Two Weeks and Counting 'till Zyscovich Plan for Hollywood

I know that it often seems like I'm more critical than positive suggestion here, but I have some news to share that may be of interest to some of you who come here often and know about the sorts of subjects I find of interest.

I received a very interesting Google Alert this morning about Bernard Zyscovich in my email today, which is one of the great benefits of using it, in that it does all the detective work for you.

The radio program that he has appeared on, Smart City, is one you ought to check out, as I've listened to the program before and it's usually quite good!

Not too much jargon or unrealistic pie-in-the-skly stuff.

I haven't listened to this specific one yet, but will probably go to website later, though I doubt he specifically mentions what he and his firm are up to in the City of Hollywood.

Zyscovich's zoning/design plans are supposed to be coming out around March 10th, and the romantic/producer/advance man in me almost wishes a high school band could be conjured up so that when he comes into Hollywood City Hall and makes his presentation, the band could play a fanfare and do orchestral music in the background to make it even more impressive.

Yes, I'm quite the showman!

Have it set up with townspeople listening to speakers outside City hall cheering like a 1940's Warner Brothers film, where a band greets a victorious local team coming back to town via the train station after a road win.

That was sorta the case in one of my all-time favorite films, Knute Rockne, All-American, when the Notre Dame band, students, fans and residents of South Bend and environs gathered to greet the victors after they return from their historic upset of Army in that famous 1924 game at Yankee Stadium, a game that went a long way toward making Rockne

and The Irish national icons, in part due to Grantland Rice's famous prose:

Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine,

pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. They formed the crest of the South Bend cyclone before which another fighting Army team was swept over the precipice at the Polo Grounds this afternoon as 55,000 spectators peered down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

Trust me when I tell you, I've known many people, especially in the Midwest, who know that whole thing by heart.

My knowing it once helped me clinch a trivia contest in D.C. that got me and a guest a delicious dinner at a well-known steak place famous for its media clientele.

I guess you could call that turn of phrase my meal ticket!

 

Knute Rockne, November 7, 1927

See cover story at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,731190,00.html

Sixteen months after his cover appearance, Rockne perished in an airline crash over Kansas on a business trip to California. "Knute Rockne, All-American," the wonderful 1940 film about Rockne's life, starring Pat O'Brien, with Ronald Reagan as ill-fated Irish football legend George Gipp, is a film I've seen at least two-dozen times. 

Like the best of films, every new viewing of it makes me appreciate some aspect I'd never noticed before, even though I know it by heart. 

Just like 1942's "The Pride of the Yankees" starring Gary Cooper as Yankee legend Lou Gehrig.

 

Once Zyscovich formally hands off the plan and it's adopted, it'll be up to local business people in South Florida to actually step up to the plate and take advantage of what he and his team have crafted for them to make the city more dynamic, attractive, fun and inviting.

They're being given some valuable tools, but you have to know how to use them, whether that's a full-service bookstore near an educational outlet of some sort that appeals to adults, a specialized movie theater that's near reasonably priced 

I was fortunate living in Arlington County in that I already lived in such a community, with areas that generated buzz and fun on their own merits, and not because of any PR spin, like the areas between the Rosslyn and Ballston metro stations, where I knew every building like the back of my hand. 

http://www.commuterpage.com/art/villages/index.htm

It doesn't Smell Like Teen Spirit, but rather New Urbanism, with a heavy dose of Transit-Oriented Development (TOD).

Speaking of which, reminder, Tuesday night will be the City of Aventura's night to host a SFECC meeting.

DATE:	Tuesday, February 24
LOCATION:	Aventura Community Recreation Center  Classrooms 1A, 1B and 2
ADDRESS:	3375 NE 188th St.
TIME:	6 - 8 p.m.

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http://www.smartcityradio.com/smartcityradio/

Resilient Cities and Real Urbanism This Week on Smart City
We'll speak with two people with grand ideas for the future of city living. 
First we'll speak with Tim Beatley co-author of the book Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change. He says it will take intelligent planning and visionary leadership for cities to respond to environmental and economic crises now and in the future. 

And we'll speak with architect Bernard Zyscovich. Bernard has designed many buildings all over the U.S. but he's turned his eye to urban design in his new book Getting Real About Urbanism: Contextual Design for Cities"

Positive news re Central Florida commuter rail getting props from biz community -FINALLY opposing Sen. Dockery publicly; SFTRA in Miami

Excerpt of email I sent out on Friday to some public policy people in the region on Friday.
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Friday November 7th, 2008
4:45 p.m.

