Since former streetcar czar Scott Kubly left for greener pastures (and his old boss) in Chicago, the District's snazzy red transit innovations—Bikeshare, the Circulator, the streetcar—have been under interim management. The head of the appropriately-named Progressive Transportation Services Administration is an important pick, since these transit systems are relatively new and rapidly evolving, and the District [...]

The now-former site of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center is a prime site for development for lots of reasons: It's a big contiguous lot on a couple of major thoroughfares in the middle of relatively dense, prosperous neighborhoods. What it doesn't have is a metro stop, and a planned streetcar route is so far [...]

Willard Intercontinental Hotel, sidewalk hog. (Lydia DePillis)

The sidewalk in front of the Willard Intercontinental Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, right across from the White House, is one of the most spacious in the city. And yet, the hotel's Cafe du Parc has seen fit to take up almost the entire thing, such that a pedestrian could [...]

There’s something comfortingly nostalgic about the blue and white tour buses that trundle around the National Mall—low to the ground, license-plate-free—every day except the Fourth of July and Christmas. The Tourmobile’s old school-bus-style bench seats, the retro font, and the festive patter of tour narrators as they herald each upcoming attraction call to mind a [...]

In March, we learned about how the Office of Planning had nudged WV Urban Development into making its depressingly large, car-centric Walmart/Lowes/Other Chain Store project on New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road NE slightly more people-friendly. Now, the District Department of Transportation has seen what it needs to sign off on the plan as well, [...]

Could it be coming to an end? Could it possibly?
Well, a part of it, at least. Today, the District Department of Transportation released its National Environmental Policy Act-required Finding of No Significant Impact (affectionately known as a Fonzi) on a plan for the Klingle Trail–the washed-out road that once connected Woodley Park with Beach Drive [...]

For all the griping about overhead wires and interminable construction, one of the biggest knocks on D.C.'s streetcar project–emanating largely from the Committee of 100–has been a lack of deliberate planning.
That ends with the next set of tracks, into Anacostia. This time, because the city needs to be eligible for federal funding, they're following the [...]

The Sherman Avenue streetscape project is finally getting rolling this week, in what DDOT director Gabe Klein says will transform a "barren raceway prioritizing just cars" into a "beautiful, tree-lined residential street with wide sidewalks, shorter crosswalks and bike lanes in both directions." Good news, to be sure, especially considering that project was supposed to [...]

Here's the thing about Capital Bikeshare: The more stations there are, the more valuable the whole system becomes to its users, since they can access bikes in more places and get closer to where they need to go. The system is beautifully scalable; new stations can go wherever they're wanted. The problem, of course, is [...]

The Department of Real Estate Services tells me that Councilmember Marion Barry has dropped his disapproval resolution on the District Department of Transportation's move to 55 M Street SE, which momentarily put the whole thing in limbo. That means the move can go forward as planned, without having to wait through another 35-day review period until [...]