Education update: school reform as focus on the test, not critical thinking

This entry includes a couple photos that should have illustrated the previous entry.  Pierce School was vacant for many years.  During the financial receivership period in the 1990s, some of the vacant buildings were sold off.  This property, about one block from H Street NE, was renovated about ten years ago as apartments.  It was an early investment in revitalization that contributed, although the contribution is unrecognized, to current H Street corridor revitalization efforts.

My entry from yesterday, "Frustration #2: school reform discussions mostly miss the point," didn't include cites to a couple other newspaper articles.

Edmonds School at 9th and D Streets NE was sold to the DC Teachers Credit Union in the 1980s I think.  It was used for offices and such and was recently sold to a developer for conversion to housing.

1.  This piece, "Graduates from low-performing DC schools face tough college road," from the Washington Post discusses the difficulty that DC high school graduates have in college, taking on college work.  I was shocked that this problem extends "to white kids from upper class homes graduating from the city's 'best' high school," as according to the article, Seth Brown, a Wilson graduate, now at Dartmouth, was flummoxed by having two 5-page papers due around the same time, that he had limited experience with writing in high school.

From the article:

Collier had been a star at Ballou, where fewer than one-quarter of students are proficient in math and reading. But she said that her classes largely dealt with the basics: summarizing story plots, for example, and learning how to write complete and grammatically correct sentences.

Only in her senior year, in an advanced English course, did a teacher challenge her to think more deeply. “I feel like it was too late,” said Collier, who took two of the three AP classes she said were available to her at Ballou. “It just wasn’t enough to have that kind of teacher for one year.”

In her first semester at Penn State, Collier took seminars in which professors asked her to synthesize ideas, develop arguments and do original research. It was new to her.

“We had to go into the library all the time and research articles and really, really write,” Collier said. “It was difficult for me because I hadn’t done that in high school. I didn’t have to write a lot. I didn’t really research anything.” ...

Matthew Stuart, an AP English teacher at Dunbar, attributed students’ lack of college preparation in part to the city’s focus on annual standardized tests that demand little critical thinking or problem-solving. Many teachers give students simple strategies for tackling basic essay prompts, he said, but teachers don’t have a chance to venture into more difficult and stimulating intellectual terrain until after 10th grade, the final year of standardized testing.

This building on the Miner School campus (15th Street NE) is still for the most part vacant.  Miner School was rebuilt more than ten years ago.

2.  The other piece is "Can School Reform Hurt Communities?," from the New York Times. From the article:

In New Orleans, this single-minded focus on school improvement has given new hope to many low-income families, but it has also destabilized the broader community in some unanticipated ways. Consider the cost to many veteran educators, who formed the core of the city’s black middle class. After the flood, officials fired 7,500 school employees. An unknown number were ultimately rehired by the reconstituted traditional and charter schools, but they often found themselves working in a very different environment.

The growth in charter schools has fostered an unrelenting focus on preparation for standardized tests and college. Some classes begin with students as young as 5 chanting: “This is the way — hey! — we start the day — hey! We get the knowledge — hey! — to go to college — hey!” At the end of the summer, this year’s incoming kindergartners will most likely be told that they are members of the class of 2030, for the year they will graduate from college.

The obstacles that stand in the way of this goal — poverty, trauma, parental ambivalence — are considered “excuses” that must not distract from the quest. Watching this mentality play out in the lives of families and educators can be both inspiring and frightening.

The Carberry School had been unused by the school system since the late 1940s.  The building, on 5th Street NE, near Stanton Park, was converted into loft housing in 1987.  Photographer unknown.

The author argues that the charter movement in New Orleans has issues:

1. teachers and schools being disconnected from communities;

2. charter schools as traditionally constituted are often unable to help children that need extranormal help because of their circumstances (she gives an example of a child who came to the high school where she taught, reading on a third grade level, and caught up in a maelstrom of crime and neighborhood strife).

She sums up the experience in New Orleans pretty coldly:

The focus on school improvement in New Orleans has succeeded in lifting the average student from a state of academic crisis to one of academic mediocrity...

Frustration #3: the talk about transit oriented development and Prince George's County

I am in the process of writing two different blog entries, one on how it's not enough to pass some regulations, a transit oriented development paradigm requires a wide set of changes to vision and attitude, the other on taxi issues.

Partly because recently, Prince George's County passed a bill ("Prince George’s Council approves plan to speed development around transit stations" from the Washington Post, also see the County Planning policy paper, Where and How We Grow) and because of continued problems with mobility at National Harbor, as discussed in two articles in the Post over the past week, "At booming National Harbor, commuting is a daily trial for service workers" and "Prince George's cabbies say Gaylord hotel is pushing them out."

... although the Washcycle blog rightly points out that bicycle commuting is an option for employees dealing with long waits for transit (and there is a bicycle route connection to National Harbor, including a path on the Wilson Bridge), it appears that there are minimal requirements imposed on National Harbor to provide information and other support programs to minimize transportation difficulties associated with the transit-disconnected location.

(National Harbor does tout cheap and easy parking, and does provide a shuttle to the King Street Metro, although it isn't clear that service employees are allowed to use it.)

I guess I argue out of love ("Another lesson that Prince George's County has a three to five year window to reposition based on visionary transportation planning") because Prince George's County has an unparalleled opportunity to reposition its land use and development paradigm around transit, because the coming of the Purple Line light rail (Purple Line TOD Study - Prince George's County Planning Department) allows them the opportunity to re-set.

The light rail line will connect the red, green, and orange line subways in ways that significantly increase the value of transit connection and proximity within the county.  Even so, despite the new legislation, the County still focuses on developing areas of the county that aren't connected very well by transit--greenfield development.

The primary examples are the Konterra development in northern Prince George's County and the National Harbor development on the Potomac River, adjacent to the I-495 Beltway.

And it feels like plans for those areas still take precedence over potential TOD, the push for a casino at National Harbor being the most recent example. And nothing about those projects prioritizes sustainable transportation.

How is it that Prince George's County allowed National Harbor to be developed without requiring transit enhancement, without requiring transportation demand management, without requiring them to assist employee commuting methods?

Last week, the Post ran a story ("Prince George's cabbies say Gaylord hotel is pushing them out") about how National Harbor has created their own branded taxi service, because they didn't like the quality of the independent taxi service provided licensed cabbies.  And in all likelihood, because they want to participate in the revenue from providing the service.

Right:  special "black car" non-taxi taxis at National Harbor.  Washington Post photo.

Clearly, National Harbor can deal with mobility, if it is in their financial interest. 

The article recounts how for the most part, National Harbor has made it very difficult for licensed taxis to pick up fares at the complex.  (Although I can sympathize with their concern about the quality of experience received by their guests, and this is an issue that I will be writing about.)