The optimist in me hopes that this blog post on the Central Florida Political Pulse is a sign that folks heretofore sitting on the fence on this issue in Polk County, are finally coming to their senses and realizing that they can't let the power and reach of one particularly powerful and popular politician like State Sen. Paula Dockery put them and their area at an economic and competitive disadvantage to others - perhaps forever- simply because of her personal parochial beliefs, since the chance to do the right thing and be part of a larger interconnected transit system may just come once. (Disclaimer: My mother lives in Polk County, specifically, Babson Park.)
http://www.flsenate.gov/Legislators/index.cfm?Members=View+Page&LastName=Dockery&District_Num_Link=015&Title=-%3ESenat

Finally some signs of push back among the business community of the sort we'll need to see much more of in the future so this state doesn't continue to be a laughingstock in so many areas of public policy and common sense, like simply getting the largest number of people from Point A to Point B as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For backgrounder info or to remember who's on what side of this argument, since it's easy to get confused, go to http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/commuter_rail/index.html

As of today I plan on being at next Friday morning's SFRTA Transportation Workshop for Miami-Dade County, below, and the one in Broward on the 19th as well.
I hope to see many of you there, too, offering your positive ideas.

By the way, thanks to Governing.com's 13th Floor blog, http://governing.typepad.com/13thfloor/
recently running a post about the American Planning Associan's (APA) Top Streets in America,
http://www.planning.org/greatplaces/streets/characteristics.htm#1 I recently learned that one of the best streets in an old neighborhood of mine during my 15 years in DC, Clarendon, in Arlington, VA, made the 2008 list. http://www.planning.org/greatplaces/streets/2008/clarendonwilson.htm
Clarendon-Wilson Corridor, Arlington, Virginia. Transit Provided Catalyst for Corridor Smart Growth



Not mentioned at the link above is that it's also home to the Little Saigon restaurant area, home of both the THE BEST and THE CHEAPEST Vietnamese restaurants in all DC, which, fortunately, in many cases were one and the same, including my beloved Queen Bee.



There is no place in South Florida even close to offering that kind of consistent quality of Vietnamese food, size of servings and price.
I'd have mentioned it by now if there was.


People from all over DC routinely hop on the Washington Metro to get around on weekends, and one of those places is that little dynamic area of Northern Virginia less than three miles from Georgetown.

Me, I often ate there the day after Thanksgiving, after the afternoon college football games, often with friends who also didn't leave for the holiday to visit their families.


That sort of dynamic template and magnet for people is the one that I always have in my head when I travel around South Florida, and see how things are done here -or aren't.

I suppose that also makes me more critical -hypercritical?- than many about many of the poorly thought-out plans I often see and read about in South Florida.


Frankly, damn few of them ever seem as either meticulously planned or as grounded in human behavior/psychology and common sense as those of Bernard Zyscovich and his team, but it doesn't mean that I don't wish that the positive neighborhood synergy self-evident at places like Clarendon & Wilson couldn't also be done here, with some local flavor.

From my experience down here the past five years, Downtown Hollywood is a perfect example of an area that would similarly boom once there's a commuter train station on Hollywood Blvd., though there are a few other areas down here that I also think would experience a similar positive jolt that could have ripple effects.

That's one of the reasons I'm such a strong proponent of the SFECC.


I know exactly what it will do for quality-of-life because I've already experienced it.

By the way, one of my former housemates when I lived in that area of Arlington in the mid-90's, which included a horrible week-long blizzard we suffered through, is Derek Schmidt, the current Senate Majority Leader in Kansas, and someone whom I'm sure who'll make it even bigger nationally in the coming years.

