Author: Claire Jaffe

DC Council hears testimony on converting office space to affordable housing

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

The D.C. Council Committee for Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization heard public and government testimony on its bill to create an Office to Affordable Housing Task Force. The potential task force would investigate converting D.C. office space into affordable housing, providing recommendations and budgeting analysis to the D.C. Council and the Mayor. The bill was introduced by At-Large Councilmember Robert White.

As concern grows over the District’s dearth of affordable housing, White and the six other councilmembers who have signed onto his bill are hoping to find a creative path forward in office conversions. Converting vacant office space into affordable housing could create new units and give building owners a new source of income, but some have shown concern over the amount of public money such a project would need.

White and At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds heard testimony both in favor of and against the bill’s passing. Andrew Trueblood was the only government witness at the hearing to testify. Trueblood, chief of staff for the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development, testified against the bill. His comments focused on the expense behind the task force, suggesting that the District’s money could create and preserve affordable housing in more efficient ways.

Generally, older office buildings are the best candidates for conversion, but Trueblood noted that building owners could make more money by simply renovating and fetching higher office rents. The government would need to provide a subsidy to incentivize owners to choose conversion over renovation. “The subsidy would compete with affordable housing production and preservation that is less expensive,” Trueblood said. “Likely not the most effective use of funding.” In the current print of the bill, a representative from the Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development would be part of the task force, and the office would also be responsible for administrative staffing.

White pushed back against Trueblood’s testimony, noting that his bill is not exclusive to the downtown core, and that the District’s budget for affordable housing has mostly gone towards protecting and preserving housing, rather than creating it. He also said that conversions have already happened in the private sector in large cities such as New York and Minneapolis. other large cities.

Cheryl Cort, policy director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, testified in support of such conversion. Her organization promotes walkable, transit-oriented growth and she advised that an architect would be a worthy addition to the 11-member task force. Currently, the bill outlines a series of experts who would be on the task force, including one structural engineer. Cort explained that an architect would have expertise more in line with what the council was looking for. Cort recommended architects who bewere involved in converting the abandoned EPA headquarters near the southwest waterfront into affordable housing.

Caroline Petti of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City also testified in support. Her group is a nonprofit which supports responsible land use in the District, Petti noted that office vacancy in the District is 12.3 percent, according to a report from Kushman and Wakefield. Petti also suggested that the task force put some focus on family-sized units of two or more bedrooms.

Click here to see the full article.

Did Va. Gov. McAuliffe and his transportation team mislead I-66 commuters on tolling? Not really, but his team could have been more clear.

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

It took a few days and a lot of shouting, but the hullabaloo over the HOT lanes on Interstate 66 has settled down — not unlike the peak toll rates, and just as Virginia transportation officials predicted.

By Friday, the peak toll was $14.50, which seemed almost like a bargain compared with the $40 peak in the first few days after the system went live Monday.

Hate them if you will, but the new tolls also appear to be doing what they were supposed to do: If you really insist on commuting solo in a major metropolitan area on an artery that’s already clogged, then you also deserve a heart attack when you see the toll sign flashing the cost. That’s market price, and you should pay up, stay off or form a carpool. NBC4 reported that the fuss led at least one Virginia man to use social media to form new casual carpools, also known as “slug lines.”

What outraged some drivers most, however, was the feeling that they had been conned by Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and his transportation team when the cost of the plan to commuters was under discussion. In the walk-up, before the new tolls went into effect, many Virginians got the idea that the toll would be no more than $9 to $10 a day. So when the tolls hit extremes, many motorists — not to mention some Democratic and Republican lawmakers — hit the roof.

“The bottom line is this is very different from what we briefed people it would be,” Del. John J. Bell (D-Loudoun), an opponent of tolling on I-66, told my colleague Luz Lazo.

Others have been blunter in saying the McAuliffe administration misled people. The Republican Party of Virginia accused McAuliffe’s administration of ensuring that the tolls would be switched on only after the gubernatorial election to choose his successor. Loudoun County Supervisor Ron Meyer (R-Broad Run), who is also a member of the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC), urged the NVTC to pass a resolution demanding that the tolls be lowered or suspended.

But Brian Coy, a spokesman for the governor, said the administration never misled anyone. He said that when transportation officials talked about a $17 average daily toll during peak hours, they meant what they said, an average — all short trips and long trips along that section of highway, and with peaks and valleys of demand.

