Breakfast links: What people want
Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr.
No retail at Fairgrounds
Five days after opening retail has pulled out of the Fairgrounds near Nationals Park. Visitors are apparently more interested in beer than the clothing and jewelry sold by the retail vendors. (City Paper)
What would you build?
Polularize crowdsources residents’ ideas for what businesses should open in changing neighborhoods. While it reaches more people than traditional processes, is it only reaching certain demographics? (WAMU)
MoCo BRT sleek, ambitious
BRT in Montgomery County should “be sleek and stylish” and include Wi-Fi, recommends an upcoming report. All 3 phases would cover 161.5 route miles and cost $1.83 billion to build. (Examiner)
Rent hard to control
As funds to support it run low, rent control might not be a practical long-term solution to the affordable housing crisis in DC. However, homeownership isn’t necessarily the fix either. (WAMU)
Pay for school
Living near a good school costs a family more than $200,000 versus living elsewhere. That leaves the best schools to the most well-off families. But less restrictive zoning can narrow that cost difference. (Urban Turf)
Too much conflict and not enough
Is Kwame Brown deliberately seeking confrontation with Mayor Gray, opposing parts of the Mayor’s supplemental budget just to get headlines? (Georgetown Dish) … Are Tim Kaine and George Allen being too cautious when many Virginia voters are undecided? (NBC Washington)
Rush+ gets limelight
Metro publicizing the upcoming Rush+ service in a variety of ways, including videos, a website, and specially decorated rail cars. It hopes to avoid confusion when the switch happens on June 18. (TBD)
Less is more
Cities with the most highway miles per capita seem to be doing much worse than the ones with the fewest, but that doesn’t stop some from calling highway building “economic development.” (Streetsblog)
And…
Alex Trebek criticizes DC drivers who “block the box.” (Politico) … Alexandria releases design details for Route 1 BRT. (Arlandrian) … A not- rapid BRT