Dinner links: Suburban mentality lives as some suburbs die
War protestors for hard-to-find parking
Many San Francisco business and residents are fighting extended meter hours, disregarding the fact that available street parking is too difficult to find during many of those hours. Even the antiwar A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition opposes it as hurting the working class; CC Puede asks, where was A.N.S.W.E.R. when Muni was raising fares? (Streetsblog SF)
Is Jack Evans too car-centric?
DC Councilmember Jack Evans (Ward 2) spoke with Mount Vernon Square residents about the K Street Transitway. Si Kailian heard a “suburban mentality,” focused primarily on private cars (Evans drives downtown from his home in Georgetown) rather than the other modes which are particularly popular Ward 2, one of DC’s densest and closest to jobs. (Life in Mt. Vernon Square, Geoff H.) (Tip: Geoff H.)
Washington’s exurbs crumbling
Foreclosures are hitting outer parts of the region particularly hard, like Woodbridge, Va. and Upper Marlboro, Md. The Examiner quotes Christopher Leinberger explaining that we’ve just overbuilt exurban single-family homes. And this real estate is becoming a magnet for con artists. (Examiner)
What would make you stay in Detroit?
I Will Stay If… asks Detroit residents to post a picture saying what would make them stay in what may be the nation’s most economically troubled city. The most popular items surround transit, schools, and better government. (GlueSpace, Evan) (Tip: Evan)
It could be a lot worse
Metro’s budget is forcing some serious tradeoffs, but at least we’re not Cleveland, whose transit ridership hit its lowest ever. Rob Pitingolo builds a statistical model that shows that ridership closely correlates with fares, gas prices, the population of the area, and the unemployment rate. (Brewed Fresh Daily)
SmartBenefits will get “bins”
SmartBenefits will soon separate pre-tax transit and parking money as required by the IRS. Commuters can elect to set aside some money for transit and some for parking which includes at Metro stations; formerly, if they did both, nothing would stop them from using parking money for transit or vice versa. SmarTrip machines won’t be able to tell you the split, however, just the total. And now, unused benefits will revert to the employer.
Not the Department of Highways
A suburban Atlanta Republican state representative hopes to merge MARTA into the state DOT. It’s part of his vision for transforming the DOT from “a Department of Highways” into a “meaningful Department of Transportation.” He writes, “No great city in our country (New York, Chicago, Washington, San Francisco) relies only on highways. We either seize the initiative now or in the not too distant future explain to our children why Atlanta is no longer the Capitol of the South.” (AJC)