Frankly, it would be cheaper for National Harbor to provide employee shuttle services to the nearest Metro stations than it is for WMATA to do it.  It's about 5 miles to the Eisenhower Avenue Metro Station in Fairfax County, Virginia, 5.5 miles to the King Street Metro Station in Alexandria, and about 8 miles to either the Branch Avenue or Suitland Stations on the Green Line.

Why isn't National Harbor required to provide this kind of service as part of their development agreement with the County?

Until this kind of planning is required on the part of major developments (the mobility connection discussion on the website of Konterra and affiliated consultants mostly focuses on the automobile, although they do acknowledge the nearby Muirkirk MARC railroad station on the Camden line), putting in zoning changes to streamline development approvals at existing stations is a joke.

The two stations in Prince George's County with the most development proximate to the station are probably Prince George's Plaza and New Carrollton (Catalyzing Development Around the New Carrollton Metro Station Area, report, Urban Land Institute, 2007). 

New Carrollton image from Prince George's County Planning Department.

Just building dense around a subway station doesn't make it "transit oriented development."

Well, it does, but the concept of transit oriented development is supposed to focus on more qualities than merely density and transit access.  The idea is to enable walkability and livability in ways that complement transit use and access.

But the development paradigm shaping those areas is decidely pro-automobile.  Making bad development faster, just because it's by a Metro station doesn't serve anyone very well.

Part of the problem with the PG Plaza area development is that it was shaped the way it is beginning in the 1960s (see "Back to the Future" from the Washington Business Journal), because they knew some sort of rapid rail system would be constructed. 

But they started developing decades before modern practice coalesced around placemaking elements in association with "transit oriented development." Interestingly, a goodly amount of the TOD associated with "University Town Center" did very badly during the real estate crash, which has to make developers somewhat leery about proceeding elsewhere in the County, due to the general weakness in the real estate market there, along with the poor track record.

Prince George's County needs to change its development paradigm more significantly.  It's not enough to pass some regulations about development proximate to transit.

One way to start would be to move its agencies from transit-disconnected locations, to transit-connected locations.  The County's main administrative center is about 9 miles away from the nearest subway station (Largo).  The main office for the planning department is not too far from a subway station, a couple miles, but it is on a greenfield site, disconnected from other economic activity.  Court buildings are often not located by transit stations, etc.

Frustration #2: school reform discussions mostly miss the point

A professor thinks she understands the entire problem with the school reform movement--it's a dodge for avaricious real estate developers to get their hands on property.  See "Ed school dean: Urban school reform is really about land development, not kids" from the Post.  It's facile thinking like this that sometimes gets me very critical about academia, when the work is severely disconnected from the real world, and academic ideological posturing.

It also feeds into the conspiracy trope that shapes most of the community response against school reform, and leads to continued failure to address the real problems.

Yes, in DC, which is a strong real estate market with extranormal demand, there is a soupcon of real estate speculation driving what's going on.  But the Fenwick piece doesn't even address the charter school acquisition, financing, and construction regime, which is much more voracious than redevelopment efforts focused on deaccessioned schools.

Although there is no question that real estate development is an issue with school campuses in DC, and it has been for 30 years, as the school system has been shrinking, and it started out with more buildings than it needed anyway, as the result of having two parallel school systems under segregation.

Why is it that "reform" movements in other cities occur, in weak markets, schools are closed, and there is little if any developer interest?

You aren't going to see much happening with schools closed in Chicago or Philadelphia, because there are plenty of other properties already available, without the encumbrance of the public process.

The problems with school reform are much bigger than real estate speculation

1.  Urban improvement and the retention of families with choices is the primary focus of school reform efforts in most cities.  That's not a bad thing.  That's not about land development, or if it is, the relationship is very indirect.  It's not clear to me how much of the focus is on improving schools for the least advantaged. 

There are two strains to the movement:

a.  Improve the traditional public school system;

b.  Create "competition" to improve the schools through the development and support of a separate "charter school" movement, independent of the traditional public schools.

Some people mistake the focus of school reform on the advantaged as the result of the need to support real estate development, when it is more about center city and neighborhood stabilization ("Neighborhood Schooled" from the Washington City Paper) and general "Growth Machine" agenda setting.

2.  Anti-unionism is a big element of school "reform."  The flip side of school reform initiatives are usually an a general anti-labor union thrust, especially with regard to public sector unions.  Don't get me wrong, there can be plenty of problems with teachers unions.  The Washington Teachers Union, with its history of corruption and ineptness in its capacity for representation, is a prime example.  But "poor teaching" is produced by the system that is in place already.  It's hard to blame that solely on teachers or teachers unions.

Most of the foundations and many of the public officials supporting change tend to have an anti-union agenda.

3.  Reform efforts, focused on testing and teaching to the test, end up being mostly focused on what we might call "social control," especially for least advantaged children.

It's been decades since I've read Schooling in Capitalist America, but the basic thesis is that the public school system was created to socialize people for their roles in the labor force. From the paper:

The three basic propositions of the book deal with human development, inequality, and social change.

Concerning human development, we showed that while cognitive skills are important in the economy and in predicting individual economic success, the contribution of schooling to individual economic success could only partly be explained by the cognitive development fostered in schools. We advanced the position that schools prepare people for adult work rules, by socializing people to function well, and without complaint, in the hierarchical structure of the modern corporation. ...

Second, we showed that parental economic status is passed on to children in part by means of unequal educational opportunity, but that the economic advantages of the offspring of higher social status families go considerably beyond the superior education they receive. ...

Finally, our historical studies of the origins of primary schooling and the development of the high school suggested that the evolution of the modern school system is not accounted for by the gradual perfection of a democratic or pedagogical ideal. Rather, it was the product of a series of conflicts arising through the transformation of the social organization of work and the distribution of its rewards. In this process, the interests of the owners of the leading businesses tended to predominate
but were rarely uncontested.

4.  The primary reason that most school reform efforts show little success is that the biggest problem in urban education is that so many of the students are from impoverished families.  Those students and families need a lot more than more testing in order to improve their circumstances and improve in school.

Few public system reform efforts address poverty.

And that's why school reconstitution efforts have no positive impact.  See "With 'reconstitution,' DC officials hope for school turnaround" from the Washington Post.  Sure maybe some of the teachers and administrators aren't performing, but the predominate issue is that they are dealing with extremely impoverished children with many barriers to success as a result of multi-generational poverty.

5.  Charter school creation efforts feed into anti-government ideology about the  government provision of public services.  You can call this privatization ideology.

That in fact is why charter schools were created for DC, during the Speaker Gingrich years in Congress.  It was an example of unleashing the value of competition and reducing local government involvement.

Local officials were okay with it because they saw charter schools as a way to attract and retain middle class and upper income families.  And they didn't really have any other "good ideas" on how to improve the local school system.

