Photo by Sean Robertson on Flickr.

Live in Montgomery County? Park and Planning is surveying residents on “how we manage growth, … [and] enhance quality of place in our communities.” Weigh in for more walkable, mixed-use places over auto-dependent sprawl. Also, there’s just one more week to submit public comments to MTA Maryland in support of the light rail Purple Line.

Live in DC? This Thursday, the Sustainability area of the DC Zoning Update will discuss Land Use and Mobility, especially how our zoning code can encourage mixed-use TOD. If there’s any topic for the zoning rewrite most relevant to this blog, this may be it. It’s 6:30-9 pm at 441 4th Street (One Judiciary Square), 11th Floor, Room 1107 and open to anyone.

Live near North Capitol? Very apropos of our recent North Capitol discussion, Office of Planning, DDOT and NCPC are starting a North Capitol Street Urban Design and Transportation Study for the Eckington, Bloomingdale, McMillan Sand Filtration, Washington Hospital Center, and Armed Forces Retirement Home area. It’s Tuesday, January 13th, 6:30-8 pm at an as-yet-undetermined location. According to the announcement (not online), the study will look at “including civic spaces, memorials, and enhancing the public streetscapes, … alternative intersection configurations for the cloverleaf at Irving and North Capitol Streets and automobile ramps at Michigan and Irving, and … improving safety, connectivity and transportation operations.”

Yet another bike sharing program: The National Park Service is launching a bike sharing program for their employees in the DC area. Why couldn’t they simply add three SmartBike locations, asks WashCycle? Now we have three incompatible systems.

It would mean listening to economists: A Freakonomics guest post makes the case for congestion pricing. So far, the author argues, we’re “little nearer to solving the congestion problem” than in Julius Caesar’s day. Via Ryan Avent.

And: Ryan Avent weighs in on the taxi rate regulation debate we had in Monday’s comments; a judge forces Montgomery County to allow new houses in the Agricultural Reserve; another car hits a pedestrian in Chinatown.