“All the discussion about this was in terms of averages,” Coy said. “So that would fundamentally require that at many other times tolls would be considerably higher and considerably lower.”

The idea of tolling I-66 inside the Beltway is part of a larger program to expand the highway’s number of lanes and raise funds for additional improvements to mass transit and bike lanes.

In September 2015, Nick Donohue, deputy transportation secretary, gave a presentation to the NVTC on the state’s proposal for dynamic tolling inside the Beltway. He told the commission the “typical toll” during rush hour would be $7 inbound in the morning and $9 outbound at night — a number picked up and repeated many times in media coverage. He did say the tolls would vary depending on congestion.

Coy, the governor’s spokesman, said that transportation officials modeled those estimates based on the experience of the HOT lanes that already are in place on the Beltway — where, incidentally, some tolls were up around $30 last week. He also wanted to emphasize that the new I-66 tolls are voluntary: they apply only to solo drivers during the height of the rush hour. He also made another prediction: In time, I-66 traffic would adjust to market forces.

“[W]e’re only four days in. I think in two weeks, this conversation will be fundamentally different,” Coy said Friday.

Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, also thinks Virginians had fair notice. He suggested that some commuters and Northern Virginia lawmakers might not have been listening — or chose to hear what they wanted to hear — when state officials discussed the plan. And in any case, he said, the $40 tolls this week weren’t out of line, considering the circumstances on the first day.

“Remember, this is a peak-of-the-peak toll. It’s also a peak-of-the-peak in the first day for a road that hadn’t been available to single-occupant drivers,” Schwartz said in an interview. “It suddenly became available for single-occupant drivers, and so there’s probably a ton of interest and demand that is far beyond what we will see” later.

Schwartz praised the plan for I-66, though he would have preferred more emphasis on promoting transit-oriented development instead of highway expansion. He believes Virginia transportation officials did their duty to advise commuters about how the system would work.

“I can’t speak for all the comments that were made back in the day,” he said. “But I do know they were talking about averages.”

McAuliffe is and has always been a pitchman, known for sometimes making claims whose casual relationship with the facts could make a used-car salesman blush. (Cf. GreenTech.) It’s almost become part of his charm.

But it seems like an overstatement to say that McAuliffe or Transportation Secretary Aubrey Layne deceived people. There may be broader issues to consider about HOT lanes — whether they aggravate America’s growing inequities or whether we should be placing tolls on roads purchased with taxpayer funds — but when state officials talked about what they thought would be the daily cost, it seems reasonable to speak of averages and the bulging middle of the Bell curve for all trips.

But even if they didn’t sell Virginia a lemon this time, the administration should have been much more explicit in its briefings for the public and public officials; their public presentations should have explained more clearly what they were averaging. In the run-up, the administration also could have prepared commuters with more upfront warnings that the sky was the limit for tolls, depending on the circumstances. Sure, these caveats might have played into the hands of their political opponents, who had their own reasons for playing up the impact, but it also would have spared lots of people this week’s sticker shock.

Phot by Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post. Click here to read the original story.

STATEMENT: I-66 Tolls Should Stay

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 7, 2017

CONTACT:
Stewart Schwartz
703-599-6437
stewart@smartergrowth.net

CSG Press Statement – I-66 Tolls Should Stay

NORTHERN VA – Today Stewart Schwartz, the Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, made the following statement in response to the widespread outcry regarding the toll prices on the newly-open high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes on I-66:

“We see the initially high tolls as reflecting that it’s not possible to accommodate all single-occupant commuters on limited road-space during the peak-of-the-peak commute hours. While the peak tolls are likely to settle down at a lower level, it’s important to note they are a market price reflection of demand.

The system set up for I-66 is designed to move the most people through the corridor during commuting hours as quickly and smoothly as possible. The tolling makes possible the maintenance of a 55-mph speed, provides for carpooling to remain free and uses toll revenues to expand express bus and other transit services in the corridor.

And its worth noting that single-occupant cars, which couldn’t use the corridor during peak hours in the past, now have that option – for a price based on market demand. Users now have more options than they did before: drive alone, in addition to carpool, more express buses, Metro and even bicycling options.

Proposals to eliminate tolls and widen the entire highway are simply not viable. The cost would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars and because of the phenomenon of “generated travel” (also called induced demand), an expanded highway like this would fill up in record time and traffic would crawl again.