But privatization issues produce "noise" that can hinder civic and community organization efforts.

6.  Creating charter schools is problematic because theoretical competition doesn't necessarily have any "positive" impact and transformative effects on the bureaucracy and other problems present within the traditional public school system.

7.  Pro-privatization initiatives end up being mostly about benefiting those organizations focused on access to government contracting and funding streams, be it from managing charter schools, financing them, selling them services, or textbooks, get access to public funds in ways that can be very troubling.

This is a problem with traditional schools as well.  See "Race, politics and the schools" from the Baltimore Sun. 

8.  Most of the touting of charter schools vis-a-vis public schools fails to acknowledge that the successful charter schools do more than testing, they are providing additional resources to disadvantaged children and their families.

This is the model adopted by the Harlem Children's Zone (see "The Harlem Project" from the New York Times).  Note that rich businesspeople as board members have from time to time encouraged HCZ to take a more "social control" approach to their education work.

Dallas is implementing an HCZ approach for the feeder school to Lincoln High School as part of the city's Grow South initiative.  See "Building a cradle-to-success pipeline for South Dallas" from the Dallas Morning News.

And Richmond, Virginia is working to integrate health services and other supports into schools, as a poverty reduction measure.  See "Officials laud using schools for health services in Richmond" from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

9.  Note that when teachers and other stakeholders say that the problems with education for the disadvantaged are the result of poverty, the response by reformers like Michelle Rhee is not to support the provision of additional resources, but to "blame the messenger," stating that they are using poverty as an excuse.

10.  Charter schools and voucher efforts displace community, organizational, and social capital that could be directed to improving the public schools.  This makes it even harder to improve traditional school systems.  Also see "Civic Capacity and Urban Education" by Clarence Stone.

Frustration #1: every year at the start of Spring, crime upticks on trails. Why aren't police proactive about it?

If you were to review news reporting about trails (shared use paths, used by bicyclists and pedestrians) in the DC area over the course of a year, for multiple years, you would see an increase in crimes reported every Spring.

So that's why recent crimes on the Metropolitan Branch Trail in DC ("'Violence for violence's sake is troubling,' says cyclist attacked by up to 15 youths" from the Post), Flawed Metropolitan Branch Trail Cameras Not Doing Much to Fight Crime," Washington City Paper, in Virginia ("Police investigate trail attacks in Fairfax, Arlington" from the Post), and Maryland don't surprise me.

What bugs me is (1) generally, local jurisdictions don't have security management plans for trails and (2) they don't increase patrols at the onset of Spring, to reduce the likelihood of crime.

The whole point about "problem-oriented policing" is to use data on crime patterns as a tool for interdicting/reducing crime.

This should be an issue for local police departments as well as the parks and/or transportation departments that manage trails.  And it is in Howard County/Columbia, Maryland, according to this ABC News story, "Horse patrols, police to keep paths safe."  From the article:

With the summer months here, the Howard County Police Department and Columbia Association are partnering to keep Columbia's 93.5 miles of pathways safe while people are enjoying the outdoors.

While police have not seen an increase in crime in these areas, these efforts are intended to increase police visibility and deter problems.

People using the pathways will have a new resource in an emergency to direct help to their exact location. The police department and Columbia Association, along with recreation and parks, have labeled all bridges on trails in the county to speed up emergency response.

New signs have been placed throughout the trail system with alphanumeric codes. When a caller connects to a 911 dispatcher in an emergency and provides a code, the dispatcher will see a marker on a computer map of that sign's location

Why is it that the Howard County Police Department understands, but that DC area police, parks, and transportation departments do not?

Besides the fact that this an annually recurring problem, with regard to the recurring problems with DC's Metropolitan Branch Trail is that the problems have been identified for a long time.

At a public meeting 6 years ago I made these same points, about the need for a security plan (only now is signage being put at some locations on the trail to assist in crime reporting, there are no mileage markers, no emergency phones placed on the trail, night-time lighting is inadequate, etc.) and other proactive measures.  The blog entry from 2010 was written because of limited response to these indicated problems, etc.

-- Sidewalks and Shared-Use Paths: Safety; Security; and Maintenance, University of Delaware
-- blog entry, "Shared use paths (trails) and safety and marketing," 2010
-- 2007 Washington Post article about a different issue with trails, lighting at night in the Fall and Winter, "Darkened Part of Park Trail Near Metro to Get Lighting"

DC parks master planning process

The following is the press release from the DC Department of Parks and Recreation:

The DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) and the DC Office of Planning (OP), in collaboration with consulting firm AECOM, announced a new city-wide initiative titled "The Parks and Recreation Master Plan" for the District of Columbia. DPR, OP and AECOM have been working together with 30 additional government, community and private sector organizations to develop the beginning phase of the District's Parks and Recreation Master Plan. This plan will guide a new, bold and strategic vision for advancing the District's parks and recreation resources and help District residents, workers and visitors Move, Grow, and Be Green.

All District residents are asked to participate in planning the District's park system for the next ten years. A variety of outreach tools including an online forum, public workshops, and an official "launch" at Mayor Gray's One City Summer Kickoff, held on Saturday, June 15, 2013 at RFK Stadium (Lots 6 & 7) will be available to engage citizens, collect feedback and gather information to create the Parks and Recreation Master Plan.

The Parks and Recreation Master Plan project team is interested in hearing residents' ideas on the District's overall parks system, including what is working well, areas that could use improvement, and large-scale ideas to be considered for implementation over the next ten years.

Listed below are the dates for the first three scheduled public workshop dates to introduce the Master Plan project to District Residents and gain their input through a series of interactive exercises:

Monday, June 17, 2013
Deanwood Recreation Center (1350 49th Street, NE)
7 pm - 9 pm
(Conveniently located near the Deanwood Metro Station - Orange Line)

Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Judiciary Square (441 4th Street, NW)
12 pm - 2 pm
(Conveniently located near the Judiciary Metro Station - Red Line)

Thursday, June 20, 2013
Raymond Recreation Center (3725 10th Street, NW)
7 pm - 9 pm
(Conveniently located near the Georgia Ave./Petworth Metro Station -
Green Line)

For anyone unable to attend the workshops, please visit the Parks and
Recreation Master Plan project website, PlayDC .

The website will be able to provide constituents with background information, access to the online survey, and a link to the online forum, Let's Play DC.

The planning process for the master plan is expected to wrap up in early 2014; however a number of public outreach events will be scheduled throughout the process. The goals of the master plan include:

1. Establishing a clear understanding of the current conditions of all the District's parks, recreation centers, and outdoor facilities;

2. Assessing the current programs available at all parks and recreation centers;

3. Identifying challenges and service gaps;

4. Developing and proposing solutions that are:

i. Phased for short- and long-term implementation over the next 10 years,

ii. Based on sound and detailed analysis that is inclusive and responsive to District residents,

iii. Grounded in community input and industry best practices that improve public services and reduce costs,

iv. Committed to improving the District's ability to protect and preserve historic resources,

v. Clearly adhering to city-wide goals identified in Mayor Gray's One City Action Plan, including economic strength and diversification, education and workforce preparation, sustainability, and quality of life.

