CSG In The News

Virginia Governor Promises Action on State’s Transportation Funding Woes

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Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell offered no specifics in his “comprehensive transportation funding and reform” plan to raise an additional $500 million per year to prevent the state from running out of money to build roads by 2017. Speaking in Fairfax County at his annual transportation conference, Governor McDonnell called on lawmakers to stay in session next year until they find a solution to Virginia’s long-term funding woes, which are exacerbated by the transfer of money from the state’s construction fund to required highway maintenance projects. “I don’t think we can wait any longer,” McDonnell said. “I don’t think I can continue to recruit businesses to Virginia and see the unemployment rate go down unless we are able to get a handle on and provide some long-term solutions this session to that problem.”

Fairfax Co. names best workplaces for commuters

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What makes a good place to work? How about helping employees with an easier commute? Fairfax County, in partnership with theUniversity of South Florida's Center for Urban Transportation Research, recognized seven businesses and two business sites as the "Best Workplaces for Commuters" for 2012. The businesses encourage or support ridesharing, biking, teleworking, alternative work schedules. The businesses even give their employees transit benefits. With traffic congestion the norm across the region, Coalition for Smarter Growth Executive Director Stewart Schwartz says those types of benefits need to be offered by businesses across the region.

Box Boom

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Vince Gray beamed as he strode down the aisle, trailed by a cluster of aides and constituents hoping for a photo with the mayor, clutching a fork in one hand and a plate of appetizers in the other. “Imagine how many jobs this will create!” he said. The scene last Wednesday was a preview reception at D.C.’s first Costco, the evening before the 154,000-square-foot store officially opened. Giddy Washingtonians, Marylanders, and local politicos availed themselves of the copious free food and gazed admiringly at the megajugs of liquor and electrical appliances stacked five feet high. Arriving almost exclusively by car, visitors put a solid dent in the Shops at Dakota Crossing’s 2,000-spot parking lot, near the heavily trafficked intersection of New York and South Dakota avenues NE.

Smart Growthers Campaigning For Market Urbanism in DC Zoning Reform

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The Coalition for Smarter Growth is the main group trying to organize people in support of the D.C. zoning update proposal in the face of paranoid opposition.

In Tysons Corner speech, McDonnell discusses MWAA changes, more transportation funding

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Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) stressed the importance of transportation and infrastructure in an address at a transportation conference Wednesday. But that's not enough.