🚀 go-pugleaf

I don't know which of the Galapagos Islands writer Washington Post
writer Robert McCartney is from. But for his and others' information,
following are some traffic truisms that have been around for awhile:

1)   You can't build your way out of urban traffic jams. Ask L.A.

2)   Studies [do the research] have posited that the most inexpensive,
efficient, effective, and least disruptive methods for reducing the
effects of traffic snarls are the systematic synchronization and
placement of traffic signals and signs.

3)   An outer beltway around Washington, D.C., planned and built 40
years ago, might have made things here, now, a lot easier.

4)   A car-addicted population like ours will never adopt or adapt to
[mass] "transit." (I note that "mass" is a no-no in transit
discussions nowadays.)

5)   As things and plans stand, the D.C. region's traffic situation is
INSOLUBLE.

Moreover, when a billionaire Virginia developer like Til Hazel -- who
had a big hand in creating the metro region's insoluble traffic
congestion -- says the Tyson's plan is "trivial," we ought to listen.
Half of us will be dead if or before the 'plan' is ever finished.

And anyone who's not actually recently visited Arlington, Virginia's
"nirvana" won't find it countywide; it's confined to the the
relatively small Rosslyn-Balston corridor. Arlington overall is still
mostly the congested hell-hole it's always been.

Parting message for you Galapagos Islanders -- stop persistently
feeding Post readers bull-shit about the "need" for unaffordable "more
roads and bridges."

Darwin might understand.

==================

"A transit-friendly Tysons Corner would support growth, cut auto
traffic"





Op-Ed
By Robert McCartney
The Washington Post
Sunday, June 27, 2010; C01








IF YOU'RE UPSET about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and want to do
something to fight America's petroleum addiction, support a local
cause that would make a difference: transforming Tysons Corner, Va.,
from a snarl of suburban sprawl into a grid of transit-friendly, urban
high-rises.

If done right -- a big if -- it would curb reliance on automobiles
while allowing continued growth of population and jobs.

Tuesday's vote by Fairfax County supervisors to approve a long-term
plan to redo Tysons as a walkable, livable community was a milestone
for the region. Experts say it also could be a blueprint for the rest
of the nation. It offers a jumbo alternative to the traditional
suburban lifestyle of a single-family home with two-car garage and a
lengthy commute.

"This is going to be the most exciting large-scale redevelopment
initiative in the United States," said Adam Ducker, managing director
of RCLCO, a national real estate advisory firm headquartered in
Bethesda.

"There are lots of places like Tysons Corner, but nobody has
demonstrated yet how you can really do this. Nobody else has the mix
of political, development community and general population buy-in to
make it happen," said Ducker, whose firm has advised some Tysons
developers but not the project itself.

Folks in Maryland and the District needn't feel left out. They can
back similar efforts in various planning stages at White Flint and
Shady Grove in Montgomery County, Greenbelt and New Carrollton in
Prince George's County, and at spots along the Green Line in the
District.

The underlying model already exists in our area, albeit on a smaller
scale. It's the conversion over the past three decades of the Rosslyn-
Ballston corridor into a lively mix of mostly high-rise residences,
offices and stores.

People there rely heavily on Metro, bicycles and their legs to get
around. As a result, Arlington County was able to achieve city planner
nirvana by adding millions of square feet of building space without
worsening congestion.

Now the car-clogged mess that is Tysons wants to do the same. In
particular, it hopes to add apartments and other housing units so that
many of the 105,000 people who drive to work at Tysons will come live
in the neighborhood. Only 18,000 reside there now.

"Presumably, you will get some people out of their cars, which is the
goal," said Rob Jackson of the McLean Citizens Association, which
includes Tysons.

Young families needn't worry if they prefer a house with a yard for
the kids. Plenty of Ozzie and Harriet neighborhoods will remain. Space
in such communities will come open as baby boomers move out and
downsize to communities with easy access to transit -- just like the
planned Tysons.

The complex changes will unfold over decades. Two big challenges will
be getting banks to resume lending money and the chronic difficulty of
finding cash for road work.

The project has lots of friends, though. In fact, local officials have
officially identified Tysons-like projects as the approved model for
future growth in the region. That's supposed to help slash the area's
greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent over the next 40 years, under
the "Region Forward" plan adopted in January by directors of the
Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

So who's against it? In our area, two factions with divergent
perspectives are skeptical.

One is represented by the redoubtable Fairfax developer John T. "Til"
Hazel, now 80. In an interview last month with Capital Business, he
dismissed the Tysons plan as "sort of a trivial thing." He said it was
nowhere near sufficient to cope with the 1.6 million new residents
expected in the region over the next 20 years. For Hazel, the plan
risks distracting the area from the need to build and expand roads and
bridges.

The other view, held by some other developers and civic leaders, is
that the initial development plan for Tysons is too restrictive. They
fear Tysons won't convert quickly enough to an urban grid that
encourages transit use and absorbs cars.

"Traffic is just going to get worse until they allow a build-out to
fill the rest of the grid," said Stuart Mendelsohn, chairman of the
Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.

The whole region has an interest in the project's success. If our
commitment flags, we should remember the oil poisoning the gulf.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/26/AR2010062603622.html