Please visit PlayDC for up-to-date information on the master planning process and ways the public can help to shape the future of DC's parks and recreation system.

Housing receivership to cure nuisance properties: the option that DC refuses to consider

Vacant rowhouse in the Trinidad neighborhood of DC, photographed sometime before February 2006 by Frozen Tropics.

In 2002, I went to the National Trust for Historic Preservation conference, which was then in Cleveland, and I was exposed on a bunch of tours to the neighborhood stabilization efforts of the Cleveland Restoration Society and the Famikos Foundation.

Because Cleveland was and is a shrinking city, with minimal appreciation in housing prices, restoring historic properties doesn't came back in improved housing values the way it does in a strong market neighborhood in Brooklyn, or DC, or Alexandria, Virginia, or certain neighborhoods in Boston, etc.

In weak market cities the priority is neighborhood stabilization.  So often these organizations--at least back then, complemented by other city and county programs--would get control of properties and stabilize and improve them, often to the point beyond the amount a house could sell for in that market, in order to save the house and improve the neighborhood.

Building at right at 2nd and T Street NE, around 2006.

I looked into this further and discovered that these efforts were aided by a strong State of Ohio statute providing for the ability to establish receivership for properties and a separate "Housing Court," to address housing-related matters.

Receivership can be awarded in order to cure habitual nuisances, and the Housing Court had the ability to award title for properties in receivership--provided that the nuisance was cured.  (DC nonprofits and the city have a bad habit of getting control of properties and then doing nothing with them for many years.  In such a situation, these entities ought not to be deemed "fit" to be able to be awarded properties through the receivership process.)

I was impressed and from 2002 to 2006, I used to testify about this before various DC City Council committees.  See "Receivership for housing" for part of the written testimony.  Eventually I stopped because there was no werewithal to take this concept up and apply it within DC.

The City Paper has a piece, "Lost and Foundering," about long term vacant properties in DC, and how the primary method that the city uses to get them back on the market--from the article:

D.C. has a system that’s supposed to prevent vacant and blighted properties from staying this way. If the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs finds a property to be vacant, the agency slaps it with a 5-percent property tax; if it’s vacant and blighted, it becomes a 10 percent tax, a steep increase from the standard .85 percent rate for residential property. Generally, that charge is enough incentive for the property owner to fix up the building or sell it.

But what happens if the city can’t find the owner? When I visit 430 Manor Place, there’s a stapled packet of D.C. Superior Court documents taped to the front doorstep—Boese says these packets appear there periodically—detailing a lawsuit against the house’s owner, listed as “Estate of Irby L. Dickinson (a/k/a Irby Dickenson a/k/a Irby Dickson)” and “Unknown Heirs of Irby Dickinson,” both with an address in Birmingham, Ala. City property records show that “Irby Dickenson” bought the Manor Place property in 1945, though there’s also mention of an “Alma Dickinson” in 1968 and an “Irby Dickerson” in 1999, when the city put a lien on the house.

Left: another vacant property in the Trinidad neighborhood, photo by Frozen Tropics.

The primary method is to have a big tax on vacant property.  That does encourage sale to presumably better owners, but at the same time, it can encourage demolition, see "D.C. buildings linked to Armenian Genocide museum to be razed" from the Washington Business Journal, as an example.  Generally this is not in the public interest, but is done to reduce taxes.  (Something similar happened in the H Street neighborhood, with buildings next to the Atlas Theater.  The property owner got permission to demolish the buildings, which would have been contributing structures in a historic district, but H Street is not designated.  But the rise in value of the properties encouraged the owner to sell to a property owner disposed to take care of the property instead.)

Right: this building on H Street has been up for lease for at least ten years.  One way to get around the vacant property tax is to slap up a for lease sign, even if you are asking way to much money to lease the building and it requires thousands of dollars in renovation costs, which the property owner is not willing to pay.

The secondary method is to move on a property in Condemnation Court.  Again, this will motivate some property owners to sell, but others will just demolish the property, which may have been their intent all along.  See "Dwelling in the Past: Larry Quillian wants to raze his shotgun shack" from the City Paper.  I think of a building demolished on 10th Street NE around 2002, in response to a "condemnation notice".  The lot is still vacant today and if they had just fixed up the property, today it would be worth in excess of $600,000.  This is not in the public interest either.

The third method would be to have a method to establish receivership for properties that are determined to be nuisances, just like in the State of Ohio.  That DC doesn't do.

Hence, the problem of having properties stay vacant, often for decades, or buildings that should be preserved, getting demolished, and the creation of new nuisances--vacant lots--that are just as hard to "fix".

--------
Also see the past blog entries, "Investment vs. Disinvestment," which discusses in part what I call "the language of revitalization" and  "Preservation Laws do matter," which discusses the necessity of having the right laws and remedies in place, in order to address demolition by neglect and other neighborhood stabilization issues.

-- and the book Bringing Buildings Back by Alan Mallach, see "Bringing buildings back is really about bringing urban neighborhoods back "

-- while focused on weak markets, the Center for Community Progress focuses on vacant property issues, including receivership.

-- Their annual conference on Reclaiming Vacant Properties is September 9th-11th in Philadelphia.

-- Also see the Washington Post story, "Manassas's 9300 Prescott Ave. home sees likely resolution to weary story," about a house that has been vacant for decades, and the inability of the locality to address the situation for many years, and how neighbors came together to buy the house in order to "cure" the nuisance.

Petula Clark's Downtown song

The Wall Street Journal has a nice piece, "Going Back Downtown | Tony Hatch | Cultural Conversation," about songwriter Tony Hatch, who wrote "Downtown" and many other city-oriented songs sung by Petula Clark, as well as a variety of other hit songs.  From the piece:

Walking down Broadway earlier this week, Tony Hatch stopped on the northwest corner of 48th Street and looked at Times Square several blocks south. "This is the spot where the melody first came to me—just as the neon signs went on," said the 73-year-old British songwriter-arranger, who will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on Thursday along with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Joe Perry, and four other composers.

As tourists pressed past him unaware and giant LED screens flickered, Mr. Hatch reminisced about his first trip to New York in October 1964 and the hit he wrote inspired by the upbeat crowds. "When I played my song for Petula Clark in Paris a few days later, she said that if I could write great lyrics, we'd have something fantastic," he said. "So I added words and we had 'Downtown.'"


Also see "Petula Clark | Bringing 'Downtown' to Midtown" from the WSJ.

