Saturday, June 03, 2006
Md: Record of Decision on the InterCounty Connector signed
Citizens of Prince George's County and Montgomery County, Maryland have been waiting for this day for over 50 years.
Press release from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. regarding the Record of Decision:
GOVERNOR EHRLICH ANNOUNCES FEDERAL APPROVAL TO BUILD THE INTERCOUNTY CONNECTOR (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 70 KB)
The actual ROD itself - do not download this unless you have a fast network connection:
Record of Decision document (54 MB!)
TOLLROADSnews: Maryland's ICC groundbreaking
Baltimore Sun story:
Intercounty Connector wins federal approval
Washington Post story:
Intercounty Connector Gets Final Approval
WTOP Radio story:
Governor Breaks Ground for Intercounty Connector
Baltimore Sun editorial:
The ICC, for better or worse
Washington Post editorial:
Green Light for the ICC
Washington Examiner editorial (this one is good!):
Must be getting cold in Hades
Added on 3 June 2006: some images from the groundbreaking ceremony for the ICC on 30 May 2006:
Maryland's Secretary of Transportation Flanagan speaking to the crowd.
Maryland's Gov. Ehrlich.
Unveiling the sign, which reads "the ICC starts here."
Secretary Flanagan and Delegate Petzold (District 19) breaking ground by planting a new tree as Jack Cahalan of the Maryland Department of Transportation looks on.
Press release from Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. regarding the Record of Decision:
GOVERNOR EHRLICH ANNOUNCES FEDERAL APPROVAL TO BUILD THE INTERCOUNTY CONNECTOR (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 70 KB)
The actual ROD itself - do not download this unless you have a fast network connection:
Record of Decision document (54 MB!)
TOLLROADSnews: Maryland's ICC groundbreaking
Baltimore Sun story:
Intercounty Connector wins federal approval
Washington Post story:
Intercounty Connector Gets Final Approval
WTOP Radio story:
Governor Breaks Ground for Intercounty Connector
Baltimore Sun editorial:
The ICC, for better or worse
Washington Post editorial:
Green Light for the ICC
Washington Examiner editorial (this one is good!):
Must be getting cold in Hades
Added on 3 June 2006: some images from the groundbreaking ceremony for the ICC on 30 May 2006:
Maryland's Secretary of Transportation Flanagan speaking to the crowd.
Maryland's Gov. Ehrlich.
Unveiling the sign, which reads "the ICC starts here."
Secretary Flanagan and Delegate Petzold (District 19) breaking ground by planting a new tree as Jack Cahalan of the Maryland Department of Transportation looks on.
Fighting Our Flush Fixation
Fighting Our Flush Fixation
Environmentalists Preach Another Kind of Toilet Training
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2006; B01
As worries about resource conservation and global warming spur growth in environmentally sensitive construction, builders find that one room separates the greens from the traditionalists.
The restroom.
Once the most generic of features in commercial buildings, toilets loom as the earth-friendly builder's final frontier. Eco-friendly toilets -- low-flush, dual-flush or no-flush compost -- conserve water and cut pollution, a double benefit that few other green features can claim.
Now this is confusing to me. Not the part about the no-flush toilets, for I know that they work, and they actually work pretty well, having used them in Finland, Sweden and here in the United States.
But the folks that are pushing for these, in particular the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups, have long been proponents of using sewer lines (and lack thereof) to limit or restrict development!
And these very same groups also want to impose compact development patterns on most people (see links below for a few examples - no mention of composting toilets):
GROWTH, SPRAWL AND THE BAY
Making the most of Metro (maybe the product from the composting toilets can be hauled away in special Metrorail cars?) (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 928 KB)
Smart growthers: We're leading smart development
A Network of Livable Communities (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 520 KB)
I can assure you that "compact" development is not development that is compatible with no-flush toilets.
