Tag: smart growth
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Big Box, Big Bollox
by James A. Bacon Lefty Smart Growthers loathe big box stores, none more so than Wal-Mart. The big boxes are ugly as sin, they (allegedly) oppress their workers, they perpetuate dysfunctional, auto-centric human settlement patterns and they drive small, independent merchants out of business. If only there were a way to legislate them out of…
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Commonwealth Cartography
I’m a map geek because maps help us visualize information that is difficult to explain in words. In few fields of endeavor is spatial visualization more important than understanding human settlement patterns. That’s why I’m psyched that Luke Juday, an urban planning graduate student at the University of Virginia, has launched a blog, “Mapping the…
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A Free-Lunch No-Brainer: Pay-As-You-Drive Insurance
by James A. Bacon Pay-As-You-Drive (PAYD) automobile insurance bases premiums on the number of miles the customer drives. It stands to reason: the less you drive, the less likely you are to be involved in a traffic accident. As it also happens, the less you drive, the less you contribute to traffic congestion. Thus, it…
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How to Stretch Those Transportation Tax Dollars
by James A. Bacon The Commonwealth of Virginia has expended way more effort in recent years figuring out how to raise taxes for transportation than it has ensuring that those tax dollars are well spent. That’s not for a lack of opportunities. In its new publication, “The Innovative DOT: a handbook of policy and practice,” Smart…
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Lerner Aims to Complete Tysons Office Tower… Only Two Years Late
by James A. Bacon Well, well, well, what do you know? The commercial building boom in Tysons triggered by the imminent completion of Phase One of the Rail-to-Dulles project doesn’t seem to be running on schedule. A Washington Post article today highlights Lerner Enterprise’s lengthy delay in building an 18-story, 476,000-square-foot office building near one of…
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MBUFs and Value Capture asTransportation Financing Tools
by James A. Bacon A common challenge for every state is finding the funds to expand the transportation system to serve a growing population and economy. Virginia endured a grueling debate last year over former Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposal to shift much of the burden to the state sales tax. Other states have made a…
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Housing Supply, Demand and Affordability
by James A. Bacon The Hampton Roads and Richmond housing markets are “moderately unaffordable,” according to the 10th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2014. While not exactly a kudo, that classification puts the two of Virginia’s three largest metros in the top one third of housing affordability for major markets (one million people and…
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Will Self-Driving Cars Promote Smart Growth?
I always imagined that thinkers in the Smart Growth camp would be unnerved by the prospect of roads filled with self-driving cars (SDCs). If commuters could punch a destination into their mapping app, lean back, read email, surf the web or even doze off during the drive to work, SDCs could revive the long-distance commute…
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The Statewide Importance of the 495 Express Lanes
by James A. Bacon Traffic and revenues on Northern Virginia’s 495 Express Lanes increased steadily in 2013, generating a record 47,000 trips and toll revenue of $124,000 on December 19, according to data the company released yesterday. Whether that’s enough to meet expectations of parent company Transurban Holdings Ltd., headquartered in Australia, or to encourage…
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Biophilia, Happiness and Place Making
by James A. Bacon Biologist and philosopher E.O. Wilson coined the term “biophilia” to describe humans’ deeply rooted love of life and nature — a sentiment that may be a product of man’s biological evolution. It is human nature to take delight in the presence of wildlife (at least the kind that doesn’t eat you),…
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LaRock Targets MWAA, Dulles Rail, Mass Transit
by James A. Bacon Del. David A. LaRock, R-Hamilton, the man who beat legislative veteran Joe May in the Republican primary last year, comes to the General Assembly promising to represent conservative values and principles. Judging by the bills he has submitted so far, he will be true to his word. Aside from one bill…
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What Do You Get When You Cross a Segway with a Skateboard?
Here comes another example of creativity and innovation from the private sector that politicians, planners and pundits (even clear-eyed, forward-looking pundits such as myself!) could not possibly have foreseen — the Onewheel. Onewheel, whose inventors are trying to raise $100,000 through Kickstarter, is a one-wheeled, self-balancing skateboard-like transportation device. It can reach speeds up to…
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Are the Millennials Really Different?
by James A. Bacon One of the key questions in forecasting future trends in urban development is a demographic one: How different are the Millennials from previous generations? Sure, young people are flocking to urban centers, they’re driving less and they’re riding their bicycles more than Boomers and Generation Xers did at the same age.…
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Six Reasons to Feel Good about 2014
by James A. Bacon Despite awakening this morning with a hangover resulting from a fabulous New Year’s celebration last night, I was curiously and uncharacteristically upbeat about the year ahead. I still have grave reservations about the fiscal future of this country and I still believe Boomergeddon is in our future. But for some odd…
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The Laughable Fiction of Travel-Demand Forecasts
by James A. Bacon The Virginia Department of Transportation and regional transportation planning organizations periodically make traffic forecasts for planning purposes. The idea makes sense in the abstract — estimating future volumes of traffic is needed to determine how much, and where, we should invest in new transportation infrastructure. Unfortunately, the process is flawed. Estimates…