A call to action: Call on DC City Council to create a Citizens Task Force on the Future of DC's Central Library

From Robin Diener of the DC Library Renaissance Project:

Dear Library Friends and Advocates:

As you may know, DC Library Renaissance Project has been calling for a Citizens Task Force on the Future of MLK since the central library debacle of 2006. My local ANC2B passed a resolution for Citizens task Force MLK in 2008, but the Library responded that it was "premature."

Suddenly now, we find $100 million in the capital budget for MLK for 2017-18. Task Force no longer premature! In February, my ANC re-sent its resolution, but has been ignored.

We need a Citizens Task Force to take advantage of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to plan for the central library that we, as a city, want and need, now and for the future. Use the link below to send a note to DC Council Chair Mendelson, Library Chair Catania, and others, to ask that a Citizens Task Force be written into the Budget Support Act during Council's final vote on Tuesday. There is already $4 million for Library planning in the budget, and a Task Force would be a fraction of that.

Just so you know, ideas that are being floated call for a smaller library (two levels), with no public parking, and additional privatized floors of offices built on top. Must we privatize part of MLK in order to modernize it? Public-public opportunities are being ignored. There is $40 million in the budget for a new DC Archives -- without a location! City Archives would pair perfectly with the mission of the central library -- and, in fact, the city of Vancouver recently decided to move its Archives onto its top two floors (of nine!).

These kinds of questions are best decided by the library going public. Please take a moment to send a note using this link. 

Thank you for weighing in!! Please, do not hesitate to call me if you have question or concerns about this matter.

Yours,
Robin Diener
202 431-9254

--------------
Past blog entries on this general topic include:

- The DC Central Library, the Civic identity and the public realm

- Central Library Planning efforts and the City Museum, how about some learning from Augusta, Maine ... and Baltimore?

- The Salt Lake City Central Library is absolutely incredible (although in a conversation about this building after I wrote this, an architect made a good point--and my post focused on the interior program of the building, not the general program for the site--that the building still says f.u. to the outside world beyond the footprint of the building and makes no attempt to complement the city hall building and square across the street).

- The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building and Silver Spring, Maryland as an example

- this entry is really mis-titled, as it is about the provision of public spaces and flexible community space in the context of a planning regime that is mostly driven by for profit actors, Community cleanups (and other activities) as community building and civic engagement activities

Originally, this block of G Street NW in front of the library was set up as a pedestrian mall.  During the many years when Downtown was hurting for business and activity, this area was mostly frequented by homeless people.

More on airport-related transit/transit for visitors

I wrote about this last week, "Night moves: the need for more night time (and weekend) transit service, especially when the subway is closed."

But then, Mobility Lab ran an entry, "Active Transportation Information Needed at Event-Planning Websites," on how meeting planners could better integrate transit-related information into their conference websites.  And today's Examiner has a piece, "Loudoun County wants surcharge at Washington Dulles International Airport's Silver Line station," where a Loudoun County Supervisor recommends that a surcharge be added to subway fares getting on/off the stop for Dulles Airport, and whether or not such a surcharge should be added to National Airport as well.

From the Examiner article:

Metro riders who use the Silver Line's future stop at Washington Dulles International Airport may have to pay an extra surcharge on top of their regular fare if Loudoun County officials get their way.

It's unfair that Loudoun alone will have to pay for the upkeep of the airport stop, since so many D.C.-bound travelers will be using the station, Loudoun Supervisor Matt Letourneau said at a meeting of regional leaders Wednesday.

"It's a continuing source of frustration to Loudoun that we'll be paying the operating costs at the airport station," he said. "It didn't seem all that logical that Loudoun County be on the hook for that because most people who are going to board at Dulles airport are going east. They're going into D.C., not to the two stations in Loudoun."

And Dr. Gridlock in the Post ran a question where a writer suggests that WMATA have more multi-day parking spots at Metro stations to support people taking transit to airports.

Plus, while I haven't had a chance to explore it, I've just come across an incredibly robust visitor information center best practice research project in Queensland, Australia, which can be mined for innovation as well. And Destination Melbourne's new focus on visitability, including a focus on "access and transport" issues for visitors.

1.  Airport Transit Fare Surcharge.  The San Francisco Airport does have a $3 surcharge for fares to and from the Airport.   See "BART considers waiving airport surcharge for SFO-based workers" from the San Francisco Examiner.

It's used to help pay for the cost of building the subway extension.  I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but it can be onerous, especially for employees--note that the proposal in San Francisco to eliminate the surcharge for workers doesn't really eliminate it.  The Airport actually would pay the amount to BART separately.

WMATA already charges a big surcharge to take a bus to the BWI and Dulles Airports now (the fare is $6), treating it as a premium service.  I haven't ridden the bus to Dulles for a long time so I don't know what the story is there, but the bus to B30 is outfitted specially with luggage racks, which makes handling a bunch of luggage pretty easily, compared to most other places.

And related to last week's entry, I'd be okay with a late night surcharge for nite owl bus service from National Airport, if that meant having access to such a service.

2.  Charging visitors higher transit fares more generally.  Note that one way that transit systems charge visitors a lot more is by discounting fares for smartcard holders.  Some people then just buy the cards, knowing they get discounts.  But probably most people don't know.

For example, in the WMATA system, fares using paper transit cards on the subway are $1 more than the cost of the same trip with a smartcard.

This is a tough issue generally, because you want to encourage people to use transit instead of drive, especially as when people drive in unfamiliar places, they can contribute to congestion in extranormal ways.

3.  Long-term parking at Metro sites to serve people going to the airport.  It's probably a bad idea for WMATA to tie up spaces at stations for parking, especially for spaces that don't turn over for days at a time.  It's better for there to be buses and such to take people to stations, along the lines of intra-neighborhood transit services that I champion in other entries.  This needs further research.

4.  Conference planning/transit information.  Yes, conferences should be more diligent in providing information on transit options.  Transit and urbanism conferences often get local sponsorships from the transit authority, which can include free transit passes or other inducements.  For example, at the 2012 Rail-volution conference in DC, Maryland's MTA was a sponsor, and attendees received a $10 CharmCard for the MTA system, not realizing probably that the CharmCard functions the same as the DC area SmarTrip card, just with a different brand.

But it can be hit or miss with Convention and Visitors Bureaus to promote transit to conference planners in a systematic way.  So they need to work with local transit authorities to up their game on this dimension.

Years ago, pre all the mobile apps for transit in the social media/mobile phone world, I suggested (not sure if I blogged about it) that transit agencies create widgets for their trip planners that could be integrated into other websites.  Such a widget could be incorporated into a conference meeting website, to promote transit.

Some airports are developing mobile apps to assist people in getting around the airport ("Are You Ready for the Airport Webolution?" from Airport Improvement Magazine), "Creative Innovations - Technology: 1st Place | DFW Airport Mobile Application,DFW International Airport" from Airports Council International).