If one owns a condominium (especially one in a high-rise building), where does the, well, output from the no-flush toilet go? Even a small fee-simple townhome does not need or use much in the way of toilet output. Yes, the only kind of land use that is really compatible with these kinds of toilets would seem to be, well, SPRAWL! The bigger the lot, the better!
In the interest of enlightenment and as a public service, here are some vendors that sell these systems:
Clivus:
clivusmultrum.com
clivus.com
multrum.com
Advanced Composting Systems
Manion Plumbing in Tasmania, Australia
Environmentalists Preach Another Kind of Toilet Training
By Elizabeth Williamson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 3, 2006; B01
As worries about resource conservation and global warming spur growth in environmentally sensitive construction, builders find that one room separates the greens from the traditionalists.
The restroom.
Once the most generic of features in commercial buildings, toilets loom as the earth-friendly builder's final frontier. Eco-friendly toilets -- low-flush, dual-flush or no-flush compost -- conserve water and cut pollution, a double benefit that few other green features can claim.
Now this is confusing to me. Not the part about the no-flush toilets, for I know that they work, and they actually work pretty well, having used them in Finland, Sweden and here in the United States.
But the folks that are pushing for these, in particular the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other environmental groups, have long been proponents of using sewer lines (and lack thereof) to limit or restrict development!
And these very same groups also want to impose compact development patterns on most people (see links below for a few examples - no mention of composting toilets):
GROWTH, SPRAWL AND THE BAY
Making the most of Metro (maybe the product from the composting toilets can be hauled away in special Metrorail cars?) (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 928 KB)
Smart growthers: We're leading smart development
A Network of Livable Communities (Adobe Acrobat .pdf, 520 KB)
I can assure you that "compact" development is not development that is compatible with no-flush toilets.
If one owns a condominium (especially one in a high-rise building), where does the, well, output from the no-flush toilet go? Even a small fee-simple townhome does not need or use much in the way of toilet output. Yes, the only kind of land use that is really compatible with these kinds of toilets would seem to be, well, SPRAWL! The bigger the lot, the better!
In the interest of enlightenment and as a public service, here are some vendors that sell these systems:
Clivus:
clivusmultrum.com
clivus.com
multrum.com
Advanced Composting Systems
Manion Plumbing in Tasmania, Australia
Friday, June 02, 2006
Does rail transit (and transit-oriented land use) provide highway congestion relief?
The other day, there was an article in the Washington Post about the top-ten congested intersections in my home county, Montgomery County, Maryland:
Stuck at a Crossroads Is Par for the Course
The article is directly based on the staff draft of a report by the county's transportation planning staff, and the report can be found on the Web site of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission here.
The map below is a graphic that was included with this article:
Here is what I find interesting about this list of street and arterial highway intersections.
Intersection 1, the most congested, Md. 97 (Georgia Avenue) at Md. 192 (Forest Glen Road) is literally smack on top of the Forest Glen Metrorail stop on the Red Line route to Glenmont.
Intersections 2 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at Cedar Lane), 4 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at South Drive), 8 (Md. 355 (Frederick Road) at King Farm Boulevard) and 9 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at Pooks Hill Road) are on top of or very near the WMATA Metrorail Red Line's western route (which runs to Shady Grove), which is located very near intersection number 8, above.
Development near Intersection 8, called the King Farm, was mostly high- to extremely-high density, owing entirely to its proximity to the Shady Grove Metrorail station.
Intersections 5 (U.S. 29 (Colesville Road) at Southwood Avenue) and 10 (U.S. 29 (Colesville Road) at Md. 193 (University Boulevard)) are in Eastern Montgomery County, just downstream of the area that was subjected to 16 years of a land use plan based on a concept of transit serviceability, the 1981 Eastern Montgomery County Master Plan, which governed land use along much of U.S. 29 in Montgomery County from 1981 to 1997 - and led to the construction of thousands of high-density dwelling units - and this area took extra density in the form of transferrable development rights (TDRs) which were used to preserve farms in the Montgomery County Ag Preserve.
