 6000 years old.

by ksu499 on Jun 15, 2012 9:42 am • link • report

That Muni article is some ammo against the people who complain about WMATA's pricing with "look, a Muni monthly pass is only $50!" Yes their fares are cheap, and Muni is a f-ing dump because of it.

by MLD on Jun 15, 2012 9:49 am • link • report

I had no idea that outer beltway proposal was so far along. Glad Virginia is willing to dump billions into this but withholds money from WMATA and contributes a paltry $150 milllion to the silverline. Great priorities there.

by jj on Jun 15, 2012 9:50 am • link • report

Bus bulbs, which can speed buses when picking up and dropping off passengers, tend to be expensive and time consuming to install, but a prefabricated solution from Barcelona can get them in faster and cheaper.

Or you can just give buses that signal they want to pull out of a stop the right of way. Crazy idea? It's the law in the Netherlands.

Fairfax has draft of future bike map

Impressive map indeed. I sent in a long comment stressing the need to local connections to trails like the Mt Vernon trail; the fact that biking is a means of transportation, not just recreation; and pretty much begged for CaBi to be brought to FFX.

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 9:51 am • link • report

The bus bulbs dont have to be that ugly. If you look at the comments on BeyondDC and use the link someone provided to the example in Barcelona. A practical solution is to make sure you use the same concrete that was used in constructing the sidewalk. Also, it addresses the issue of interrupting drainage systems, a major hurdle when trying to gain acceptance from the engineering folks in respective organizations.

by Allan on Jun 15, 2012 9:52 am • link • report

@ksu499:I know some young people who think the earth is 6000 years old.

Fun science question: How old is the earth?

Yes, many people ridicule the creationist POV, but do you know what the scientific answer is (without Googling)? The difference between the two answers drove Isaac Newton nuts. Quite literally.

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 9:53 am • link • report

I think WMATA is proposing to get rid of the bus bulbs on 14th street between Irving and Newton.

by Steve S. on Jun 15, 2012 9:55 am • link • report

Whether the now-abandoned Silver Line project labor agreement was just a fig leaf for opponents or a genuinely serious concern, it does look like the decision to drop the PLA will help ensure that the Silver Line gets built.

by Arl Fan on Jun 15, 2012 10:00 am • link • report

If I was a construction union leader, I would make damn sure to strike, picket, and generally do as many disruptive labor actions as possible to try to disrupt the construction of the Silver Line -- to remind policy-makers why PLA's exist in the first place (essentially an insurance policy against labor strife). The Silver Line construction is basically the Waterloo for the whole PLA concept in this area -- if the construction goes off without a hitch notwithstanding the absence of a PLA, then it's just going to get harder and harder to negotiate PLA's in the future.

by Simon on Jun 15, 2012 10:23 am • link • report

It pains me to admit it but I can see some of the logic to having a more direct connection to Dulles from 95, even though I ended up doing this more or less the other day and it wasn't that bad.

HOWEVER we live in a era of extremely limited budgets and I can think of about a dozen things that money could be better used for in order to improve people commuting from either PWC or Loudoun to destinations east, which you know is where all the traffic is.

by drumz on Jun 15, 2012 10:26 am • link • report

Disturbing thing about the Muni piece: Seeing former Muni head Nat Ford denounced at the end, thinking that the name sounded familiar, and then remembering that MWAA almost hired him as its CEO.

by Rob Pegoraro on Jun 15, 2012 10:48 am • link • report

@ Jasper

The earth is approximately 4.6 billion years old.

by Sam on Jun 15, 2012 11:15 am • link • report

A kindly note from the friendly interwebs proofreading squad:
There is a typo @ Blaze Your Own Trail

You have "... A paved trail with similar access is slatted to be constructed this summer."

Slatting is done to beds, not trails.

by Alger on Jun 15, 2012 11:30 am • link • report

*sigh* still no safe way to get from Huntington to Ft. Belvoir.

by movement on Jun 15, 2012 11:50 am • link • report

Simon -

If I was a construction union leader, I would make damn sure to strike, picket, and generally do as many disruptive labor actions as possible to try to disrupt the construction of the Silver Line -- to remind policy-makers why PLA's exist in the first place (essentially an insurance policy against labor strife)

Phase II Silver Line will almost certainly have a PLA just like Phase I. The controversy was whether contractors would be awarded incentives by the government to use a PLA. Even without government incentives, a PLA in this situation will likely make good business sense to the contractor so they can avoid the scenario you describe above and avoid hefty penalties for failing to finish on time. As a result, they will likely use a PLA. But, at the end of the day, it's up to the best judgement of the contractor to determine whether the PLA "insurance policy" (or labor extortion, depending on your POV) is worth the cost.

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 11:55 am • link • report

Here's my submitted comment on the FFX Bike Plan:

With regards to the climbing lane on Idylwood between Rt. 7 and Hurst ST, I strongly suggest you consider full fledged bike lanes in both directions. Not only is that portion of Idylwood an important connection to the W&OD trail, it will also be the location of the future 7-acre Ruckstuhl Park (info on the park: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/press/pr2012/pr013-12.pdf). This park greatly needs safe pedestrian and biking access from both directions as many children will be going to the park.

Second, I suggest you consider a continuous bike lane on Rt.7 from the W&OD (or Fall Church City border) all the way to the Rt.7 Silver Line station. As it stands now, there is a mix of bike lanes and sharrows along this vital boulevard which greatly diminishes its appeal as a bike route. Rt. 7 is filled with too much high speed traffic for it to be safe to bike without a bike lane and this is one of the primary bike access points to Tysons.

