Posts about Maryland
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Rockville Central reports on Pike meeting
It looks like Cindy CG of Rockville Central was at another Parking and Loading table at Wednesday’s Rockville Pike meeting. Keep reading…
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Skybridges don’t make the connection
It sounds simple and appealing. Your city has a major road with a lot of traffic, but city planners and citizens want to make it more pedestrian-friendly, encouraging more walkable stores in place of purely big box strip development. How about pedestrian overpasses? With a walkway, people can cross in complete safety and not interfere with the existing traffic. You can even build… Keep reading…
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Consensus and controversy in Rockville’s Pike
Last night I attended a community meeting in Rockville about “envisioning a great place” for Rockville Pike, specifically the segment from Twinbrook Parkway to Richard Montgomery Drive (just north of Wootton Parkway). This section is almost entirely filled with strip malls behind large parking lots—the cookie-cutter suburban retail that makes Rockville’s… Keep reading…
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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…
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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…
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Public spaces on public radio
Roger Lewis, architect and Washington Post columnist, discussed urban public spaces on the Kojo Nnamadi show on WAMU today. (Cleverly, in the membership drive appeal during the show, the WAMU staff referred to the public square-like nature of public radio). Lewis talked about many interesting topics, like the evils of single-use zoning, and about Rockville Town Center, which… Keep reading…
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Parking isn’t a good reason to move the Rockville courthouse
The Montgomery County courthouse, in the county seat of Rockville, is old and badly needs replacing. Maryland is ready to pay for a new courthouse on a downtown site formerly occupied by the library, but some people want to move it. There are good arguments for moving it and for not moving it. There are also some very bad arguments. In particular, many who advocate changing the location… Keep reading…
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Digging the parking hole deeper
The Washington area is deeply schizophrenic about whether it wants to be a city of driving and parking or of people and transit. While DC is working hard to put mixed-use high-density development next to many of its stations, plans in Foggy Bottom and West Hyattsville call for more parking than should be necessary. Whether a city is car-dependent or transit-accessible is… Keep reading…
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Maryland’s missed opportunities
Rethink College Park has a thoughtful roundup of the great promise but disappointing results of the Smart Growth and Neighborhood Conservation Act of 1997. That law created incentives for development in denser, transit-accessible parts of the state over the creation of more sprawl. Unfortunately, it hasn’t lived up to its promise, blocking some sprawl but failing to stop… Keep reading…
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Maryland worried about new transit-hostile FTA
According to the Post, Maryland officials are nervous that the Federal (not-so-excited-about-)Transit Administration will reject the Purple Line or the Corridor Cities Transitway (along I-270) as it did (or at least delayed) the Silver Line to Dulles, even though the Purple Line will cost significantly less. Maryland already delayed the Purple Line application process one… Keep reading…