Posts about ICC Trail

Public Spaces

Dinner links: making an impact

by David Alpert   •   November 17, 2008 6:43 pm

She's welcome to post on GGW: Michelle Obama told 60 Minutes the Obamas hope to "have an impact" on DC. DCist will believe it when they see it, remembering that Bill Clinton briefly visited Georgia Avenue after his election and that was about it.

I'll take the DMV for $125, Alex: Mount Pleasant ANC Commissioner-elect Phil Lepanto got two tickets for speeding on one segment of Connecticut Avenue, once by an officer and once by a speed camera. On top of that, the DMV tried to suspend his license for not replying to letters Montgomery County sent to the wrong place. (Raw Fisher)

"Scare cars" don't scare Wired: Lockeridge, Britain has placed dummies on roads where visitors frequently speed, to break through their focus on speed and raise awareness. Via Virginia ITS.

You can destroy the environment, just spend $2 million on pollution: The Environmental Defense Fund has agreed to drop its lawsuit against the ICC. In exchange, Maryland will spend a puny $2 million to retrofit a few school buses and do a few studies on pollution. Maryland gets to stay on track to will pour enormous amounts of pollution into the air. Of course, they can rest easy that they saved the environment by deleting the bicycle trail.

Parking

Breakfast links: Paved paradise edition

by David Alpert   •   September 29, 2008 8:38 am

AP covers parking minimums: This Associated Press article summarizes the debate over relaxing parking minimums. The article quotes Jeff Speck, who testified in favor of relaxing minumums, and Capitol Hill ANC Commissioner Ken Jarboe, who testified against. It also gives an example of a historic Milwaukee building which burned down and couldn't redevelop until the city relaxed parking requirements. Tip: Allen, Dan E.

Parking point-counterpoint: Donald Shoup debates a planner from West Hollywood, CA on the merits of performance parking. Norte, the opponent, argues that we shouldn't consider parking reforms until we expand mass transit, ignoring that performance parking can be the way to pay for that expansion.

Another shot for Third Church: The "Mayor's Agent" will hear Third Church's appeal of HPRB's decision denying them permission to raze their building. A victory for the church in this process would be much better than winning their civil rights lawsuit and potentially ending up with new special rights for churches in historic preservation.

Pleasant and unpleasant non-surprises: Fairfax supervisors approve the Tysons vision; Metro needs gobs of money; The MoCo Planning Board still rejects the ICC bike trail.

Transit

Breakfast links: Baby steps from car dependence edition

by David Alpert   •   September 17, 2008 8:55 am

Have you signed the pledge yet? Car-Free Day is Monday, September 22. Take the car-free challenge and head over to DC's celebration between 11 and 3 at 7th and F for "live music, yoga classes, free t-shirts and giveaways, Segway demonstrations", valet bike parking, free bike tune-ups, and test rides on SmartBikes. If not for me or for the environment, do it for Tommy.

Next stop, Westpark? BeyondDC follows my analysis of the Tysons plan with some of his own. Among the good ideas: better names for the stations than "Tysons Central 7" that create real community identity.

MoCoPlaBo protecting our parks from bicycles: WashCycle runs through the sordid saga of the ICC trail. The Montgomery County Planning Board's next meeting on the topic, with no public comment, is tomorrow; the staff report recommends moving forward with the trail rerouted on a lengthy and dangerous surface street route because, after blasting a ten-lane highway through a park, a little trail is just too much of a burden on our fragile ecosystem.

Metro should move on Farragut transfer now: Steve Offutt's been hammering away at his "invisible tunnel" idea for an out-of-system free transfer between Farraguts North and West. WMATA is upgrading software, but they should be lining up the rest of their ducks now, like regulatory approval and analysis of the financial impact. (CommuterPageBlog)

Infill here: Imagine, DC compiled a top ten list of potential infill sites for new, transit-oriented mixed-use development in DC, from the Benning Road power plant to Lamond-Riggs and Fort Totten.

Roads

Lunch links: Sprawl advocacy pro and con edition

by David Alpert   •   August 25, 2008 12:51 pm

Safety for their schools, not others: The Town of Chevy Chase is slowing traffic around one of its schools while, as ACT points out, advocating for a Purple Line bus alignment that would send rapid buses right past another school outside their limits.

Too HOT for MAMMA: A group calling itself MAMMA (Metro Area Mass Movement Association) is urging Virginians to contact their officials and ask to stop the HOT lanes. They argue that the environmental analysis was insufficient, it's a bad deal (with the privacy companies only paying 17.5% of the costs) and just a bad idea. Unfortunately, it's probably too late; just as with the ICC, state officials are too deeply invested politically in something for even high gas prices and the clear folly of new highway construction to stop.

One ICC supporter switches, but too late: Steve Eldridge, whose "Sprawl and Crawl" column leans slightly pro-sprawl in its quest to be anti-crawl, has decided (based on their duplicity around the ICC bike trail) that he doesn't trust Maryland politicians anymore in their promises that the ICC would be good for the environment.

Parking magnate joins his demolished townhouses: L.B. Doggett, owner of DC's first private parking company, former President of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and a major city political player in the 1970s, has died. The Post writes, "he was a force in preventing the District from building municipally owned parking garages and challenging private firms," but also "bought old rowhouses, which he rented as rooming houses before razing them for parking lots." Via Richard Layman.

Avent on California: Ryan Avent cheers the California anti-sprawl bill I posted Saturday, but wishes cities would build walkability for its own sake, not just because it's green. Still, we'll take what we've got.

Bicycling

Morning links: Politics in the press edition

by David Alpert   •   August 21, 2008 9:14 am

National pols ignorant of DC politics: No surprise here: they're DC superdelegates, but many don't know the name of their City Council member. (I can forgive them for not knowing all the shadow Senators.) The Post popped them with a pop quiz and got many failing grades.

WP covers ICC bike trail fiasco: Washcycle and I have written about the absurdity of cutting a bike trail from the ICC for environmental reasons. But the environmental and recreational knife in the back is continuing, reports the Post. Tip: Jenny.

Candidate debate update: Carol Schwartz debates her Republican challenger, Patrick Mara, today on Kojo, and Roger Lewis will be talking about politics and zoning right after. Both should be interesting. The Ward 8 candidates were on the show Monday, though with such a crowded field there wasn't enough time to really get a sense of the candidates.

Urbanism in the Philly suburbs: $4 gas is bringing change to western Chester County, Pennsylvania, mostly a land of sprawling bedroom suburbs and office parks. NPR profiles Uptown Worthington, with mixed-use residences above restaurants right near major corporate headquarters. And unlike, say, Konterra, it's near one of Philly's excellent commuter rail lines. Tip: Bianchi.