It's a transportation extravaganza this week, with articles looking at the many ways we move (and maybe don't move) throughout the region. Stalled DC Streetcar plans, a troubled Charm City Circulator in Baltimore, and let's not forget about the bevy of new bike projects in downtown Silver Spring. No matter how you get to your destination, however, you will always have stories to read along the way. Enjoy!
By David Alpert (Executive Director) • January 23, 2020
“DC Streetcar to Georgetown is dead,” read the headline. But the once-proposed DC Streetcar extension, likely in dedicated lanes, from Union Station to Georgetown didn’t just die. It died a long time ago. It’s just that reporters saw the death certificate, and that lent a certain finality to what many suspected and others already knew.
The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, along with the University of Maryland, released a smartphone app called incenTrip, which officially started servicing the region in August 2019. Commuters can earn points simply by traveling to work, whether it’s by bus, bike, walking, carpooling, or even driving a car, and they can redeem those points for money. And, for the last few months, I’ve been getting paid to commute to work.
By Canaan Merchant (Elections Committee) • January 22, 2020
Hunter Mill District Supervisor Walter Alcorn recently called for an amendment of the Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan for Reston. The Comp Plan is a sort of master document for the planning, development, and priorities for the census-designated area. The plan hasn’t been amended in five years. So what do these changes mean for the development of Reston?
Silver Spring has seen a big expansion of bike lanes in recent years, but it may only be the beginning. This week, transportation officials gave an update on several new projects in downtown Silver Spring that could make it safer to bike and walk in the area.
By Danielle Sweeney (Guest Contributor) • January 22, 2020
Baltimore’s free bus system recently turned 10 years old, but no one in Charm City (the nickname given to the city in the 70s) is exactly celebrating. The four-route bus system, called the Charm City Circulator (CCC), is far less reliable than anything the Maryland Transit Administration has on the road, and has actually lost almost two-thirds of its riders since the system first launched. What went wrong? A lot.
