Writing about the ICC, as I did yesterday on BeyondDC and today for the Washington Post, is a nostalgia-filled experience for me. It’s a little like coming home.

The ICC was big news in Gaithersburg in the late 1990s, when I was in high school. Newspapers were filled with op-eds debating the merits of the road. I was fascinated, and read them all. I became a big proponent of the highway, because I was bored with suburbia and wanted Gaithersburg to be more like a big city, and in my suburbanite mind big cities had lots of big highways.

Of course I was wrong about what constitutes a big city, and about what relieves traffic congestion, and about a lot of things, but one key epiphany was there: Transportation affects land use. Whoa.

And so it was that I became interested in transportation planning. And so it was that I started writing about it, in letters to the editor of the Gaithersburg Gazette.

So while my position on the ICC has evolved over time, I continue to have a soft spot in my heart for it. The ICC is what started me down the path that has brought me here, to BeyondDC, to the Washington Post, to Greater Greater Washington, and of course to that day job as a professional transportation planner.

I can’t help but be a little nostalgic.

In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I note the 35-mile-long high speed rail tunnel under construction in Switzerland and question why such grand projects seem impossible in the United States.
 

Phase One of the Silver Line is one of the most promising infrastructure investments in America, by virtue of the effects it will have on Tysons Corner. Phase Two, on the other hand, costs more and won’t accomplish as much.

In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I argue that Northern Virginia would benefit more by spending the money it has allocated for Phase Two on a network of BRT and light rail / streetcar lines. Instead of one Metro line with a handful of stations in the outer suburbs, every major corridor in Northern Virginia could be blanketed with high-quality transit.

In today’s edition of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I describe the impending launch of Capital Bikeshare, and why I am looking forward to it.

 

In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I discuss why it is wrong-headed and sociologically harmful for Gallery Place management to use a “mosquito device” to try and drive away teenagers from the Chinatown entertainment district.
 

Yesterday during an interview on the Kojo Nnamdi show DDOT director Gabe Klein left the door open to potentially continuing in his post if Vincent Gray wins the upcoming DC mayoral election. In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I suggest that Gray could make urbanist voters much more comfortable with his candidacy by publicly declaring support for Klein and his vision for DDOT.

Earlier this week the Montgomery County Council rejected a proposal to build the Purple line with only one track. In today’s installment of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network I explain why single tracking is a bad idea, and laud the Council for making the right decision in endorsing a double track.

On Monday the Washington Post ran a story about mayoral politics and Ward 4, in which a Brightwood resident is quoted saying “I’m all for Vince Gray. I’ve been here for what, 40 years? Never in my life have I seen things in D.C. all turned around.” In today’s edition of the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I suggest that if Gray is running on the platform of returning District government to its “pre-turned around” power structure – the structure that gave us Marion Barry – then that is a really excellent reason to vote for Adrian Fenty.

At approximately 2:25 this afternoon, the WMATA board approved next year’s budget, including the assortment of fare hikes that were proposed in May and designed to maintain the system and avoid cuts to service. In today’s entry at the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I describe why fare hikes were Metro’s best option.

Spring 2010 was officially the warmest on record both for Washington, DC locally and Earth as a whole. In today’s post at the Washington Post Local Blogging Network, I make the point that whether or not humans caused it, warming is here, so we’ll have to do something about it.