Posts about Maryland
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Suburban sensibility in Silver Spring submission
Yesterday, I wrote about the historic preservation fight underway in Silver Spring as a developer seeks to add more housing right near downtown Silver Spring. There’s a strong dose of NIMBYism in the drive to landmark the existing Falkland Chase low-density apartments, but as commenter Dan Reed pointed out, there’s also a strong dose of bad design in the proposed redevelopment. Keep reading…
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Silver Spring taxidermy
Historic preservation can mean a lot of things. To some, it’s about keeping a vibrant, architecturally interesting neighborhood and ensuring pieces of a coherent whole aren’t ripped out indiscriminately. To others, it’s about maintaining a few significant pieces of notable architecture, like an art museum for buildings. And to some, it’s about stopping… Keep reading…
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Life, liberty and library parking
We expect to pay for our apartments, our clothes, and our transit rides. So why do many people start feeling as though our basic American values are threatened if parking isn’t free? Keep reading…
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What’s up with the Purple Line
WashCycle has a nice roundup of everything that’s been going on with the Purple Line. Keep reading…
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Oops, we forgot the transit
Who didn’t see this coming? After building a convention center out in a pretty empty area served by lots of highway lanes and almost no transit, the Gaylord Resort and Convention Center at National Harbor is discovering that being far from everything with poor transit service is a problem. Ryan Avent has more. Keep reading…
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Open space versus parks
And Now, Anacostia rebuts Marc Fisher’s criticism of a soccer stadium at Poplar Point. ANA and my commenters make several points, including that the money would be for infrastructure like roads rather than for the stadium itself (unlike with the ballpark), or that Fisher simply prefers baseball to soccer. Ryan Avent, though, is still skeptical. Keep reading…
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MoCo planners considering congestion pricing
Traffic in Montgomery County is terrible and getting worse, that much is clear. But instead of simply calling for more and more road widenings and other LOS obsession, the head of Montgomery County’s Planning Board is at least open to smarter solutions like congestion pricing. Keep reading…
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Bethesda garage only needed if you ignore all the other parking lots
Montgomery County is planning to spend $88 million to quadruple the size of the downtown parking lot in Bethesda. Does Bethesda need so much parking? Turns out that there’s plenty of parking, even at peak times. Montgomery County’s analysis simply assumed that nobody would park a few blocks away, where there’s plenty of parking. Keep reading…
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America’s stupidest bike lane is in Silver Spring
After playing a video of a bike lane in Los Angeles that suddenly disappears only half a block from where it started, Slate V started a national contest to find the stupidest bike lane in America. The winner? A 20-foot dead-end patch of road that invites bicyclists to go the wrong way down a one-way street. And it’s right here in Silver Spring, Maryland. Keep reading…
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Preservation versus taxidermy in Takoma Park
On the post about dwelling density, Alex B. writes, Keep reading…