While we’re sympathetic to the sticker shock drivers and politicians are experiencing this week, the combination of tolling, HOV, Metro, and new transit provides the most effective way to move the most people the most expeditiously as possible to and from work in the corridor. This comprehensive approach should stay in place.”

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth:
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

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STATEMENT: Metro Reform Coalition statement on former Transportation Secretary LaHood’s Report

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2017

Contact:
Lynnette J. Williams, Edelman
Lynnette.Williams@edelman.com
(202) 326-1755 office or (202) 255-0565 mobile

METRO REFORM COALITION STATEMENT ON FORMER TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY LAHOOD’S REPORT: “Review of Operating, Governance and Financial Conditions of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority”
A diverse group of organizations representing Metro riders, businesses, nonprofits, and advocates appreciates former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s detailed analysis of the issues facing Metro. We are especially pleased that his report focuses on the need for dedicated funding, effective governance, and efficient operations. Without substantial attention to each of these areas, Metro will not be able to deliver the level of safe, reliable and sustainable service that is required to preserve the region’s economic security, quality of life and global competitiveness.

We believe the high-level elements outlined in Secretary LaHood’s report set a clear path forward for comprehensive Metro reform, and today’s announcement shows the level of regional cooperation needed to achieve long-term success. This report is yet another step toward the necessary restoration of Metro, and we are hopeful that the implementation of these high-level recommendations will set Metro on a sustainable path.

Comprehensive attention to funding, governance, and operations will bring about the greatest benefit to the regional economies of Virginia, Maryland, and the District, and to the people who depend on Metro every day. We urge our regional leaders to respond to the recommendations outlined in the report by taking immediate action toward reform. The time to act is now.
Metro Reform Coalition
The Metro Reform Coalition is a group of regional leaders from organizations representing riders, businesses and non-profits communities who have come together to ensure that Metro—a vital component of Greater Washington’s transportation infrastructure—is put on a safe, smart, and sustainable path forward this fiscal year. We are dedicated to securing comprehensive improvement of Metro’s governance, operating and funding structures in 2018.

Members of the Coalition include: The Federal City Council, Greater Washington Board of Trade, The 2030 Group, Greater Washington Partnership, Coalition for Smarter Growth, Greater Greater Washington, The Apartment and Office Building Association of Metropolitan Washington (AOBA), Arlington County Chamber of Commerce, Associated Builders and Contractors – Virginia Chapter, Committee for Dulles, The DC Building Industry Association, DC Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise Community Partners, Greater McLean Chamber of Commerce, Greater Reston Chamber of Commerce, Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce, Greater Washington Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, The Consortium of Universities, Urban Land Institute—Washington DC, The Housing Association of Non-profit Developers (HAND), Housing Leaders Group of Greater Washington, Leadership Greater Washington, Loudoun County Chamber of Commerce, NAIOP Northern Virginia—the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance, Northern Virginia Association of Realtors, Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Northern Virginia Technology Council, The Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, Prince George’s Chamber of Commerce, The Prince William Chamber of Commerce, Virginia Chamber of Commerce, Washington Airports Task Force.

RELEASE: Fund-it/Fix-it Coalition responds to LaHood report on WMATA

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 13, 2017

Contact:

Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth
703-599-6437, stewart@smartergrowth.net

Edith Snyder, League of Women Voters of the National Capital Area (LWVNCA)
703-618-1642, edithholmes@aol.com

Ronit Aviva Dancis, Action Committee for Transit
240 432 9917, ronitadancis@yahoo.com

David Alpert, Greater Greater Washington
202-596-9449, alpert@ggwash.org

Fund-it/Fix-it Coalition of non-profits responds to LaHood report on WMATA

Washington, DC — Today the Fund-it/Fix-It Coalition, a group of non-profits representing smart growth, conservation, transit, and civic groups across the Washington DC region responded to the LaHood report on WMATA funding and reform, which was leaked over the weekend to The Washington Post.

“We are very pleased with a number of aspects of the LaHood report, particularly the strong endorsement of the importance of at least an additional $500 million in dedicated and bondable funding for Metro,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “We agree, too, with Secretary LaHood that dedicated federal funding is necessary and appropriate, given the large share of federal riders and the critical role Metro plays in supporting our nation’s capital and the federal government.”

