The Goodspeed Update

Over $2 million has already been earmarked to convert this dreary tar triangle into a memorial and park for a famous former D.C. resident. Read more to find out the technicalities holding it up, the responses of my elected officials to the problem, and who you can write to demanding action.

After I completed my long post about the need for high quality maps and timetables for public bus systems last October, I wasn’t optimistic it would inspire much real-world improvements. Therefore I was surprised to hear a consulting company had implemented one of my suggestions in an interactive website for a California bus system.

The newest buzzword among urban scholars just might be Christopher Leinberger’s “walkable urbanism,” which he contrasts with our country’s postwar “drivable sub-urban” pattern of development. In this post I review the University of Michigan professor’s latest book The Option of Urbanism and find a refreshing, if optimistic analysis of our recent urban history. Find out what I think sets this book apart from its competition, and why Leinberger thinks reforming Wall Street’s Real Estate Investment Trusts may be the key to cultivating genuine urbanism in American again.

A diverse collection of some of the world’s most famous and interesting maps is now on display at the Field Museum of Chicago. For those in Chicago hoping to see it should hurry, as the exhibit closes January 27th. Fortunately for the rest of us, the exhibit features an elaborate online exhibit showcasing some of the cartographic treasures.

Twelve years after Congressional approval and with over $80 million raised, the foundation spearheading a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the National Mall has entered the final phase before construction: selecting materials, choosing an artist for the King sculpture, and winning approval of a final design from picky federal officials. On this Martin Luther King Day find out why the stone and sculptor selected are Chinese, and what late-breaking design changes have irked the U.S. Fine Arts Commission.

After completing my recent analysis of WMATA’s Metrorail fare increase, I decided to do some more research to better put the fares in a national context, finding D.C. Metro riders pay some of the highest subway fares in the nation. I then did a side-by-side comparison with San Francisco’s BART, considered a sister system to the D.C. Metro. The analysis of BART fares from a downtown San Francisco station shows that Bay-area suburban commuters enjoy even cheaper per-mile fares than their D.C. counterparts.

After years of inaction, the process of reconstructing the D.C. Public Library’s Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Branch seems on-track. A new temporary library hums with activity, demolition of the old building is well underway, and a meeting is scheduled later this month to reveal a preliminary design for the new building.