Posts tagged Bob Chase
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Breakfast links: Back in gear
Metrobus (kind of) back in operation; Bury the power; Think DC’s bidding wars are bad?; E-bike CaBi?; More roads though we drive less?; Washington vs. DC in film; Support for BRT in Montgomery; Instant runoffs for DC?; Safeway’s suitor. Keep reading…
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Road advocate says car dependence is an argument for more
Virginia road lobbyist Bob Chase claims that the only “balanced” funding for transportation is to give almost all of it to roads, primarily because most people drive. But he overlooks a simple fact: most people drive because we have under-invested in other modes for a long time. That’s no reason to keep it up. Washington Post columnist Robert McCartney called… Keep reading…
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Now sprawl will save the planet, say Outer Beltway boosters
Outer Beltway lobbyists will say and do anything to unlock new land for sprawl in Northern Virginia’s rural areas. The latest bizarre claim comes from the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, whose email alert this week bore the title, “Save the Planet. Expand the Highway Network.” Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up. NVTA claims… Keep reading…
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WAMU missteps with one-sided Outer Beltway story
WAMU’s Metro Connection aired a sadly one-sided story on Friday about long-debated, oft-rejected proposals to build an Outer Beltway across the Potomac, far from the region’s core. Positively, Metro Connection agreed that the piece wasn’t up to their standards, and the reporter has already added some of the missing side of the story. The original piece… Keep reading…
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Virginia turns back toward the 1950s by weakening road connection standards, neglecting populated areas
Virginia took a huge step forward in 2009 to make its sure its new suburban areas included the connected street networks that made older suburbs less congested, safer to walk and bike, and cheaper for local governments to maintain. But it’s making a U-turn as the Commonwealth Transportation Board threw out the new standards at a meeting last week. This step is just one of… Keep reading…
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A real evacuation plan wouldn’t look like Tuesday
Imagine we needed to evacuate downtown DC and Arlington quickly, in the middle of the day. What would be the best way to do that? We know what wouldn’t work: telling all employees to go home at the same time. That’s pretty much what happened Tuesday after the earthquake. No bridges or roads were damaged, though some traffic signals had switched to flashing red or had… Keep reading…
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Experts should make technical decisions, not policy
From the WMATA governance debate to the 2030 Group’s transportation report, there’s been a recent push from business groups to convince elected officials to stay away from making decisions and instead leave the policymaking to “experts.” That’s dangerous. If you want to get cable TV, an expert cable installer knows which pieces of equipment… Keep reading…
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Surprise surprise: “experts” picked by road lobbyists put road building at top of priority list
The 2030 Group, an advocacy organization funded by some of Virginia’s longtime proponents of sprawl-inducing highway development, came out with a thoroughly unsurprising “survey” today that recommends the very same projects the organizers have pushed for years. The campaign engaged two of the region’s biggest advocates for the unpopular Outer… Keep reading…
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Virginia Senate kills bad anti-livability, WMATA board bills
The Virginia Senate’s finance commmittee killed three bad transportation-related bills, all of which would have transferred decision-making over transportation in Northern Virginia to Richmond and away from the region’s counties and cities. HB2000 would mandate that Governor McDonnell’s representative to the Northern Virginia Transportation… Keep reading…
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Where’s Bob? McDonnell MIA on Metro funding
Congressional Republicans are trying to take away the federal contribution to fixing Metro’s safety problems. While he’s clamoring for a seat on the WMATA Board, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is staying silent slow to speak up equivocating on this crucial need, as is Republican Rep. Frank Wolf. Soon, the Senate Finance Committee will consider HB2000, which… Keep reading…