Monday, March 8, 2010

what's up the pike: "no, that was a train"


- Check out this video of blasting at the Silver Spring Transit Center, which will continue at least through the end of March. It's preparing the site for actual construction, which should start later this year and be completed some time in 2011. You'll have to skip to about 0:45 to see the actual blast, but it's still pretty cool.

- Tonight, local swing band Swingtopia returns to the Greek Village Restaurant in Colesville. Swingtopia is an eight-piece outfit led by Doug Elliott and featuring our very own Cyndy, who writes the blog Photocynthesis, on the bass. Check them out at 8pm at the restaurant, located at New Hampshire Avenue and Randolph Road.

- A study on the demographics of downtown Wheaton prepared by county planners for the new Wheaton CBD Sector Plan reveals that the neighborhood has a substantial population of young, single people, meaning there's totally a market for all the new apartments going up in the area. The study also says that Wheaton's Hispanic population is smaller than that in other downtowns like Silver Spring or Gaithersburg, surprising given the number of ethnic businesses in the area.

- Developers are required to build eight stories of parking for an office building that'll go up with the Fillmore music hall in Downtown Silver Spring. Seriously? Does anyone know that they're, like, three blocks from the second-biggest transit center in the state?

- A new electric bike store will open in Takoma Park just in time for Earth Day. The Green Commuter will "will sell and rent electric bikes, conventional bikes, and e-scooters along with parts, accessories and kits to electrify a standard bicycle" in addition to providing bike repairs, according to a press release. You'll find them at 7320 Carroll Avenue in Old Takoma.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow thats pretty cool - i am surprised they didnt stop nearby traffic first as thats quite a shift!

retgroclk said...

Not everyone likes to ride public transportation.

There are also those people who will be coming from areas not serviced by public transportation and there are those people who might want to hang out in Silver Spring later than the Metro schedule.

These public transportation lovers hae got to get off their high horse and understand that public transportation is unreliable, expensive and not always convienient for everyone.

Bob Fustero

Dan Reed said...

Just because public transportation may be undesirable for some people doesn't mean we should design a transportation system that favors the car over bus/train/bike/foot/etc., which is unfortunately what we've already done over the past fifty years. So those who like to drive can continue to do so, but not at the expense of those who either can't or don't want to. I'm not sure what the argument is.

And, BTW, maintaining a car (as I do) is a hell of a lot more expensive than filling a SmartTrip card. I look forward to living and working in places where I'm not as reliant on my car as I am now.

Unknown said...

One would hope they would possibly include with all that future parking some way for future owners of electric vehicles to charge up and not just be a repository for gas engine vehicles.