Photo by jasonepowell.

Greenmonston

The town of Edmonston, just off Route 1 near DC in Prince George’s County, will renovate it’s main street into a cutting-edge, environmentally sustainaable and pedestrian friendly design. The street will treat 90% of the pollution that washes into the Anacostia River from Edmonston streets each year. The Mayor of Edmonston, Adam Ortiz, has an LBJ poster in his office that reads, “Let’s keep building the Great Society.” (Post, Bianchi)  (Tip: Bianchi)  

Now the “rural until a developer shows interest” tier

Prince George’s County’s policy divides the County into a Developed Tier, a Developing Tier, and a Rural Tier which isn’t supposed to be developed. But a developer wants to build a big shopping center on rural land in Accokeek, and so the County Council is moving toward rezoning the land anyway over the Planning Board’s and neighbors’ objections. Chair Marilyn Bland said “we have to be reasonable.” Reasonable means letting land stay rural until someone wants to put a mall on it? (Gazette)  

MARC-oriented development at Bowie State

Bowie State hopes to expand right at the MARC station. Some neighbors and leaders worry the development would “burden roadways,” but at least development at MARC would burden them a lot less than somewhere else, something the County’s “adequate public facilities” road-widening policies don’t really take into account. (Gazette)  

Not so minor

Whether MARC’s delays are their own fault, Amtrak’s or the weather, their website characterizes delays of an hour or more (and even longer) on multiple trains as a “minor” disruption. (Inside Charm City)  (Tip: InsideCharmCity)  

What are DDOT’s streetcar plans?

DDOT Director Gabe Klein will speak at a public meeting about DDOT’s streetcar plans. Streetcars for DC has been trying to get the meeting since November (before Klein was appointed). The meeting is Thursday, August 6th, 7 pm at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, 1333 H St. NE. (Tom A.)  (Tip: Tom A.)  

DCPL in the now

DC Public Libraries picks the winners in its “Then and Now photo contest.” I really like the first runner-up, which doesn’t just depict a scene matching a historic photo, but includes the historic photo in the scene. (Amino, Chelsea R.)  (Tip: Chelsea R.)  

Then and now, overlaid

Another artist overlays old and current photos of DC street scenes to create stunning intertemporal compositions. (Misha)  (Tip: Misha)  

Atkins or South Beach road diet?

Let’s give two roads in Arlandria the “Lawyers Road” treatment, converting two lanes each way into one each way, a bike lane each way, and a center turn lane, suggests the Arlandrian.