You heard it here first!
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There were no comments posted to the below as of 3 pm.

http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/2008/11/polk-economic-d.html
Polk economic development group endorses commuter railposted by Orlando Sentinel on Nov 7, 2008 12:13:11 PM

A group that promotes economic development in Polk County has endorsed the Central Florida Commuter Rail Project, putting them at odds with the project's Lakeland-based critics led by Republican Sen. Paula Dockery.
The board of the Central Florida Development Council, Inc. (CFDC) unanimously endorsed the project, which would buy up 61.5 miles of CSX tracks through Central Florida to run light-rail trains from DeLand through Seminole and Orange Counties to Poinciana. The group expressed hope that ultimately the project would extend to Polk County.
"We believe the commuter rail project will stimulate growth and job opportunities in Central Florida and will greatly improve the quality of life for our citizens and visitors," said David Touchton, CFDC president. "It is more critical than ever to provide an alternative to automobile travel as gas prices escalate and new federal air quality standards for ozone put Central Florida at risk of becoming a non-attainment area which could result in sanctions and could slow much needed development."
The council is a private, non-profit 501 C-6 corporation and has a countywide board of directors interested in promoting the community and economic development of Polk County.Dockery and other Lakeland residents have protested that the commuter-rail project would also re-route CSX freight trains, sending more of them through downtown Lakeland.
She led the opposition in last year's Legislature, where the project died without coming to a vote in the Senate.


http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_politics/


http://www.flsenate.gov/Legislators/index.cfm?Members=View+Page&LastName=Dockery&District_Num_Link=015&Title=-%3ESenat

Talking globally, polluting locally in Hallandale Beach. Another galling example of hypocrisy that exposes what elected officials and bureaucrats at South Florida City Halls say -and what they actually DO!

Talking globally, polluting locally in Hallandale Beach. Another galling example of hypocrisy that exposes what elected officials and bureaucrats at South Florida City Halls say -and what they actually DO!

Hallandale Beach City Hall, second floor conference room
May 13, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

The bottle creates a simulated image, as the inner back of the bottle features a depiction of a beach scene, with the city's Water Tower and logo framing the image on the front.

June 20, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier

A close-up view of the front of the plastic Hallandale Beach water bottle.

June 20, 2008 photo by South Beach Hoosier.

The first photograph above was taken by South Beach Hoosier in mid-May at Hallandale Beach City Hall, during a lunch break of a public meeting among the City Commission, the City Manager and his staff and Dept. directors discussing preliminary plans and projections for the city's budget, which will be finalized in August.
There were periods during each agenda item for residents to ask questions, and I twice took advantage of this opportunity, the subjects of which will be discussed in future posts here.

Upon entering the second floor conference room, which was actually two smaller rooms with a room divider pushed to the side, one encountered a table full of coffee, bagels, some spreads and packs of eight-ounce plastic water bottles -featuring the iconic Hallandale Beach Water Tower on them.
They were provided by the city for members of the City Commission, the City manager and his staff and the public, since the meeting was slated to be an all day affair. (And it was.)

The first photo, one of several that I snapped of those plastic bottles in a Hallandale Beach City Hall garbage bin, was taken for the simple reason that there were no plastic or cardboard recycling bins in the room.

This was ironic given that earlier, your faithful blogger had asked a series of simple yet relevant questions of the City Commission, City Manager Mike Good about his staff about the self-evident problem over at the beach that everyone ignores.
How, despite their great lip service over the past few years about taking better care of the city's resources, which would have to start with the beach itself, among many other problems, there was a complete absence of ANY recycling bins at the beach, stretching back several years.

You can literally find plastic bottles and aluminum cans everywhere on the beach, whether rusting and mixed-in with the protected plants like sea oats and sea grapes, or overflowing the garbage cans, especially on three day weekends, with the predictable increase in refuse.

You'd think this would all be easy to predict, but then you have to remember where you are...

That leads to an ancillary problem, since unlike the City of Hollywood's general practice on their beaches, Hallandale Beach uses garbage receptacles on the beach without lids.
So, the conscious decision to place garbage cans without lids at the windiest place in the city leads to entirely predictable results, since it doesn't take much for items to simply pop out or blow out of the bins, with the city's lifeguards, who are contractors from Jeff Ellis and Associates, forced to clean-up, too, rather than concentrate solely on their number one job of public safety.

I'll have separate posts soon on the garbage and recycling problems at Hallandale Beach, replete with photos that illuminate the nature of this easily-solved but longstanding bureaucratic problem, which is the logical result of a continued lack of common sense, proper governance and oversight in the city of city employees at 400 S. Federal Highway.

The problem in that conference room is duplicated whenever the city hosts public meetings or events next door at the Hallandale Beach Community Cultural Center, as they did last Wednesday for a Joint Meeting of the City of Hollywood and HB City Commissions, to discuss items of mutual interest, or the previous week for the Hurricane Forum.