“We wish Secretary LaHood had lent his personal authority to recommending specific funding sources that the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia should tap or develop, to add impetus to efforts to reach agreement on funding,” said Kathy McGuire, President of the League of Women Voters of the National Capital Area (LWVNCA). “We hope LaHood will share his recommendations in this regard because we need to break the logjam and identify funding sources that can be approved in early 2018.”

“We find it helpful that the LaHood team has evaluated the cost structure at WMATA and found it comparable to the averages for large transit systems across the country,” said Ronit Dancis for Action Committee for Transit. “This system – so essential to the economic competitiveness and sustainability of our region, is worthy of increased investment to restore it to world-class service.”

“A concern involves the evaluation of bus service and recommendations for service cuts. The report appears to treat Metrorail and Metrobus very differently, favoring efforts to increase rail ridership, but proposing reductions in bus service,” said Schwartz. “Certainly, we should work to make bus service better and provide high frequency, high-ridership service, but we also have many transit-dependent riders who live in suburban settings where it is hard to provide efficient transit service. This means we will need to provide transit coverage, which may be less efficient but represents an essential public utility service, much like water, police, and fire service.”

David Alpert, Founder and President of Greater Greater Washington added, “There’s no need to recommend cutting bus service and reducing riders to save money. It’s possible to improve service AND save money. The biggest opportunities to improve bus service and save money come from reducing delays. Buses spend time in traffic, waiting at lights, waiting for people to pay their fares one by one, and so on. If the buses, especially the high-ridership ones, had dedicated lanes through congested areas, ways to pay before boarding so people can get on quickly, and signal priority to get more green lights, buses could finish their routes faster, saving money, and offering better — not worse — service.”

The groups in the Fund-it/Fix-it Coalition have pledged to campaign for dedicated funding for Metro with a goal of winning new dedicated, bondable funding in 2018 in order to restore Metrorail and Metrobus with frequent, safe, and reliable service.

22 groups have signed on to this statement of principles but the following are those that have had an opportunity to review the LaHood report:

Action Committee for Transit

The Central Maryland Transportation Alliance

Clean Water Action

Coalition for Smarter Growth

Friends of White Flint

Greater Greater Washington

League of Women Voters of the National Capital Area (LWVNCA)

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STATEMENT: Greater Washington Partnership’s “Advancing our Region: Preface to a Blueprint for a Better Region” report

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2017

CONTACT:
Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director
stewart@smartergrowth.net
703-599-6437 (c)

Aimee Custis, Deputy Director
aimee@smartergrowth.net
202-431-7185 (c)

Statement on Greater Washington Partnership’s “Advancing our Region: Preface to a Blueprint for a Better Region” report

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the Greater Washington Partnership released the report “Advancing our Region: Preface to a Blueprint for a Better Region.” Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth, issued the following statement:

“The Greater Washington Partnership (GWP) report places a welcome emphasis on the critical importance of Metro and transit investments in general, including seeking better downtown to downtown higher speed rail connections. It notes how major corporations are seeking out Metro station locations to ensure transportation options and attractiveness to next generation employers, and the importance of addressing transportation if we are going to retain and attract next-generation employees.”

“We look forward to bringing our coalition of land use, conservation, housing, and transportation advocates to the table with the GWP. With over 20 years of experience on these interconnected issues at the local, regional, and state level, we have a lot to offer.”

“We will recommend from the outset that the GWP include and address the critical role of land use for addressing our transportation challenges. If we keep spreading out and separating homes from work and services, we will keep generating more and more driving and traffic.”

“The massive transportation needs wish lists that have been developed and are cited in the report, fail to address land use. They were generated without evaluating better ways to grow or accounting for the problem of induced travel (induced demand) which fills up new lane capacity in as little as five years. Therefore those wish lists and requested funding can’t be relied upon as a plan that we should implement.”

“The Coalition for Smarter Growth issued its own Blueprint for a Better Region in 2002 and we’ve shown versions of it hundreds of time in the years since. The vision we’ve promoted is one of a network of mixed-use, mixed-income, walkable, and transit-oriented communities linked by a restored and expanded transit network. The Urban Land Institute’s 2005 Reality Check conference and the Council of Government’s (COG) plan have validated this regional transit and transit-oriented development (TOD) vision, which COG adopted in its Region Forward plan. Today, elected officials in nearly every jurisdiction are advancing TOD — although in some cases not nearly fast enough.