Transit agencies need to think similarly.  (And rather than the relative chaos of all the various agencies and motivated app developers doing their own thing, I wish that agencies would have banded together via the American Public Transportation Association to create a set of standard apps.)

Right: Light rail sign at Salt Lake City International Airport.

5.  Transit information at airports generally can be much better than it usually is.   A couple weeks ago, I went to the Congress for the New Urbanism annual meeting in Salt Lake City.

SLC built a huge airport to support the 2002 Winter Olympics (which is why I don't understand why they need to spend even more money now to expand and upgrade the airport).  The Olympics was also the justification for funding their light rail system.  (Not unlike how Barcelona and Vancouver and London expanded transit and other infrastructure in association with mounting the Olympics.)

It's pretty easy to get downtown via the light rail in Salt Lake City, just as it is easy to get to DC from National Airport via the subway--when the subway is running.  But even so, some of the urbanists I knew took taxis.

And if you have a lot of luggage, face it, riding transit can be very grueling.

But for the most part, the provision of information within the Salt Lake City Airport for transit/light rail was pretty paltry, other than there being signs.

I think of people who use transit regularly as "already trained" in how to use transit.  Because it functions pretty similarly everywhere, if you know how to use buses and rail in one place, you can figure out how to do it someplace else. 

In the US, something like 4% of total trips are made by transit.  So most people, especially from upper income demographics typifying airplane travel, are unfamiliar with transit, unless they are from those handful of communities that have widespread transit networks (like the DC area, or Philadelphia or NYC or Boston or Chicago, etc.).

This is a huge "market development" problem as it relates to transit use for infrequent riders, especially travelers.

6.  Transit information provision at the Seattle and Portland Airports is best practice (or at least it was in 2007 and 2005 respectively).  It happens that I wrote a long blog entry on this topic in 2007, "To get people who have mobility choices to choose transit, they have to know it exists."  And yes, I am taking the liberty of reprinting the entry below.

The stuff about Seattle is a bit out of date because a couple years ago, light rail service started running from the Airport to Downtown Seattle.  Later this summer, I'll see how they might have updated their provision of transit information in response.


Trying to get on the subway at National Airport. Flickr photo by Burnt Pixel.

1. You don't necessarily appreciate the convenience of WMATA, the Washington area subway and bus system, until you ride transit in other places. (Not that there aren't many aspects of transit that can't be improved -- see below.) Subway to National Airport is so much easier than bus to/from other airports.

At least WMATA, in its services to Dulles Airport and BWI Airport, has a special bus, with racks to accommodate luggage. The bus service to the Seattle-Tacoma Airport is extensive, both by the King County system (Seattle) and Sound Transit (Tacoma). But they are regular buses, with no special accommodations for luggage.

And it is a pain in the a** to lug three bags and stuff them in and around your seat on a full--articulated, which can accommodate 60-80 people--bus.

The same goes for Pittsburgh and its 28X bus service.  The Pittsburgh buses are regular, either mini or full sized, buses without special accommodations for luggage. Sign for the Pittsburgh Airport bus service pictured at right.

However, more people ride the bus to Seattle from the airport, even though the usage for the Pittsburgh bus is high, so comparatively it's easier to take luggage to/from the Pittsburgh airport compared to Seattle.



Still one thing that I don't think WMATA (or DC for that matter) does very well is use transit points of purchase (bus stops, subway stations) and frequently used places as points to promote and distribute information about transit.

Left: Transit Information Rack, University Book Store, University of Washington, Seattle

I mention this because I didn't go to many places yesterday--the airport, Pike Place Market, and the University District adjacent to the University of Washington--but I found in each place a massive rack distributing information about public transit (which in this region includes ferry service)--at the University of Washington, it was at the student bookstore (I didn't go deeper into the campus, say to the Union or Library to see if there is similar information posted there; I do remember Portland having such a rack at the central library for Portland State University).

Plus, the buses had information displayed as well, including the Sound Transit published Transit Guide.


Right: Transit schedule information, Pike Place Market.

3. By way of comparison, at National Airport in Terminal A, there are two transit brochures, one the schedule for the 5A bus line to Dulles Airport and another general brochure (but no maps or other promotional materials displayed) in an information rack affixed to an information booth.. Granted there is the subway station, which is a promotion in and of itself, but I write frequently that we need to better utilize these stations as places to promote transit.


Pictured at right, at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, a large information rack for public transit was immediately adjacent to the Visitor Information desk.

I think information about transit was also placed in the various visitor information racks too. Plus the signage pointing people to the public transit ground transportation options was also pretty clear.

Plus, this poster, promoting transit as a viable way to get around, was affixed to one of the boards in the six-sided information rack.

And the signage at the bus stop explained how to use the system very well, and how to get to various places in the region from the airport, using public transit.


This reminds me of my first experience using the subway at National Airport about 20 years ago.

I was new to the city and someone asked me how to get to Germantown by transit. I had no idea. And looking at the map of the subway system even today, how would you know you can get to Germantown by taking the red line to Shady Grove?

These transit-promotion materials were available in the various information racks I have come across so far in Seattle. (I know that some of these kinds of guides are made available by WMATA, or the county-based bus systems. But I don't think there are many such comprehensive guides for the DC region. And these kinds of materials are likely inadequately distributed in our region.)


Bus stop/transit information sign, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport

DC's transportation planning process

Called moveDC, Washington, DC is creating a master transportation plan and the public engagement process for the plan is underway now. There have been some meetings this week (the second stage) including an outdoor session yesterday at Union Station.  See the past blog entry, "Resources for becoming a learned participant in the DC master transportation planning process."

I have been somewhat skeptical, because the process has been more focused on what I think of as engagement games and less on substance.

Traffic leaving the city via 14th Street heading towards the 14th Street Bridge, 1937.  National Archives photo.

The current round of sessions are framed through the presentation of three scenarios:

(1) "Stay the Course": the way things are now, with lots of "choices" with a value-neutral approach to the choice made;

(2) "Get to the Center": focusing on reducing "congestion" Downtown; and

(3) "Connect the Neighborhood": focusing on intra-neighborhood mobility enhancement for  residents, emphasizing short trips (kind of what I think of as "negatrips" along the lines of the Rocky Mountain Institute's concept of "negawatt").

For example, the "congestion" scenario misses the point that the reality is (1) only a few of the streets are permanently congested (K, I, especially, other streets at other times, New York Ave., 14th St., M Street, etc.) because of the limited number of entry-exit points in the city; (2) plus the real congestion now is on the subway.

On the other hand, the city can't neglect the needs of the core, as the Central Business District drives the local economy, is the source of more than 20% of the city's property tax revenue, serves as a major destination for visitors, etc.