Personally, to the great consternation of some friends, I've always recycled, going back to my fifteen years of living in Arlington County, VA, where it was mandatory, but where a large numbers of brightly colored bins were provides to city residents.

Arlington County also had a large and well-thought out recycling facility less than a mile from my home, just a block or two away from The Ballston Mall, and a block south of the Ballston Metro Station and the headquarters of the National Science Foundation.

It could hardly have been better organized, better run or well lit at night, as there were huge tractor trailers with slots that segregated each of the many recycled items they accepted there.

See

http://www.co.arlington.va.us/Departments/EnvironmentalServices/swd/EnvironmentalServicesSwdQuincypic.aspx

and

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/EnvironmentalServices/swd/EnvironmentalServicesSwdRecycling.aspx

These factors not only removed the usual alibis people make for not participating, since it was on the way to lots of places people were already in the habit of visiting, but also tended to make it rather self-policing, since it was always very obvious when someone else was putting the wrong material into a trailer bin.

And unlike this area, all Arlington County fire stations are equipped with buckets or bins near their entrances or parking lots where residents could turn in household batteries, which weren't supposed to be put in with regular garbage.

Frankly, over the years, I've even grown accustomed to re-using my own plastic water bottles over and over, or filling a 20-oz Coke bottle with Brita-filtered water if I'm going to be outside for a while.

Since they fit snug in the small tote bag I take with me everywhere, it's often proved a lifesaver on those days when I find myself having walked farther than I planned, or stuck somewhere when I need to fight off a coughing fit -like at a public meeting.

But, obviously, I'm not typical of this area in terms of my ingrained recycling habits, since I've got a relative down here who not only doesn't recycle -anything- but who loves taunting me when I'm over at their home before they toss something into their kitchen garbage bin, knowing full well that it's something that I'd be recycling if I were at my home.

http://www.miamiherald.com/548/story/576857.html

Miami Herald
Anti-bottled water campaign enlists mayors to causeBy Taylor Barnes
June 20th, 2008

An aisle at the Publix on Seventh Street in downtown Miami gleams with shelf upon shelf of bottled water that boasts of originating from the French Alps to Fiji.

But those bottles of water are increasingly coming under attack from environmental activists, who maintain tap water is better and bottled water is economically unsound and environmentally harmful, a position the bottling industry disputes.

The city of Miami has joined the fray, ordering officials in March to stop spending city money on bottled water in under two-liter containers.

Miami's Mayor Manny Diaz is among more than a dozen mayors calling on municipal governments to phase out bottled-water purchases in a resolution to be presented at the U.S. Mayors Conference, which begins Friday in Miami.

The bottles aren't just out at City Hall. Pacific Time and Fratelli Lyon, neighboring restaurants in Miami's Design District, have stopped selling bottled water and only serve tap. Sales of bottled water at Pacific Time used to bring in $80,000 in annual revenues from sales of about 12,000 bottles, the restaurant's chef and owner Jonathan Eismann said Thursday at an event to promote tap usage.

Eismann said that not selling bottles reduces waste and is a way to "encourage more sustainable eating habits.''

But bottled water remains ubiquitous with many consumers, like Ariadna Barrantens of Miami, who shun tap water and exclusively drink bottled.

While picking up a few gallons at Publix this week, she said she uses bottled water even to make coffee because she does not trust the quality of what comes out of her faucet. She added, though, that she sometimes wonders whether bottled water is much better.

The belief that tap water is less healthy and less pure than bottled water has city officials and activists worried.

Deborah Lapidus, who represents the Think Outside the Bottle campaign that organized Thursday's event, blames ''tricky marketing and clever labels'' used by companies selling bottled water for the perception their products are better than tap.

Bottling industry officials contend bottled water is purified more than tap water. Allegations by anti-bottle activists are simply ''green-washing,'' said Kevin Keane, a spokesman for the American Beverage Association. He said bottled water is convenient and is useful during emergencies such as hurricanes.

Lapidus' group argues that the popularity of bottled water reduces the political will to maintain and improve infrastructure to ensure quality municipal water. Still, she encourages people to switch to tap water and praised Miami for having some of the highest-quality tap water in the nation.

