This show is part of PBS' Blueprint America series about U.S. infrastructure, where Kojo Nnamdi hosts a panel of transportation experts to talk about the metro Washington DC transportation blueprint and where's taking us. The first 5 minutes or so is the most important part of the whole discussions. It lays out all kinds of transportation projects each jurisdiction - District of Columbia, Maryland, Baltimore, and Virginia - are working on. (yours truly was among the audience.)
“Its not about getting people from point A to point B, but more about building better communities,” said Robert Thomson aka “Dr. Gridlock” of The Washington Post, one of three guests panelists along with Ron Kirby, Director of Transportation for the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments; and Alice M. Rivlin, Senior Fellow and Director of the Greater Washington Research at the Brookings Institute.[via Blueprint America]
Building better communities, that's the
challenges we have...
Construction of the new I-495 South (Outer Loop) bridge over Route 123 continues in Tysons Corner. When the bridge is completed this summer, traffic on I-495 South will shift to the bridge, and the original bridge over Route 123 will be demolished. After demolition, pier construction begins on the future Dulles Corridor metrorail tracks over I-495. During construction the left lanes of Route 123 under I-495 will be closed in late spring for 18-24 months.
What kind of travel management options available for employers and commuters? There's a wide range of options available from commuter solutions, carpool incentives, NOW Mega benefits program, telework!va 50k.
So, here's your getting there options.
COMMUTER OPTIONS
Tysons Connector Bus
Tysons Express from Woodbridge to Tysons
Coming soon: Tysons Express from Loudoun
Metro/Fairfax Connector Services
Vanpool and carpool incentives
Guaranteed Ride Home Program
Carpool and Vanpool matching
This is a plus if you commute from Loudoun. Loudoun Tysons Express, a June 21 start-up date, funded by Dulles metrorail project and Virginia Megaprojects as an effort to keep commuters moving during construction. It'll save commuters money on tolls and gas. The price: $3 per trip with SmarTrip card and $3.5 per trip with cash. The Loudoun Express have 55 comfy seats and free wi-fi. Take note of that. So you can keep your productivity running.
image: Loudoun Express with free wifi bus
image: Planned stops at Tysons for Loudoun Express
CARPOOL INCENTIVES
Program rollout in summer 2010. You can earn rewards with carpool, points, etc. like your frequent flyers thing. Through Commuter Connections, each person that signs up, gets a free McDonald's "Angus Third Pounder" and a $10 coupon from GrubHub that you can use towards ordering food from more than 400 restaurants in Washington metro area. Not bad.
Van Assistance program
This is part of employer solutions program. Because it's challenging to start a new vanpool with 100% of the seats filled, the Virginia Megaprojects VanStart Assistance program will help to get start a new vanpool on the road while working on rounding up people to sign up for the services. They're kicking in financial incentives to cover vacant seats for the first two months. Program only available while funds last.
EMPLOYER SOLUTIONS
For employers, they do offer bottom line incentives. It's all about bottom line! In the form of telework!va, transit and vanpool incentives.
50% for matching for new or increase, employer offer benefits combination of vanpool, transit, bike to work. The way I understand it, if employer offers SmarTrip allowance up to $230 per mo. per employee. (I might be wrong on this. My writing is so bad. So don't quote me).
employer, employee tax free benefits.
teleworkva benefits if your office located in Tysons Corner up to $50,000 just by starting or expanding company wide telework program. Up to $35,000 for companies with 20-99 employees,
there is also some tech assistance available.
If you are an employer, you might want to contact them directly, because they can help you customize your program company-wide.
Oh, if all else fails.. there's always slugging,
the instant carpooling.
Buy a new refrigerator. States are rolling out $300 million worth of rebates for home owners who replaced their clunker apps with new energy-efficient models. (check out Department of Energy approved Energy Efficiency Rebates)
Get hot water from the sun. Solar hot water system to heat your shower or radiators (not hot tub or pool) qualify for a 30% federal credit with no dollar cap.
Install a solar energy system. Uncle Sam will give you a tax credit equal to 30% of the price of a solar system you install to generate electricity in your home. For a $60,000 system, that's a whopping $18,000 off your taxes.
Take the bus. Bus, train, subway, and van-pool commuters can now get equal tax benefits with those who drive solo to work an pay to park. (up to pre-tax $230 for employers sponsor plans).
Buy a Ford hybrid. Taxpayers stuck paying the AMT can finally claim the credit for hybrid cars purchased in 2009 or 2010, but only if they buy Ford motor hybrids. (FYI: Honda and Toyota no longer qualify). Check out Alliance to Save Energy for Vehicle Tax Credits for more info.
Plug In aChevy Volt... slated later for showrooms in November with projected price of $40,000, qualifies for federal tax credit of $7,500. Nissan Leaf coming out in December, should also qualify for the credit.
Bike to work. A new law lets your employer reimburse you $20 a month for bicyle commuting as tax-free fringe benefits. Can't take both with train, it's one of the other.
Dig for heat. Uncle Sam will give you a tax credit for 30% of the cost of geothermal heat pump system that feeds off the warmth in the ground to heat your home.
Put a windmill in your yard. A basic residential windmill runs $40,000, but you can get a federal tax credit equal to a full 30% of your windmill cost.
I got this newsletter from Fairfax EDA a few days ago. This is the first issue that I received. I'm impressed. Lots of information. The Q1 2010 edition has Burke profiled on its location, which gives you snapshot of Burke neighborhood. Like the demographics, housing cost, total housing units, selected businesses and organizations in Burke.