And the scenario of non-optimal/value-neutral choice is obviously defective because of how other factors in the "system" "shape" the choices that people make, often towards choosing the car.  But people think that driving is a kind of result from "natural law" neither recognizing nor accepting that the current mobility system and its priorities and privileges has been constructed from a set of policy, financial, regulatory, and development decisions.

People think that sprawl is natural rather than as the outcome of a defined system and set of structured choices.


The range of scenarios presented is incomplete

I was somewhat unsettled because the range of scenarios is significantly incomplete, leaving a lot of ground under-covered, even if the "framework" of policies for each of the modes under each of the presented scenarios is decent.

To be "complete" there should be five scenarios. One should be a total commitment to urban mobility-sustainable mobility, as is called for in the DC Sustainability Plan, which sets a goal of  75% of trips--that's all trips, not just work trips--to be made by sustainable modes by 2030. And this scenario would include a focus on making optimal choices, not any choice, choices that support urban-city living, rather than diminish such.   

Another way to think about this would be how the Goals and Policies element of the Arlington County Master Transportation Plan outlines an overarching Vision and goals and policies to implement the vision.  Goal 2 in particular: "Move More People Without More Traffic," is especially relevant.

Given that the city is steadily adding population after a multi-decade decline, to the point where city officials are speculating that it's within the realm of possibility for DC to reach 800,000 population in a couple decades, adding people without adding traffic is imperative--especially because even slight, marginal increases in motor vehicle traffic can have cascading negative impact on vehicle throughput.

Transportation goals in the DC Sustainability Plan.

The other scenario should be a pro-automobile, suburban-centric mobility paradigm, focused on separated uses and automobile dependence. People may say that they don't think "suburbanistically" when it comes to center city transportation planning, but most people, whether or not they recognize it, are imprinted with that mobility paradigm, and all too frequently they attempt to apply it to decidedly urban situations.

This was reflected in the economic development transition team's agenda for the Gray Administration.  Their policy proscriptions were mostly focused on easing automobile commutes into the city.

Even as a straw man argument, it's important to present it, if only to show the course that the city shouldn't be choosing--and to identify how many ways in which the city is promoting suburban-style mobility policies and practices.

Rockville Pike as the culmination of the achievement of the suburban mobility paradigm, Montgomery County, Maryland.  Washington Post photo.

If sustainable mobility were really the preference, goal, and priority of the city (cf. the DC Sustainability Plan) then decisions that various agencies make concerning mobility would be congruent with achieving this outcome.

Often they are not--including not presenting a scenario within the transportation planning process dedicated to achieving the sustainable mobility goals of the DC Sustainability Plan.  

The physics of mobility efficiency.  From the Central Washington Transportation and Civic Design Study, 1977.  What I think of as the physics of mobility is thinking about a car as a 150 s.f. box carrying one person vs. the 400 s.f. box bus carrying 50 people or the 600 s.f. box bus carry 80 people, etc.

People need to be presented with information on transportation economics in order to understand tradeoffs, constraints, and opportunities

The general point is that people ought to be exposed to urban economics and agglomeration economies and how urban advantages are heightened by sustainable mobility. They need to understand how exchange is facilitated by proximity, how worldwide, the wealthiest metros tend to be less dependent on the car (Newman and Kenworthy, "The 10 Myths of Automobile Dependence"), etc. 

With regard to the issue of transportation enabling exchange probably the work of David Engwicht, especially Reclaiming our cities and towns, is the most straightforward, including excellent diagrams of how when more space is devoted to roads and cars less space is provided within which for people to connect. From a book review:

Engwicht maintains that cities were originally created as places for people to come together to trade goods and stories. A city, by definition, can be seen as a concentration of exchange opportunities. Cars get in the way of these exchanges in several ways. They drive people out of public spaces and create inhospitable environments for social interaction because of noise, fumes, and the barrier effects of the stream of traffic. Furthermore, they eliminate what he calls the "spontaneous" exchange — the unplanned encounter — thereby depriving cities of their essential spontaneity and life.

Traffic also sets into motion a wide range of self-reinforcing inefficiencies, according to Engwicht. Cars require roads, which require space, which require urban expansion, which requires more travel, which in turn requires more space.

Engwicht's points set the stage for recognizing that transit is the foundation of the city's economic competitiveness and livability.

Elected officials, residents, and other stakeholders need to understand and appreciate that DC's primary competitive advantage in the context of the metropolitan landscape of commercial and residential choices is its rich transit infrastructure--complemented by support of walking, biking, bike share, and car share--which allows people to get around relatively efficiently without having to own a car.


People need to be presented with information on transportation history in order to understand tradeoffs, constraints, and opportunities in terms of the past, present, and future

In fact, I think transportation plans should have both a transportation economics and a transportation history element.  Baltimore's land use master plan has a history element.  It's not complete, but I think it's a good first pass, and an example that transportation plans should take to heart.  (Frequently, historic preservation plans have a history section.)

In terms of history, stakeholders need to understand how transportation technologies have shaped spatial patterns and mobility choices generally, and in terms of DC and the metropolitan area specifically.

The long term exhibit at the National Museum of American History, "America on the Move," does a good job of explaining this as well.  The National Building Museum had an excellent exhibit on this topic around 2002-2003 also, "On Track: Transit and the American City." ("How mass transit and cities grew: Builders made rail lines; Traction firms made communities | A new exhibit in Washington examines their relationship.," review from the Philadelphia Inquirer)

The spatial plan and road network bequeathed to the city by the L'Enfant Plan sets the stage even today, especially as it relates to sustainable mobility--walking, biking, and transit.  See "Transportation and Urban Form: Stages in the Spatial Evolution of the American Metropolis" by Peter Muller.

What makes DC different than San Francisco in terms of transit capture, especially for work trips, is the continued concentration of the federal government in DC, proximate to Metro stations, combined with the provision of the federal transit benefit--which means that transit users get all or a portion of their transit costs covered.  That's an important historical fact as well, as is how Congress ordered the dissolution of the streetcar system, etc.

There is a tremendous opportunity to reframe public engagement and transportation master planning processes around achieving livability and quality of life improvements through investments in transportation infrastructure

This is a concept I am still developing.  And I need to develop it via a full-blown position paper.

It takes the idea of using placemaking as the framework for citizen engagement in transportation planning more generally.

The basis is how I laid out the "Signature Streets concept" as an integrated design-social marketing-branding-program delivery-funding mechanism in the Western Baltimore County Pedestrian and Bicycle Access Plan.

At the end of the blog entry, "From the files, transit planning in Baltimore County" I develop the concept a bit more. I came up with it at the end of the Balt. County process and didn't have the time to fully develop the approach. I laid out the foundations in this entry, "Complete places are more than complete streets."

