The numbers don't add up

According to Fairfax County's Anticipating the Future study, Gerald Connolly states "We have taken the ideal of the American melting pot and made it real".

Most Cultural Anthropologists agree that the melting pot idea was one that envisioned stripping the cultural diversity from a person, and assimilating them into the mainstream "American way". It is more tossed salad characteristic that makes us great.

It is this outdated form of thought, from these old school leaders that keeps us in the current state of economic and social repression leading to recession and depression.

So in looking deeper at this study, some conclusions can be drawn.

1. The County is more populated than the entire state of Montana, yet Missoula has topped the rankings of walkable towns for years. If you don't believe me check here: http://www.walkable.org/article2.htm

We are not trying hard enough folks.

2. The County is supposed to be entering post-suburbanization. Ok, we admit that the era of large farm parcels that sold out to developers in the 1960's-1980's has pretty much ended, but the entire County is a suburb. Until it realizes that people outside of the County come here, it will never shake this mentality. There needs to be a more efficient way to move these people other than adding lanes to I-66, building overpasses, and more and more strip malls catering to the driver.

3. The study states that job growth will outpace housing. Duh. There is a general jobs:housing ratio issue throughout all of NOVA, far too many jobs per available houses = sprawl and enhances the suburb.


TELECOMMUTING, I'm telling you it is a simple solution. Another simple solution, send Connolly to Congress so he can keep practicing 40 year old cultural, political, and planning practices somewhere else, and perhaps Metro extension will be his pet project and Dulles Rail may happen.

We like this

We're probably late in the game to finding this, but good old Webster's site allows us to type in bad words and the narrator will say them back. We urge you to be creative, it's quite funny!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary

1000 lbs flying squirrel

BeyondBeyondDC wishes to point out that the Tyson's Corner land use plan looks like a flying squirrel. There's not much more to say, except that the County could emphasize development around the suburbs, providing work options around affordable family housing, and filling in the gaps between places such as Manassas, Centreville, and Sterling/Ashburn. People form these locations travel to Tysons on a daily basis; no real transit options for them, and sparce employment opportunities. They could deconstruct the flying squirrel and spread the wealth throughout the county. Afterall, who wants to live near their jobs, they would just work more hours, resulting in a larger American unhappiness.

Feel like take out?

CommuterPageBlog asserts that the average Washingtonian can save $10,593 a year by going car free. Well, that could buy quite a bit of take out, saving an average of an hour's time of cooking and doing dishes. http://www.commuterpageblog.com/2008/09/could-you-use-a.html

Well, it doesn't work quite so well in Fairfax. At an average of $3.85 per gallon, BeyondBeyondDC only saves about $0.60 a day by taking the bus, and loses about 45 minutes in transit time. It actually takes longer to ride the bus and costs virtually the same. I suppose I could car pool, cut traffic and save money, but having a chatty person in the car early in the morning doesn't work too well. So, factoring in car payments, wear, and insurance, I suppose I could save $4,000 a year, but I would not have a car for the weekends and buying large items from the store, or going on trips.

TELECOMMUTING! I would save $1,200 in real money I spend in gas just getting to work.

Darned Hackers!!!!

BeyondDC is temporarily offline
BeyondDC was hacked over the weekend. We are working with our host to bring the site back online and improve security.
While we're offline, get your DC urbanist blogging fix at Greater Greater Washington, Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, CommuterPageBlog, and The Bellows.
Actually, you should go to those sites all the time. But don't forget to come back here too.

Get out your foil hats. Could it be? Oil lovin' left wingers . . . did they. . . did they sabotage BeyondDC.com at such a crucial time in the elections just because it promotes mass transit? BeyondBeyondDC thinks it was probably Obama, as he promotes change, and since Metro has big glass windows, he cannot change on his way to work without being seen by passers by, and perhaps it's strategy to blame the Maverick for trying to put an end to oil consumption. After all, we need to cut our dependence on foreign mass transit.

In any event, we hope that our good friend BeyondDC can get his site back up and running, it's very hard to keep writing about error messages.

Hackers, are they really underground ideal citizens?

WTF? -BeyondDC.com appears to have succumbed to a hack or something. I suppose hackers should get credit for sitting in their mom's basements using computers, as this technically constitutes telecommuting. Most don't have drivers licenses, thus they mainly ride bikes or take public transit.

Loose Change - jingle jingle

Driving home from work today really was a challenge. The normal intersection that I take to turn onto the arterial was severely over capacity, so I tried an alternate route, only to find it was worse. Then it was a game of back tracking, cutting through subdivisions, stopping for coffee, and cussing at Toyota Prius drivers for sitting in the middle of intersections because they was through on red. . .

Then it dawned on me, a good 1/3 of these people could be sitting at home working on laptops. The 1.5 hours I spent in the car could have went into FREE work for my employer. I would happily work extra hours for free if telecommuting were an actual option.

Instead, our creative governments come up with multi-billion dollar "fixes" to help with congestion, talk about losing loose change. My simple and free solution takes pressure off of the road networks, reduces gas consumption, helps the environment, provides extra free labor, and best of all, I'd be more than happy to spend $100 a month on commodities instead of gas. I'd only imagine the economy would benefit from something like this. So how about it the Maverick and Mr. Change, why don't I see either of you promoting this in your campaign ads?

Very nice bikes

http://www.pashley.co.uk/

We're going to depart from our usual rehash of BeyondDC's posts to have a look at a very nice line of handmade bicycles that we stumbled across. Pashley Cycles are hand built in England, and are a very posh and elegant take on the classic years of bicycles. Styled after those great roadster mounts from the 1940's - 60's, they offer a great way to tool around on a lazy Sunday afternoon wearing a Harris Tweed jacket, and old school pants. They're pricey, but so is a Smartcar.

BeyondBeyondDC thinks that Fairfax County should enhance the off street bike trail network it has so that we can travel from home to work on a bike path, and not have to take three major highways.

Tunnel vision

WMATA charges to switch between Metro Center and Gallery Place. That sucks. Riding on a stinky old train with hobos is bad enough, but charging double just isn't right. BeyondBeyondDC urges people to protest riding Metro, along with protesting driving, protesting riding buses, bicycles, horses, and walking. Basically, we all need to slow down and stay at home for a few weeks and not really do anything. Let's sock it to our elected officials and the oil corporations by just doing nothing. After a few weeks, they'll get the picture.

If this isn't an option, catching a ride in a shopping cart is one of the better ways to get around.