Perhaps some things to consider when we hear promises of "real" congestion relief from advocates of high-density development and new transit lines that would run on steel rails?
Stuck at a Crossroads Is Par for the Course
The article is directly based on the staff draft of a report by the county's transportation planning staff, and the report can be found on the Web site of the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission here.
The map below is a graphic that was included with this article:
Here is what I find interesting about this list of street and arterial highway intersections.
Intersection 1, the most congested, Md. 97 (Georgia Avenue) at Md. 192 (Forest Glen Road) is literally smack on top of the Forest Glen Metrorail stop on the Red Line route to Glenmont.
Intersections 2 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at Cedar Lane), 4 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at South Drive), 8 (Md. 355 (Frederick Road) at King Farm Boulevard) and 9 (Md. 355 (Rockville Pike) at Pooks Hill Road) are on top of or very near the WMATA Metrorail Red Line's western route (which runs to Shady Grove), which is located very near intersection number 8, above.
Development near Intersection 8, called the King Farm, was mostly high- to extremely-high density, owing entirely to its proximity to the Shady Grove Metrorail station.
Intersections 5 (U.S. 29 (Colesville Road) at Southwood Avenue) and 10 (U.S. 29 (Colesville Road) at Md. 193 (University Boulevard)) are in Eastern Montgomery County, just downstream of the area that was subjected to 16 years of a land use plan based on a concept of transit serviceability, the 1981 Eastern Montgomery County Master Plan, which governed land use along much of U.S. 29 in Montgomery County from 1981 to 1997 - and led to the construction of thousands of high-density dwelling units - and this area took extra density in the form of transferrable development rights (TDRs) which were used to preserve farms in the Montgomery County Ag Preserve.
Perhaps some things to consider when we hear promises of "real" congestion relief from advocates of high-density development and new transit lines that would run on steel rails?
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
If you can't trust the CDC, who can you trust?
Two years ago, the Centers for Disease Control issued a report saying that obesity was killing 300,000 Americans each year and was about to overtake smoking as the nation's leading cause of death. A few months later, the agency quietly issued a retraction, admitting it had made some arithmetical errors and overstated deaths due to obesity by several times.
Now one of the authors of that paper has been found guilty of cheating taxpayers by padding her expense accounts by more than $7,000. For example, she claimed a $106 cost was for "PowerPoint slides" when actually it was spent at Filene's Basement department store. Donna Stroup, the guilty party, has resigned her job and will be sentenced in July.
Not every government bureaucrat is dishonest. But the temptation to overstate a problem in order to get a larger budget for your department is always great. Officials whose budgets grow the fastest are considered heroes and are often given pay raises or promotions. Sometimes, it seems that the only way to get the attention of Congressional appropriators is with a crisis, which is why the news media makes everything seem like the end of the world yet the end never comes.
If you believe a problem is real, but don't think it is the end of the world, being honest about it may lead to your budget being cut in order to provide funds for someone else who claims their problem is the end of the world. This puts enormous pressure on people to exaggerate.
Now one of the authors of that paper has been found guilty of cheating taxpayers by padding her expense accounts by more than $7,000. For example, she claimed a $106 cost was for "PowerPoint slides" when actually it was spent at Filene's Basement department store. Donna Stroup, the guilty party, has resigned her job and will be sentenced in July.
Not every government bureaucrat is dishonest. But the temptation to overstate a problem in order to get a larger budget for your department is always great. Officials whose budgets grow the fastest are considered heroes and are often given pay raises or promotions. Sometimes, it seems that the only way to get the attention of Congressional appropriators is with a crisis, which is why the news media makes everything seem like the end of the world yet the end never comes.
If you believe a problem is real, but don't think it is the end of the world, being honest about it may lead to your budget being cut in order to provide funds for someone else who claims their problem is the end of the world. This puts enormous pressure on people to exaggerate.