Diaz supports the cause, saying that Miami has great water and it's cheaper.

City Commissioner Marc Sarnoff, who pushed for the City Hall ban -- which he says could save the city as much as $200,000 a year -- joined the tap movement because of concerns about litter. He said 85 percent of bottles are not recycled, and contribute to clogging in Miami's sewer systems.

He attributed current flooding in Brickell and the Venetian Islands to sewer systems stuffed with the plastic containers. He also pointed out that it takes petroleum to make the bottles, holding up a plastic bottle filled with dark liquid. He said almost a quarter of the liquid represented the oil needed to produce and transport the bottle.

The pro-tap movement has yet to make a dent in sales of bottled water, which continued to grow in 2007, according to John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest magazine. He said the sales growth had slowed slightly from 2006 to 2007. He attributed that to the economic downturn and said it was ''too early to tell'' if the movement against bottled water was affecting the industry.

The trend is taking hold in some quarters. On a recent film shoot in South Beach, the producers of the new comedy Farlanders, starring John Krasinski and Maggie Gyllenhaal, banned coolers of water bottles from the set.

Instead, cast and crew were given washable aluminum bottles that they filled from large water jugs, said city of Miami Beach film coordinator Graham Winick. Cups for cold drinks like punch and soda were made from corn, as were the trash bags. Coffee cups were biodegradable, too, Winick said.

'It is the first almost fully `green' shoot we've had,'' Winick said in an e-mail.

Miami Herald staff writer Douglas Hanks contributed to this report.

_________________________________________________
Also read this amusing article

New York Times

Water, Water Everywhere, but Guilt by the Bottleful

By Alex Williams

August 12, 2007

On a recent family vacation in Cape Cod, Jenny Pollack, 40, a novelist and public relations associate from Brooklyn, did something she knew she would come to regret. She did it on the spur of the moment. She did it because she felt desperate.

Besides, the giant illuminated Dasani vending machine was just standing there, like a beacon.

So, with her reusable plastic Nalgene bottles dry and her son Charlie working up a thirst in an indoor playground, she broke down and bought a bottle of water. To most people it would be a simple act of self-refreshment, but to Ms. Pollack it was also a minor offense against the planet — think of all the oil used to package, transport and refrigerate that water.

Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/fashion/12water.html?ref=style

re "Mapping Transportation Costs for Home Buyers"; transit run amuck

My comments follow the article.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/12/AR2008041200150_pf.html

Mapping Transportation Costs for Home Buyers
By Elizabeth Razzi
April 13, 2008

When you're stuck in Beltway traffic burning $3-a-gallon gasoline to creep along at walking speed, it offers time to think. Would it be easier if I left home earlier? Would I be better off riding a train? How bad will my commute be in five years? Would life be easier and cheaper if I found a job in Pittsburgh or Nashville or some other place where the roads aren't as crowded and the homes aren't so expensive?

A new Web-based tool developed by the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a Chicago-based urban development think tank, can help put facts behind those daydreams. The CNT developed a Web site, at http://htaindex.cnt.org, that takes into account household expenditures for transportation, along with home prices, to estimate whether a home is truly affordable for households with moderate incomes.

Academics at the CNT argue that a home isn't really affordable if its location forces a household to devote an excessive amount of the family budget to transportation. How much is excessive? They say 18 percent of the area's median pretax income is typical; lowering that to 15 percent would be better. That's on top of the 30 percent of pretax income that they estimate as an affordable budget for a home's mortgage principal and interest plus property taxes and homeowners' insurance, which lenders call PITI.

With gasoline prices nearing $3.50 per gallon and Metro fares that recently increased by the largest amount in the transit system's history, keeping Washington-area transportation costs below those thresholds is only going to become more difficult.

The Web site is a data fest even by wonk standards. It's a map-based tool offering information on housing and transportation costs for 52 metropolitan areas, including the Washington-Baltimore area. You can zoom in on individual neighborhoods and pull up U.S. Census information on the percentage of neighborhood residents who use mass transit, their average monthly spending on transportation, the number of wage-earners and cars per household, and other data. The Web site also displays nearby subway and commuter rail lines and stations.

The interactive maps are the type of thing urban planners will pick apart with gusto, but they're also an interesting tool for people pondering a move. It wouldn't be surprising if the information is eventually woven into real estate search tools, such as the local multiple-listing service or Zillow.com.

