When advocates of  dense, walkable suburban redevelopment point an example of what our sprawling ‘burbs might do to become more sustainable and improve future economic prospects the suggestions run something like this: connect to a transit network, rezone, build a tighter street grid, plan around pedestresians, etc. A name frequently on their lips as an early-stage example of this process in action is Tysons Corner, Virginia. The DC suburb has, for several years now, been working on a plan to transform itself from a loose and unwelcoming hodge-podge of retail and office developements, parking lots and extra-wide thoroughfares, into something more, well, urban.

Too urban, in fact, as far as Fairfax County planners are concerned.

From the Washington Post:

“We’re looking for an urban feel and urban experience,” said Jim Zook, the county’s planning director. “But there are cities across this country that work very well at lesser densities” than the task force proposed.

But after taking the plan this far, why shred it now in the interest of keeping a lower density? Well, the planning commission is worried there will be too much traffic. They want to cut back new development, make the streets wider, drop three more freeway interchanges into town, and widen the Beltway even beyond the current plans to widen the beltway. It’s being presented as tweaks, but all these tweaks undermine the essential goal, and fly in the face of the basic fact that vital, thriving cities tend to be dense. No coincidentally, they also tend to have traffic. It sucks sometimes, but most people who’ve examined the tradeoffs in any depth understand that it’s well worth the tradeoff.

The situation brings to mind a quote–the source escapes us–that creating an American-style suburb is easy, akin to driving a car. But creating a dense urban environment takes a good deal more skill, akin to flying a jet fighter.

It sounds like Fairfax County started looking at the plans for the jet fighter (or whatever the analogy demands here) and wigged out. “Make it easier!” they’ve squealed. There are many more steps remaining in the process, but it looks like that might be what happens. It would be a small shame in a national context–but downright lunacy in a local context. Tysons has an opportunity to become a place of nation importance — a place that other cities look to as America begins to rethink how it configures its cities in the century ahead. (See, for instance, this story Time did about the town, and this one from NPR.) Instead, the Fairfax planners seem to fancy the idea of remaining a placeless place.

Images via NPR and Sierra Club (h/t GGW)

If you’re familiar with the geography of this website, you might have noticed something new in the right hand column–a button with a neat-o little graphic of a construction cone being used as a bullhorn and the endlessly intriguing tagline, “Find it. Flag it. Fix it.”

Despite its alluring beauty, this button is not a portal to some different and better realm. Actually, never mind — that’s precisely what it is.

In the land of F** This! you are granted many wonderful powers. You can become a guardian of public infrastructure. You can keep your city working smoothly. You can post pictures of busted crap–partially disassembled escalators in subway stations, cavernous potholes, permanently dark street lights–and trade snide and insightful comments with your wonderful new F** This! cyberfriends (why can’t your real life friends be this cool?). At the same time, while you’re busy enjoying yourself, we’ll see to it that the appropriate public officials get notified and the problem you identified gets dealt with. Or, if said officials prove useless in fixing the busted stuff, we’ll see to it that they endure at least some small measure of public humiliation. It’ll be fun!

Heady stuff, all this, but we’re still at an early stage. Heck, let’s just call it “alpha” stage. But as you might have noticed with this website, we’re all for rolling things out quickly and learning on the fly. F** This! will be crossing your screen again–literally!–sometime soon, as we begin to organize an official campaign and some neat features that will help bring your complaints to everyone’s attention (assuming, you know, they are deserving of it). At first we’re just going to focus on New York, but the plan is to expand to other US cities in coming weeks and months.

So here’s what we would suggest: Go poke around and look at a few of the action items that are up there. Kick F** This!’s tires. Let us know what you think. And a protip: Even if you don’t live in New York, you can scoot the map around and find your town. So give that a try if you’re inclined. The tool we’re using at present is from a company called See Click Fix, which we think is very smartly put together. How about you?

More soon on this.

By luck alone, the UK avoided an awful tragedy last Friday as a group of government officials on bicycles–including London mayor Boris Johnson and the country’s top transportation minister–was nearly wiped out by a freak traffic accident.

Johnson and his party were riding normally through the neighborhood of Canary Wharf when a truck drove past, seemingly going too fast given the narrowness of the street. As it came abreast, the vehicle’s back gate flew open, hooking a parked car and hurling it across the street, narrowly missing the cyclists. The whole incident was captured by a security camera.

Ironically, the government officials were on a scouting trip, looking at potential routes for a bicycles-only “super highway” planned for London.

Reportedly shaken, Johnson can be seen afterward on the security footage holding his helmet and surveying the crushed car.

According to this local news segment, he declined an interview–but it’s hard to imagine that he’s not now acutely aware of the advantages of barrier-separated lanes for cyclists.

The stimulus bill has been as tumultuous a legislative process as any in recent memory.

Last night we reported that the $50 billion Boxer/Inhofe amendment was dead. We had it on good authority that that was the case. The report may have been premature, however. The amendment may have only been stunned. In the improvisational environment that’s prevailing on Capitol Hill, its revival now seems to be a possibility.

We just got off the phone with one of Inhofe’s staffers who told us: “Senator Inhofe intends to bring it up, and we think there may be a good opportunity to do so today.” He added, “We’re obviously seeing flux on the Senate floor” so anything is possible. (Sounds right…)

At around 11 a.m. Inhofe tried to introduce it, in fact, but faced an objection from Democrat Max Baucus. We’ll try to stay on top of events. At this point perhaps nobody is quite sure how things will play out. [11:15 a.m.]

The unlikely Senate duo of James Inhofe and Barbara Boxer still seem to be planning an amendment that would put an extra $50 billion toward infrastructure. The original intent of the as-yet-unoffered amendment was reportedly to devote the whole sum to highway spending.

But a source close to the process tells us that Boxer received intense pressure from environmental and transit advocates and a flood of phone calls from displeased constituents and that this led her to rework the measure.

“It now looks like the amendment would include money for transit and water, in addition to roads,” says the source.

The balance among the three is still being negotiated and could have important implications. The recent balance in the federal transportation budget has been for 80% for highways and 20% for transit. The House version of the stimulus package was weighted more heavily towards transit. A massive roads-only amendment would represent a move in the the opposite direction. The balance in the final stimulus bill could chart a course for years ahead with respect to transportation policy.

The possible Boxer-Inhofe amendment would come in the wake of the narrow defeat on a technical vote of Patty Murray’s effort to put an additional $25 billion into infrastructure. Murray’s amendment included $13 billion additional funds for highways, $5 billion extra for transit, and $7 billion more for water. [12:10 AM]