Monday, March 22, 2010

Monday Night Notes

Ah it's been a while. Got a bit of a chance today to throw you some links

Anyone wonder if the PDC could redevelop the Post Office property in a more urban fashion and then lease a single urban building back to the Postal Service with 5 blocks for more urban development?
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San Jose could take back roads from Caltrans in order to do things that actually move more people. San Francisco should do this with Van Ness as well. We might have actually had BRT by now if we did...
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Innovative financing mechanism in Australia for infrastructure.

The deal will enable the government to charge developers $95,000 per hectare to fund infrastructure in new fringe suburbs instead of ordinary home buyers. And instead of paying the tax up front they will pay 30 per cent when they purchase the land and the remainder in stages as the land is subdivided.

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David Lazarus says it's hard to get around on transit in LA. I wonder how far people go in LA versus other regions that makes transit so hard for people to consider. In Europe, new cell phone studies say people don't stray more than 6 miles (via Planetizen)from their home. I'd be interested to see what LA's sphere is like.
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Aaron makes a really big point that I honestly never realized was missing in the news I consume.
Newspapers used to explain what national and international trends and events meant to us, to our towns. They put the major events of the day in a local context.
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CTOD releases it's TOD and GHG report.

3 comments:

Matt Fisher said...

Yes. BRT on Van Ness is needed RIGHT NOW, NOT TOMORROW. If it becomes successful enough (and I hope it does), it can be converted to rail, just as Ottawa is planning to convert part of the Transitway to light rail.

Pedestrianist said...

WORD re Van Ness.

I've been wondering lately, is the whole length controlled by Caltrans? When they did the double-fine zone it only went from McCallister to Lombard. Does the city have exclusive control over the rest? If so, couldn't we just pinch the street off at the end between McCallister and 13th, creating a bottleneck that affects traffic along the whole length?

Pantograph Trolleypole said...

I don't know Ped. Perhaps that is a limiting factor