Other housing-affordability measures ignore the need to travel, CNT President Scott Bernstein said. Travel consists of more than your daily commute. "Only 20 percent of the trips we take in America are to work," Bernstein said. All those other little trips, runs to the grocery store, Little League games and the dry cleaner's, actually make up the bulk of our travel.

It's no surprise that most neighborhoods in the District score high on combined affordability. Despite a lack of grocery stores in too many neighborhoods, many have good access to bus and subway service, retail shops and places of worship that are within walking distance or a short drive away.

What is surprising is that pockets of combined home/transit affordability are scattered across the far-out suburbs that are usually assailed for their dependence on automobiles. This reflects the way development has been happening in some of these communities, where jobs, shopping and recreation are developed near each other, creating little urban-ish centers out in the 'burbs.

For example, the map shows splotches of affordability -- where housing and transportation costs combined consume less than 48 percent of the median income -- throughout the suburbs, including areas around Gaithersburg, Bowie, Chantilly (VA) and Dale City (VA).


But you also can find pockets of un-affordability in the farthest reaches of the Washington area. Combined housing/transportation costs exceed that 48 percent threshold in the Solomons Island area of Calvert County, according to the Web site.

The site has some major drawbacks. Although it was launched nationwide only last week, the database uses 2000 Census data, which are growing stale. Housing and transportation expenses have soared since the government collected that information. Even the recent decline in home prices has barely unwound the big run-up in values that occurred after 2000.
"The trend is sort of in the wrong direction," said Peter Haas, director of CNT's geography, research and information department, who acknowledged that housing and transportation costs are now greater than those reflected on the Web site.

The site also reports $57,291 as the median income for the Washington-Baltimore metropolitan statistical area. That's on the low side for Washington, where more recent Census Bureau


estimates pegged the median at $78,978. The lower figure is based on the Census Bureau definition of the Washington-Baltimore MSA as stretching from the Chesapeake Bay west into parts of West Virginia, where lower wages pull down the average.

The outdated numbers mean you can't simply pluck a dollar amount from the Web site and use it as the basis for your real-live, right-now budget. But you can still use the site to compare one neighborhood to another. Then you can develop your own price estimates to help gauge whether a home will truly be affordable once you add in the transportation expenses you will bear once living there.

Always do a trial commute during rush hour before you make an offer on a home. Time the ride and estimate your gas consumption. If you're thinking of taking Metro or commuter rail, price out the weekly expense.

As you size up neighborhoods, take the time to figure out where you will worship, buy groceries, go to the movies, enroll the kids in dance class or pick up an extra gallon of milk. Is bus or rail service available, even if only as a backup for days when your car is in the shop? Will your children be able to ride bicycles to the pool, or does a six-lane highway make that too dangerous?

It's easy to underestimate your total transportation budget when you house-hunt on a quiet Sunday afternoon. And misjudging your travel needs can seriously derail your after-purchase budget.
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Reader comments at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/12/AR2008041200150_Comments.html
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My favorite quote from article above:
"The Web site is a data fest even by wonk standards."

Naturally, this being a Washington Post story, i.e. with impact and reach far beyond the D.C. area, the reader comments within 12 hours of this story seeing the light of day included one from what I'm sure is an Obama-supporter blaming SUVs for the Fall of the Roman Empire, and yet another pitching real estate, witness:



1.) "To all the Americans who spend an hour or two commuting in a SUV, truck or other gas guzzling vehicles....you deserve the pain you are experiences in the pocketbook. It won't get any cheaper."



2.) "Buy now in South Arlington between Shirlington and Clarendon before it's too late. Summer 2010 will e stoo late."

Yes, the real estate sickness is as out-of-control in D.C. as here.
But at least the latter has the virtue of being correct.

South Arlington between the Shirlington area -near WETA-TV, where PBS' Jim Lehrer News Hour is produced- and Clarendon in central Arlington is a pretty good place, esp. now that the mass transit there is getting much improved, courtesy of a coming trolley and better access to the Pentagon Metro Station.

