Weekend links: Let the games begin

by Steven Yates • July 28, 2012 11:19 am

Photo by Dave Catchpole on Flickr.

The mixed bag of the Olympics: Hosting the Olympics can be costly for cities, like it was for Montreal, but it can also be a catalyst for positive changes, like it was for Vancouver. (Atlantic Cities)

What's up with Uber: Uber's CEO thinks the taxi industry is too involved in DC's government, but they are still growing at a rapid pace. It does appear, though, that Uber misled people a bit during the earlier taxi bill fight. (Post)

Parking worries in AdMo: As more restrictive parking rules go into effect reserving more space for residents, some retailers in Adams Morgan are worried it will hurt their business, despite the presence of new parking garages. (WJLA)

Silver Line could get cheaper money: The TIFIA loan program, expanded in the latest transportation bill, could help cut the cost for the Silver Line, and reduce the burden on Toll Road commuters. It's complicated, though. (Bacon's Rebellion)

We need infrastructure: Even the highway building association agrees we need more than just roads for the future, and notes that even George Washington wanted the federal government to fund infrastructure. (Streetsblog)

See the data: Thanks to open data, developers are now developing several visualizations around New York subway entrances. Since WMATA scans both when entering and exiting stations, even more data could be available there. (Atlantic Cities)

Think your commute is bad?: The average wait for a bus in New Delhi is 70 minutes and as more people buy cars, the buses get slower, causing even more people to buy cars. (Atlantic Cities)

When chains arrive: Chains tend to enter neighborhoods after they have been established, but there are some exceptions, like Whole Foods which cares more about the demographic mix of an area. (RPUS)

And...: Rockville and Gathersburg have a border fight. (Examiner) ... More residential units are coming to the Riverfront. (Urban Turf) ... Traffic is best Friday mornings, worst Friday afternoons. (Patch) ... DC looks to sell the Lincoln Theatre. (City Paper)

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Steven Yates grew up in Indiana before moving to DC in 2002 to attend college at American University. He currently lives in Southwest DC.

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Wow, a Jim Bacon reference... never would have expected it seeing as most of the commenters on that site think of this site as pyscho-socialist propaganda against cars.

Jim seems to have calmed in his hatred of all things transit improvement after realizing that the Silver Line is an important project (his readers continue to disagree). I think he makes several good arguments, and several irrealistic arguments in most articles but this one seems to be a no brainer. The state should be shouldering more of the financing.

This is like a parent who has plenty of extra money who could help put a more sizable down payment (reducing overall cost) on a purchase for a child who makes plenty of money and COULD get a big mortgage. Why are we spending so much more to pay back bond holders when we could be using short term funds and paying back the public at more reasonable rates?

by Tysons Engineer on Jul 28, 2012 2:03 pm • link • report

George Washington wanted to federal government to fund infrastructure because that was his (and esp Hamilton's) political thing (and was opposed by Jefferson and allies and what would become later the Democrats). But also Washington wanted to make a ginormous amount of money on the land deals he and partners had set up in the the Potomac river valley and also make a ginormous amount of money making DC the focal point of Ohio Valley to Atlantic trade. (New York beat them to it for the entire East Coast with the Erie Canal, then railroads made Baltimore that focal point on a regional basis.)

by Kolohe on Jul 28, 2012 5:32 pm • link • report

The article on Vancouver is pretty self-serving (the author was director of planning during the run-up to the Olympics). Vancouver was a very livable place well before the games, You can walk from downtown into a coastal forest in a few minutes. The public transit system is quite efficient. OTOH, there's plenty of sprawl and the problems of homelessness and the large population of mostly homeless injection drug users has defied gentrification and many creative interventions.

A more interesting transformational model would be Atlanta, where interest in intown residential neighborhoods skyrocketed after the games. The downtown remained dead and filled with homeless people, but gained a great park which has been a catalyst for downtown-cntered activities and which did attract some nearby residential development. Georgia State University also was motivated to build a residential presence downtown after inheriting Olympic space (GA Tech did this on a bigger scale).Atlanta is an often laughably boosterish place (they even take pride in having long commutes), but the impact of the Olympics was tremendous and infrastructure development for the games played a relatively minor role.

by Rich on Jul 29, 2012 10:55 am • link • report

Nowhere in the CityPaper article does it say the Lincoln will be sold. A new operator is being sought.

by Denis James on Jul 29, 2012 2:04 pm • link • report