But it's also shaped by the Livable Streets program in San Francisco ("It's time for a new 'city beautiful' movement in DC"), new developments in complete streets planning in Chicago, various public space initiatives in New York City, tactical urbanism and the design process, work by the Project for Public Spaces, etc.

Plus, the PA-NJ Smart Transportation Guidebook, the Oregon guide "Main Street: When a Highway Runs Through it", Barth's integrated public realm framework, and some really interesting points laid out by the Passaic County NJ planning director in their transportation plan, to use planning for heritage corridors--not just roads, but canals, railroad infrastructure, and rivers too--as a way to move tourism forward, which is a different form of placemaking also.

Public Realm as an Interconnected system, Slide from presentation, Leadership and the Role of Parks and Recreation in the New Economy, David Barth and Carlos Perez, AECOM.

People need to be presented with a range of best practice examples and case studies, otherwise the options, ideas, and innovations that are considered is crippled

Mostly people's suggestions at the planning meetings are what I would call "tactical"--where to put a bike sharing station, or to finish the Metropolitan Branch Trail--rather than strategic, such as not only should the Metropolitan Branch Trail be finished, which many people suggest, but also that the city (and region) should create an integrated system of bikeways, comprised of off-road trails and cycletracks, to support the 60% of people who say they are willing to bike but don't, because they don't want to ride in high traffic/high speed traffic situations.

Some bigger "strategery" ideas were offered though.

But people need to be exposed to a wide range of ideas and solutions in order to be able to think more creatively about possibilities and opportunities.

I feel strongly about this because of my experience in co-leading a workshop a couple years ago in Baltimore, focused on improving neighborhoods through transportation improvements.
 
I didn't speak on biking, but on placemaking. The person tasked with biking was told to only discuss new developments in infrastructure. So he didn't discuss or show images of trails.

In the breakout sections where the groups worked with maps etc., and made suggestions for improvements within their neighborhoods and across the city, no one brought up trails (shared use paths) as an option, even though Baltimore has one great trail (Gwynn Falls) and is developing another (Jones Falls).

Best practice examples prime the pump of what is possible.

I was thinking about what would be mobility comparisons for DC, because cities like London, Paris, and New York City are so much bigger, that comparing those cities to DC isn't really appropriate.

Here are some best practices that come to mind that people need to be exposed to as part of transportation master planning processes:

(DC has a couple I haven't listed, like bicycle share, and as of about 2003, the city's streetscape improvement program was best practice, although since then the practice hasn't kept up with innovations elsewhere)

- San Francisco (bus, streetcar/lightrail, heritage streetcar, cable car, heavy rail/BART, Caltrain, Amtrak) + SF is smaller than DC physically with a population more at what DC's shooting for 800,000+, in fact it's probably the best example
- Philly and Montreal in terms of how railroad passenger services are more like London and Paris in how railroad and heavy rail service can be complementary, how railroad service in Philadelphia especially serves neighborhoods
- Montreal and biking (extensive network of cycletracks)
- best practice walk promotion orgs like Feet First and WalkBoston
- Washington state's walk/bike to school, Boulder's walk/bike to school, Minneapolis Safe Routes to School citywide plan
- various citywide/regional bikeways plans (+ the Dutch and Danish "cycle superhighways")
- streetcar examples -- heritage (Tampa) + modern (Portland)
- fareless squares (mostly going by the wayside because of funding, but still extant in Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, and Calgary)
- intra neighborhood bus services (Tempe Orbit)/RideOn as a model to think of providing service within certain spread out areas (Ward 3, Ward 8, Ward 7)
- how the Steelers and a casino are paying for operations for the light rail extension to Northside Pittsburgh so that people can ride it for free
- how other transit systems do marketing (including ties in for sports events--Metrolink, MTA)
- the CNT stuff about the link between Transportation costs and mortgage costs
- double deck buses
- best practice bike facilities (air, counters, high capacity parking, protected parking)
- best practice visitor transportation (Savannah, etc.)
- best practice transportation information provision (Arlington, Seattle, Portland)
- nite owl services
- dedicated busways/does any city at its core have a dedicated set of transitways
- Paris addition of light rail (circle line)
- SF Transit First policy
- the equity concepts from Toronto's "Transit City" plan
- parking wayfinding systems (San Jose, Charlotte, etc.)
- a wee bit of ITS
- WMATA's study of trip capture from development proximate to transit
- Hoboken's (yes, they do a better job than DC) use of car sharing and other methods to reduce demand for car ownership and demand for residential street parking
- concept of bike friendly business districts
- best practice TDM (Whatcom County, Washington)
- shared delivery services (so people don't feel obligated to drive to shop, so that they can take home their purchases)
- transportation information centers including Arlington's Commuter Store
- DC merchants' old "park and shop" program of validated parking
- municipal parking systems
- how much MoCo charges for a monthly parking permit in their garages
- Reno Retrac as a model for reconstructing the surface of the under-roadway tunnels (like North Capitol or around Dupont Circle), "Tunnelized road projects for DC"
- King County, Washington transit service metrics
- Vancouver Translink bicycle facilities planning documents
- time shifting freight deliveries (e.g., how much congestion would be avoided if CVS would shift most of ts deliveries to the overnight hours)
- reconstruction of Thomas Circle/Logan Circle
- SF's parklet program/Livable Streets program
- NYC 20mph neighborhood zone program/Montreal's 30kph-40kph-50kph program/Chevy Chase also has 20mph on residential streets
- Alexandria's HOV2 on Washington Street/Rte. 1 during rush hours
etc.

Two more days for the Washington Examiner

While not a fan of their very conservative tinge, especially in the editorials, I will miss their regular coverage of various DC and suburban issues, issues that all too infrequently aren't covered by the Washington Post anymore, as its coverage of the metropolitan area has been significantly cut back.

The columnists generally bugged the crap out of me too.  See the last column by Harry Jaffe, "Farewell to a great paper."

I wish the Post would hire 5-6 of the Examiner's local news writers, and set them loose.

Fewer voices, even ones I often disagree with, generally leaves us worse off  (Rush Limbaugh et al. excepted).

------
An example of why the Examiner bugs(ged) me is the illogic in editorials.  Advocates for a free market should believe in a level playing field.  This editorial "More government equals less economic, technological progress" criticizes four government acts as anti-innovation, when each is merely an example of treating the same types of parties equally rather than unequally in ways that advantage some over others:

- a tax on sales by food trucks equal to the tax on meals in restaurants.  What's wrong with that?  Well, restauranteurs advocated for it, so it must be bad.

- a tax on online sales when not having a sales tax on retail sales gives online firms an edge over brick and mortar firms...

- a tax on hybrid vehicles because even if they don't use gasoline, their use of the roads involves costs

- cities applying common carrier regulations to Uber, a taxi hailing mobile application, when taxi hailing by computer is not fundamentally different from the provision of regular taxi service, and therefore no justification for differential treatment is present.