See http://www.piketransit.com/default_old.aspx and http://www.stationmasters.com/System_Map/PENTAGON/pentagon.html


I lived for three years not far from Fort Myer and the Clarendon Metro (and The American Spectator magazine, founded in Bloomington by conservative IU grad R. Emmett Tyrell )

See http://www.walkarlington.com/walkable/clarendon.html and
http://www.stationmasters.com/System_Map/CLARENDN/clarendn.html

That included two years (and one insane blizzard) with a great former housemate, who, as I've written before, is now the Kansas Senate Majority Leader, a former Editor of The Daily Kansan in Lawrence and a Georgetown Law grad, to boot. And someone with a great political future!

Trust me when I tell you, the coterie of South Miami/Gables young professionals along S. Dixie Hwy. only wish they had an area that's as convenient, fun, dynamic and easy to get around on foot, as the Clarendon and Court House Metro areas of Arlington, where there is a range of interesting retail, recreation and office space that I've yet to discover down here.
I mean there was an Apple Computer store there before there was one in D.C., capisce?

See http://www.commuterpage.com/art/villages/courthouse2.htm and
http://www.stationmasters.com/System_Map/COURTHSE/courthse.html

The AMC Courthouse Theatre there is where I probably saw about 75% of all the films I saw over a period of 15 years. And talk about close, from the top of the Metro escalator to the theatre box office is maybe 50 feet away. As is the entrance to the Arlington County Govt. Bldg.

For the last seven years I lived in Arlington County, I lived near the Ballston Metro Station, http://www.commuterpage.com/art/villages/ballston2.htm , which is exactly the kind of urban, transit-oriented area along what's W. Dixie Highway and First Avenue from a future Aventura train station around N.E. 203rd Street, north thru Hallandale Beach and continuing past Hollywood should be like.

It's embarrassing that for all the talk about taking advantage of future transit, the only thing remotely like it so far is Hollywood Station, http://www.hollywoodstation.com/

As I've mentioned to many other transit-oriented public policy people in both Broward and Miami-Dade, just the idea that the Broward County Commission would even consider thinking of building a new HQ for Broward County Govt. or a new County Courthouse in the future that was NOT within a short walking distance of either the Tri-Rail or a future train station along the FEC tracks, is preposterous, and certainly something I'd fight.

That sort of backward thinking is why a pro-transit voter like me was thumbs down on the proposed penny/transit tax two years ago.

Speaking of a myopic transit situation, see this great Orlando Sentinel story from Wednesday, Judge tosses thousands of citations, fumes at toll 'injustice' by Rene Stutzman, Sentinel Staff Writer, April 23, 2008 http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/seminole/orl-toll2308apr23,0,2167491.story

This story is interesting for any number of reasons, not the least of which is that 1.) it actually didn't happen in South Florida, and 2.) in a story about motor vehicles, the photo depicting the family featured in the story is of them on a plane. And you've got to read the reader comments, too, at: http://www.topix.net/forum/source/orlando-sentinel/THTFVV0K4DAGQSVD8

But, of course, as I have often lamented here and in South Beach Hoosier, when it comes to transportation and civic design that promotes and complements smart, planned growth, almost everyone in authority down here acts like they first have to re-invent the wheel.

But only after numerous payments to a series of consultants that will tell them in the end what common sense should've told 'em anyway.

I'll discuss this WaPo article in the future from a South Florida perspective, as well as show how even the Washington Metro that most Washingtonians find indispensible to their quality of life, like the Miami-Dade Metrorail, is not without its problems. http://www.wmata.com/

On the other hand, they never gave up and abandoned a station due to the homeless problem.

That painful lesson was brought home to me again on Wednesday by a post by blogger Cindy Cruciger of Computer Colonics, http://www.ferfelabat.com/ , which I first heard about that same day via South Florida Daily Blog, http://southfloridadailyblog.blogspot.com/ .

In an amusing but forthright essay titled Walking in Miami,
http://www.ferfelabat.com/?p=848 , she questioned the sanity of actually following in the literal footsteps of the Herald's Anna Menendez, http://www.miamiherald.com/news/columnists/ana_menendez/story/506010.html

I recall when I came down here from Arlington four years ago and was told that the county had thrown in the towel on that station, thinking someone was pulling my leg.
Nope!

My next post will tell of a recent outrage against a smarter transporation policy perpetrated on the citizens of Hallandale Beach by their elected City Commission and Mayor, acting out of an overabundance of stupidity and myopia, and a dearth of information and preparation.

For more transit oriented articles and stories, see: http://www.commuterpage.com/cnews/current.cfm#story11893