Every resident who lives and/or works in a mixed-use, mixed-income, transit-oriented community has the opportunity to drive less, and use other modes — helping the road network in the process. Moreover, people are increasingly attracted to the health and quality of life benefits of walkable places with good transit. And as the GWP report notes, so are corporations. These include Marriott, Hilton, Nestle, Choice Hotels, and Amazon.”

“So this land use approach should be a core part of the regional Blueprint. Again, we commend the Greater Washington Partnership for this initial report and we look forward to helping bring a range of stakeholders to the table with the GWP to shape a more sustainable, equitable, and competitive region.”

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth:
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.
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RELEASE: Governor Hogan’s highways-first approach to transportation will fail Maryland communities

Posted on by Claire Jaffe

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 21, 2017

CONTACT
Stewart Schwartz, Coalition for Smarter Growth
(703) 599-6437
stewart@smartergrowth.net

Governor Hogan’s highways-first approach to transportation will fail Maryland communities

MARYLAND — Today, Maryland Governor Hogan proposed to spend (at least) $9 billion to expand three of Maryland’s major highways in the Washington, DC metro area. The plans call to expand the entire Maryland portion of the Capital Beltway by four high-occupancy toll (HOT) lanes – two in each direction. I-270 would also see a four-lane expansion. Maryland would also take over the Baltimore-Washington Parkway from the National Park Service, and add four additional HOT lanes as well.

The Coalition for Smarter Growth urged the Governor to pause and consider the full picture of land use and transportation issues affecting central Maryland before deciding on the best approach.“The Governor and Secretary Rahn risk wasting billions of tax dollars and family resources from Maryland residents with this massive set of highway expansions,” said Stewart Schwartz, Executive Director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. “The fiscally-prudent approach is to study and adopt reasonable alternatives that include land use solutions.

“Smart growth, demand management, and transit investments are the only fiscally-responsible long-term approach, but the big multi-national toll road construction consortiums have been hijacking our transportation planning process promoting massive toll lane projects,” said Schwartz.“The public ultimately pays with these public-private partnerships, through federally-subsidized loans, direct public payments, their tolls, and the impact to neighborhoods and the environment,” said Schwartz.

“A four-lane expansion of the Beltway would be hugely expensive and have a destructive impact on neighborhoods, tree cover, streams, and the environment in the path. For such expense and damage, expansion is only a short-term fix, as experience shows that even with HOT lanes, traffic will return to the general purpose lanes, and attract even more travelers,” said Schwartz. “Even with HOT lanes the number of vehicles on the combined HOT and general purpose lanes would expand and those additional vehicles would then exit onto already overloaded connecting arterials. That’s why we have to look at alternatives that provide options to driving for so many trips.”

The Coalition for Smarter Growth called for an objective study of a more sustainable long-term approach to include:

  1. Completing the first phase of the Purple Line and extending it all the way around to make a full set of connections to activity centers within and near the Beltway.
  2. Focus on the primary bottleneck at the American Legion Bridge, providing a near-term express bus in a dedicated lane in each direction tying into the I-270 HOV lanes.
  3. Advancing MARC commuter rail expansion plan with more frequent trains, expanded hours, and increased bi-directional service.
  4. Investing in smart growth – mixed-use, walkable, transit-oriented communities at Metro stations, MARC stations, and other hubs with frequent transit, as well as reinvestment in the City of Baltimore.
  5. In the DC region, addressing the Beltway means addressing the jobs/housing imbalance between Prince George’s and the west side of the region. Most of the worst traffic is peak hour westbound to Montgomery County and northern Virginia in the morning and eastbound back toward Prince George’s in the evening.  We need to complete transit-oriented development at all east side Metro stations.

Schwartz went on to say, “To quote from the late Ron Kirby, longtime director of the transportation staff at the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, ‘Well, rather than widening the Beltway, it would be nice if we had more jobs in the eastern part of the region.’ Mr. Kirby said this in a seminal article in the Washington Post that sums up our critique of the ‘widen-first’ approach,” said Schwartz. “We urge the Governor and Secretary to read this article and to consider the central role of land use, jobs/housing locations, and induced demand.”

About the Coalition for Smarter Growth
The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the leading organization in the Washington DC region dedicated to making the case for smart growth. Its mission is to promote walkable, inclusive, and transit-oriented communities, and the land use and transportation policies and investments needed to make those communities flourish. Learn more at smartergrowth.net.

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