Selected highlights on Burke:
Burke is 1,700-acre of enclave of nearly 20,000 homes.
Burke has nearly 528,000 SF of office space, 240,000 SF of industrial/flex space and 1.8 million SF of retail space.
You don't hear a lot real estate agents promote the two VRE stations in Burke. They should. Because more DC bound employees take alternative transportation like trains, the better it is for their life style and the environment.
On the bigger picture, Fairfax county based companies suppose to add or maybe already have added 5,000 new jobs in 2009. If you're looking for jobs, you can scan the 40 companies listed here that said they're either in expansion stage or new. From there, you know the drill.
Released today, two new policy briefs from the Center and MPC seek to share and expand upon the information exchanged during these sessions. While the foreclosure crisis has dominated the attention of housing policy practitioners and policymakers during much of 2008 and 2009, these briefs look to the future to address other current and looming housing challenges that are critical to the long-term success and sustainability of many communities nationwide.
This report explains how reauthorization of the federal transportation bill can incentivize the improved coordination of transportation, housing and land use policy to ensure that families across a range of incomes have access to affordable housing and efficient, accessible transportation options.
The other day I posted Getting to Walkability presentation from DC office of Planning. It got me thinking that the same method can also be used by buyers. DC is using the walkability for different things related to planning, for transportation and neighborhood livability. I know from my days in the trenches, few of my buyers were looking for the walkability factor.
Personally, for me, the ability to walk to everything comes to reality, when we had the snowoverkill last January. After two days of home stay, I walked to the nearest store 7/11.. and you know what, we had lines. As crazy as it sounds, people were actually find comfort to know that their neighborhood's store is open.
Washington DC is number 7 out of 2,508 walkable neighborhoods in the nation. You can find walkers paradise or neighborhoods that have high score of walkability in DC. Out of perfect 100 score, these are best 10 walkable neighborhoods in DC: Dupont Circle (99), Logan Circle (98), Downtown (97-all points), U Street Corridor (97), Foggy Bottom (95), Mount Vernon Square (95), Adams Morgan (93), Kalorama (92) , Friendship Heights (90) and Georgetown (90). Low on the list is Catholic U (61), Petworth (60), Foxhall Village (58), Berkley (54), Deanwood (49), The Palisades (48), Anacostia (48) and Barnaby Woods (44).
The walkable neighborhoods mostly concentrated in the District. Across the river, depending on where you want to buy - Arlington County, City of Alexandria and Falls Church - these neighborhoods offer somewhat walkable. Along the orange line, that stretch from Rosslyn to East- West Falls Church, they have some neighborhoods that have higher walkable score.
There's an advantage to living in walkable neighborhoods. You're within walking distance to shopping, transportation, parks, library and other neighborhood amenities. However, good location has something to do with home prices. The price per square footage will be higher.
Let's say, you are looking for a single home somewhere in Falls Church near zip code 22043, which is outside the boundary of the City of Falls Church. Using Homes Database, I picked these four single homes below. These four homes are somewhat comparable #1 and 2, #3 and 4.
First thing you do is to enter the address of each of the home you're looking at to get the walk scorehere. Once done, it'll populated with information that can help you decide, i.e. metro station, stores, library, school, etc. - anything that's close by.
Here's what the score tells you:
House #1: is totally car dependent. Score is 20 out of 100. The nearest 7/11 (in case of snow) is about 0.92 mi.
We don't see a lot of Subway entertainers like in New York perform in DC. This was one of those days that there was one group. And these guys come prepared, with their CDs and a manager.
IF you're buying sometime in the FY 2010 to 2020, learning the details on transportation planning slated for Northern Virginia, probably won't hurt. Just to make sure that the property you're buying is not going to ended up in some sort of eminent domain.
In addition to these corridors there are selected improvements and other improvements that include outside the corridors above. Mostly the plan involved some sorts of roads/ highways infrastructure - bypass, interchanges- whether new or widening existing roads. I'm not a big fan of more roads, I think other transportation mechanism is preferable, like light rail, small feeder buses that can connect some neighborhoods to the nearest metro stations, bike trails, pedestrian trails - anything that will help reduce road congestion. And get more people to use the mass transit.
For VA 28 corridor (Fairfax, Manassas), there's a transit plan slated for light rail from Manassas to Dulles Airport with a capital cost of $790 million. More likely for 2020 FY.
FY 2010 selected improvements metrorail extension from Dulles corridor to VA 772 in Loudoun and metrorail extension from Vienna to Centreville. (the Centreville plan I haven't heard about it).
2020 improvements include metrorail from Dunn Loring to Tysons Corner to Maryland.
Light rail in US 1 corridor from Alexandria to the Pentagon.
2010 FY and 2020 bicycle and pedestrian improvements.
2010 major improvements include Columbia Pike to Pentagon Trail, Springfield to Tysons Corner Bikeway
2020 major improvements include Light rail VA 7 -Tysons Corner to Baileys Crossroads; Columbia Pike corridor -Baileys Crossroads to Pentagon, VA-7 (4 to 6 lanes) Seven Corners to Baileys Crossroads.
"I don't believe a bicycle is a transportation device," Supervisor John Cook, R-Braddock District, said during a transportation committee meeting. "I think it's a recreation device. The big problem is people don't want to ride their bike in the rain or get sweaty before work."
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