****

@Jasper -- CaBi is part of the Tysons master plan.

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 12:13 pm • link • report

@ Sam: Thank you :-D

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 12:14 pm • link • report

While its more politically persuasive to point out that ordinary citizens (whether young or old) are rallying to support the Silver Line, the more telling data point is the strong support from the business community. When the Chair of the Loudoun Chamber of Commerce is saying -- build the Silver Line and raise our taxes if needed to get it done -- the county's budding reputation as "business friendly" is on the line (pun intended). When will some folks learn that investing in transit is a lot more business-friendly (and cost effective, thus taxpayer-friendly) than building an Outer Beltway?

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 12:20 pm • link • report

Of course the business community is going to support the Silver Line. The business community wants there to be an overabundance of commercial space so in order to reduce their own costs. They will support anything that resembles economic development, regardless of the cost/benefit to the rest of the region or state. It is just another example of spending someone else's money.

by movement on Jun 15, 2012 1:01 pm • link • report

@ Falls Church:CaBi is part of the Tysons master plan.

Didn't know that. Thanks!

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 1:03 pm • link • report

@movement

The business community is a mix of developers, landlords and renters so they likely want a stable commercial real estate market. The business community also pays a disproportionate share of taxes (both on an absolute level and particularly, in relation to the services they receive). Virginia has consistently ranked 1 or 2 as the most business friendly state in the country and it has resulted in low unemployment, strong economic growth, AND low taxes. Why would you want to turn away from the business friendly tradition that's worked so well?

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 1:13 pm • link • report

Yes, many people ridicule the creationist POV, but do you know what the scientific answer is (without Googling)? The difference between the two answers drove Isaac Newton nuts. Quite literally.

Regardless of the exact number, it's something like six orders of magnitude greater than the creationists would have it. :)

by oboe on Jun 15, 2012 1:36 pm • link • report

The business community also pays a disproportionate share of taxes (both on an absolute level and particularly, in relation to the services they receive).

Hah, this is laughable. Businesses are definitely not getting a raw deal on the taxes they pay.

by MLD on Jun 15, 2012 2:08 pm • link • report

re: Falls Church's comment on the PLA, above: that just goes to show that the opposition to a "PLA preference" was pure political posturing, insofar as it doesn't change the outcome one way or the other...

by Simon on Jun 15, 2012 2:19 pm • link • report

MLD

I think falls church is talking about the local level - where if you assign all education spending to residences, commercial RE is a net $$ winner for counties (of course thats assuming more businesses dont mean more residents - IE its different if you are trying to attract a HQ to one side of the county line or another, versus say having more business in a state)

Certainly it behooves loudoun to attract and retain business to avoid the high prop tax - low ed spending death spiral that (as Oboe will remind us) lower income suburbs are threatened with. However the general question of state business friendliness is different, is what I mean to say.

by AWalkerInTheCity on Jun 15, 2012 2:31 pm • link • report

@ oboe: [Off-topic]: The funny thing is that Newton was a creationist before it was hip to be one. He was first and foremost a religious scientist who wanted to use science to prove that the bible was true.

One of his main subjects was to find an estimation of the age of the earth. Being a darn good scientist however, he could not find a way to get the age of the earth to around 6k years. He did actually come up with a couple billion years in one of his attempts, pretty close to the real value.

However, he discarded those estimates and the whole failure (in his view) made him terribly uncertain of all his results. He did not trust himself. That's why he was near paranoid about publishing stuff.

When he got old and some of his students started going through his old notebooks, they had to beg him to publish stuff, even though he had already been scooped a few times, for instance by Keppler.

His insanity was probably increase by the raw use of large amounts of very poisonous chemicals in his lab. Staggering amounts of mercury have been found in one of his hairs.

He once stuck a needle in his eye lense to test what it would to to his vision and how potential bleeding would influence his vision (eyes have little blood because they need to be transparant). [/off-topic]

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 2:39 pm • link • report

@Jasper,

I remember reading and enjoying David Berlinski's "A Tour of the Calculus" many years back. A lot of entertaining diversions into the Newton v Leibniz rivalry.

by oboe on Jun 15, 2012 3:14 pm • link • report

@MLD

AWITC is correct. That's what I meant. I don't have it handy but there's been research that indicates that localities are best off attracting commercial uses because they pay more in property taxes, income taxes, etc. than they use in services. Residential (especially the families with kids in school kind prrvalent in Loudoun) use more services than they pay in taxes. Mixed uses are ideal because you need a workforce that will then attract commercial uses but office uses pay the bills (disproportionally).

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 3:39 pm • link • report

@ oboe: It's incredible when you think of it. Newton had to *invent* calculus before he could describe his famous laws. And then he got to a nice simple formula describe what Keppler needed a whole bunch of laws for. Leibniz was quite a character as well.

by Jasper on Jun 15, 2012 3:39 pm • link • report

@MLD

On a federal level, businesses get a pretty good dealbecause their effective rate (after deductions) is much lower than the actual rate. However, the US still has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the developed world, hence the problem if businesses shifting their realization of profits to low tax Ireland and Japan.

by Falls Church on Jun 15, 2012 3:42 pm • link • report

Falls Church -

You're forgetting about the VAT, which every industrialized country except the USA has. Ireland's is 23%.

by Frank IBC on Jun 16, 2012 11:46 pm • link • report