Weekend reading: Best medicine for a depression

Purple good for business: The Washington Business Journal endorses continuing to fund the Purple Line despite the economic downturn (along with the ICC).

Sharing is caring (about the environment): The DC government will establish a car-sharing program for government vehicles, to save money and reduce emissions. How about reducing emissions even further by removing reserved parking spaces and giving DC employees a parking cash-out? (AP)

Let’s Smart Grow our way back to prosperity: In his latest column, Roger Lewis hopes the lesson from this economic downturn is: stop building so much damn sprawl. “Rather than continuing to suburbanize the agrarian landscape, we should urbanize more of the existing suburbs,” he prescribes.

Bailing out stupid transit financing deals: Years back, the FTA pushed local transit agencies to sell their assets to banks and lease them back in a complex tax-shelter deal. Now, AIG’s collapse could force agencies to pay billions as the deals’ financing is falling apart and cash-strapped banks call in the debt they themselves profited off selling. Ryan Avent and Matt Yglesias are livid. Senators Menendez, Durbin, Lautenberg and Boxer are trying to pull the emergency stop cord on this particular fiasco.