Plans for a major highway in Northern Virginia are taking shape. Officials say the billion-dollar road would spur growth, but opponents say that premise is flawed. The Virginia Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment state has released a study to the influential, 17-member Commonwealth Transportation Board (CTB) of a limited access, north-south highway between

Please accept these comments on behalf of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. We are a regional organization based in the District of Columbia focused on ensuring transportation and development decisions are made with genuine community involvement and accommodate growth while revitalizing communities, providing more housing and travel choices, and conserving our natural and

Parking has been called third rail of local politics, and for good reason. At a panel Wednesday on "Getting Parking Right," Nelson\Nygaard transportation planner Jeff Tumlin put it this way: "People hate the existing system, but they'll also hate any changes you make to the rules. No matter what you do, people are going to be very upset with you." Sam Zimbabwe, planning director for the District Department of Transportation, was also on the panel. From the look on his face, he knows that has his work cut out for him as the agency tries to bring some measure of rationality to the city's tangle of parking regulations. We all want to be able to park wherever we want, for as long as we want, and we want it to be free. But we might as well wish for a world of free and infinitely available ice cream. We can't have it, and we give up a lot by trying to get there.

A lot of people will tell you a war on cars is being waged in the District. It's not really true, of course, but there is a heated debate over transportation in the city, and the most contentious topic is parking. The city has been accused of waging war for the

I missed both presentations earlier this week by Jeff Tumlin, one of the nation's leading sustainable transportation planners as a consultant at Nelson-Nygaard, and author of Sustainable Transportation Planning: Tools for Creating Vibrant, Healthy, and Resilient Communities. On Monday, he presented to the Partnership for Smart Growth in Richmond, to about 80 attendees, including a couple of City Council members and the city's bike and pedestrian planner. The Richmond.com website, affiliated with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, published a thorough summary of the talk, "10 Things Every City Can Do for Sustainable Transportation."