Lunch links: While you were festivating

Public Spaces

Lunch links: While you were festivating

by David Alpert • December 29, 2008 12:58 pm

Photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr.

MoCo's trail advocate face-off: Marc Fisher profiles the arguments on both sides of the Purple Line debate from advocates who love the Capital Crescent Trail. Some want to keep transit away from the trail's vicinity, while others believe we can and should have both.

Highways aren't always faster: Dave Murphy found the direct route up Wisconsin Avenue faster than the GW Parkway-Beltway freeway route... at least at 3 am.

Adventures in transportation funding: New York members of Congress are eager to spend stimulus money on transit; many other states are not. Oregon's governor wants to expand a program to replace the gas tax with a VMT tax, which could charge more per mile in congested, transit-rich urban areas and less in rural parts of the state.

Influencing business with a carrot(mob): In San Francisco (where else), Carrotmob asked 23 liquor/convenience stores in the Mission to bid on who'd devote the most money to energy-efficiency upgrades to their store for a particular day. Then, hundreds of people used that store for their shopping that day. Imagine, asks Carrotmob's founder, if even larger groups of consumers wielded their power for good.

Via CoolTown Studios (and thanks Amanda for the blog tip!)

3 comments

Tags: congestion pricing, environment, links, New York, Oregon, Purple Line, retail, San Francisco, stimulus

Urban bike trails aren't just for recreation (Jan 5, 2009)
What's up with the Purple Line (Jun 4, 2008)
Environmental groups identify $145B of immediate green stimulus (Dec 11, 2008)
Town of Chevy Chase takes ball, goes home, calls referee a cheat (Jan 21, 2009)
Three days as a car-oriented shopper (Oct 23, 2008)

David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.

Comments

About every two months or so I have to get to 270 headed towards PA. I generally leave the downtown about 2 PM or so. I have tried many routes, 16th st through Silver Spring, Connecticut, River Road, but the best way I have found is Constitution to 66 to the GW parkway to the beltway. As best as I can tell traffic during the day is too bad for any routes through the city to be efficient.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? (beyond my ideal solution of train that doesn't take 9 hours and only runs once a day)

by nathaniel on Dec 29, 2008 1:08 pm • link • report

Mark Fisher's column did an excellent job of glossing over the real fundamental issues such as carbon emissions and affordable housing in favor of fluff and he said/she said.

At least he came to the right conclusion at the end of the piece.

by Cavan on Dec 29, 2008 1:50 pm • link • report

Nathaniel: what about the Whitehurst Freeway to Canal Road and Clara Barton Parkway on toward the Beltway? Not sure it's much of a difference, but if you're along the K Street corridor rather than south/west of the White House, it might be easier.

by Joey on Dec 29, 2008 2:47 pm • link • report