Weekend links: Down, not out

by Thaddeus Bell • July 14, 2012 11:36 am

Photo by DDOTDC on Flickr.

Gray blasts critics: In a lengthy interview, Mayor Vincent Gray responded strongly to his critics, particularly the three councilmembers which have called for his resignation, citing their criticism as based by their own political objectives. (Post)

BRT decades away?: Montgomery County Executive Isaiah Leggett thinks that the county's bus rapid transit system could take 20 to 30 years to complete. A county task force suggested that the system could be built in nine years. (Post)

Height limit rising?: DC's House oversight committee is holding hearings on whether to ease the District's century-old height restriction. Mayor Gray has called for moderate height increases away from the city's historical core. (Post)

Thompson leaves his firm: Under investigation for his involvement in Mayor Vincent Gray's 2010 campaign, Jeffrey Thompson has stepped down from his position at the accounting firm he founded. The firm's CEO purchased Thompson's 79% stake. (Post)

New York goes further up: New York City released plans to upzone a large part of Midtown Manhattan. These increases in allowable density would permit buildings as large as the Empire State Building, still the tallest building in Midtown. (Observer)

Council approves Walter Reed plan: The DC Council has voted to approve the redevelopment plans at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. DC still needs to acquire the land from the Army before finding developers. (WBJ)

Making a new Southwest: DC's Southwest ecodistrict may include up over 5 million square feet of new space while reducing environmental impact. The plan calls for major changes like covering the Southwest Freeway with new development. (WBJ)

And...: Will Fairfax County decide the presidential election? (Post)... The Adams Morgan streetscape project is finishing up. (DCist)... DC picks a company to run the first streetcar line. (WBJ)

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Decking over the SW Freeway would be a huge improvement to the waterfront. Of course, the NCPC plan for RFK is gorgeous too, and as far as I know, nothing has come of it since it dropped.

by JW on Jul 14, 2012 2:30 pm • link • report

That Southwest Ecodistrict plan, if implemented, looks like it would be a world-class project and massively transformative. The pricetag would be so gargantuan, though, that it could probably only happen if every possible stakeholder - public and private; District, regional, and federal - were fully on-board.

So most likely it won't happen, short of Washington being awarded the Olympics.

by Dizzy on Jul 14, 2012 2:52 pm • link • report

Just to point out the glaringly obvious: '20 years is a unrealistically short timespan for BRT construction' indicates that there is *no* timespan for BRT construction, because the speaker is attempting to give the project enough time that it doesn't begin in any serious way while they're in office. The only reason in this day and age to push a mundane infrastructure project (*any* project) beyond a 10 year planning horizon for construction is if you don't want it to be planned for at all, or if your office is counting on it being cancelled after making disappointingly small amounts of progress.

The expectation that we should be satisfied with this paucity of ambition is deeply disturbing to me. We sent a man to the moon in 8 years, built the Golden Gate Bridge in 4 years. We built 103 miles and 83 stations of heavy rail, much of it subway beneath preexisting heavily developed city, in 32 years. They need that long to add some dedicated bus lanes?

Things like oil depletion, massive economic shifts, and self-driving cars are *probabilities* rather than remote possibilities 30 years out, and the error bars for the cost-benefit analysis grow and grow.

If Montgomery County has has to be satisfied with BRT rather than some type of rail, fine. We expect first ridership in a year, and a finished system in five years, ten at the most.

by Squalish on Jul 16, 2012 3:16 am • link • report

@Squalish: yes, yes yes. This same "paucity of ambition" also infested the DC Alternatives Analysis Final Report (on citywide streetcar planning). Pity this "finished after I'm retired" sort of timeframe doesn't visit itself on, say, the ICC.

by thm on Jul 16, 2012 11:43 am • link • report