Posts by David Alpert — Founder

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.

  • Greater Baltimore & Washington Transit Future version 2

    This map shows what the transportation system of the Baltimore-Washington area would look like if most of the proposed improvements are built. In particular, it includes the Silver Line to Dulles; several new infill Metro stations; turning MARC and VRE into transit-like service with frequent trains that run through from Maryland to Virginia so all commuters can reach Union Station,…  Keep reading…

  • A better 14th Street coming soon

    Last week was the latest public meeting to review the proposed streetscape improvements to 14th Street, from Florida Avenue to Thomas Circle. I wasn’t able to make the meeting, which conflicted with the Columbia Heights parking meeting, but I was able to get copies of the presentation. This street is becoming a major restaurant and bar corridor, and improvements that make…  Keep reading…

  • SF moving forward with Central Subway

    San Francisco just selected an alignment for the Central Subway, a tunnel for the new T-Third light rail line that will run up Fourth Street to Stockton, connecting the China Basin/ballpark/Caltrain area to downtown and Chinatown. Transbay Blog isn’t so sure this is worth the money and thinks there may be better ways.  Keep reading…

  • Juno’s neighborhood is the better one

    In the (excellent) film Juno, the title character’s lower middle class family lives in an old neighborhood with small houses, while the rich potential adoptive parents (the Lorings) live in a shiny new suburb with huge houses on big lots. But as it turns out, Juno’s neighborhood is more expensive than the Lorings’! Yup, the areas of Vancouver where Juno’s…  Keep reading…

  • NIMBYism strong on Upper Wisconsin

    Calling it “giving up on Smart Growth,” Marc Fisher laments the death of a development proposal at the Tenleytown Metro, which would have replaced a small neighborhood library with higher density mixed-use and moved the library a few blocks away. The first time I went to Tenleytown, visiting friends who live there, we had to walk about 15 minutes to Connecticut Avenue…  Keep reading…

  • Performance parking coming to Columbia Heights

    In Columbia Heights, only 25% of residents own cars. With a Metro station and numerous bus lines, bike lanes and Zipcars, it’s a neighborhood conducive to car non-ownership. But if you were at the public meeting on Tuesday night to discuss proposed changes to parking policy, you might think that 75% of residents drive every day, and the other 25% work for smart growth or bicycle…  Keep reading…

  • Is the 1,000 space garage in Columbia Heights a good investment?

    The DC USA project in Columbia Heights will open this spring, bringing a Target and many other national chains to DC (many for their first store in DC) in 600,000 square feet of retail along with 1,300 new apartments. It will also bring traffic. There are two main ways to deal with this: provide more parking spaces, and/or use parking management techniques to encourage as many people…  Keep reading…

  • Greater Washington Transit Future: a multimodal fantasy map

    Update: Version 2 is now available. Dan at BeyondDC was one of several people to comment that Metrorail is not the most cost-effective way to provide transit. In fact, it’s pretty darn cost-ineffective. So while it’s fun to dream about Metro lines everywhere, what’s a more achievable transit vision? There are two areas officials want to improve transit,…  Keep reading…

  • Even more fantastic WMATA fantasy map

    Based on suggestions from Richard Layman and others, I’ve added to the fantasy map to create an even fantasy-er map (as before, click for big version): There’s fantasy, and then there’s even more fantasy. In the world of today, a lot of these lines are probably more cost-effectively served by light rail, streetcars, BRT, or something else. They’re…  Keep reading…

  • Grocery stores disappearing in NYC

    One of the great things about living in NYC the ease of buying groceries. What is widely considered NYC’s best grocery store was about five blocks from me, and yet I didn’t usually go there because it was crowded and there was another supermarket only three blocks from me, not to mention a little grocery one avenue over. Or at least, this a great thing about living on the Upper…  Keep reading…

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