"Short term vs. long term thinking: transit, the Washington Examiner, Fairfax/Loudoun Counties vs. DC ," Richard Layman, March 3, 2011

Note:  This blog post by Richard Layman, an urban revitalization consultant, on his blog Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space is an extended discussion of the coming of the Silver Line and its impact. 

On Tuesday, I went to a one-day regional conference on the regional outlook for real estate development, sponsored by the Bisnow real estate e-newsletters. There were four panels and all were quite interesting.

Wearing two hats--looking for developers interested in better integrating bicycling facilities into their projects while still having my advocate's perspective in terms of pro-center city and optimal mobility development policies--made the conference especially interesting.

For example, while it wasn't a surprise because that's how business works, I really hadn't considered the enormity of the transformational impacts of the coming "Silver Line" heavy rail service to those parts of Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, especially of course, Tysons Corner, where the service will have the most transformational impacts, even though the ostensible purpose of the Silver Line is to provide subway service to Dulles Airport. . . .

 For the rest of this post, click here.