About This Blog Recap
I have noticed a recent increase in our readership so I wanted to welcome our new readers and give a little background and then encourage both new and old readers to check out some of the major posts this blog has covered as something to think about as a lot of posts in the next year may build on them.
Howard County Blog is one of five blogs that cover goings on in Howard County. Each of the blogs has its own character. The other four blogs are:
The Hedgehog Report: A Republican blog that covers both Howard County stuff and national polling and election info. It is to my knowledge the oldest blog that covers Howard County
HayDuke: A blog run by a friend of mine who was one of the champions of the Save Merriweather effort.
HoCoMD Blog: A blog by one of the past presidents of the Howard County Republican Club and current candidate for Republican Central Committee.
Phil Marcus's Blog: A blog on Columbia Association issues by the CA Rep from King's Contrivance
Howard County Blog is the only one to have guest bloggers and I hope that brings a broader range to this blog. I am thrilled with the diversity of this site's guest bloggers that range in age from a retiree to a high school student and in geographic diversity with one guest blogger from Savage, one guest blogger from Elkridge, two guest bloggers from Ellicott City, and myself and one other guest blogger from Columbia. I hope you find their writing interesting and I hope they will post with more frequency and will provide interesting commentary, insight, and analysis particularly as we move into probably the most important set of elections in our counties history. With an open and likely very competitive county executive race, with a complete turnover in the county council since the last election, and with a majority of the school board up for election I don't think our county has ever seen so many competitive races.
Each of my guest bloggers choose what they want to cover for themselves. I mainly have been focusing on community planning issues as Howard County considers the biggest change to our community since Columbia was proposed by James Rouse. As someone who grew up in Columbia and has traveled all over the world observing community planning and its impact on quality of life issues I hope my insights and examination of the details help produce the best possible development plan as we continue to experience immense population growth pressures for the foreseeable future. As I have said many times I think the county's population will double in the next 30 to 40 years and I want to see that we preserve our quality of live, green space, and values as a diverse, welcoming community with housing available to all income levels.
So without further ado here are some past blog posts worth checking out if you are interested in the future of Howard County and how we address population pressures:
1) Why community planning matters
2) A Recap of the Redevelopment Plans for Downtown Columbia
3) The Next Evolution of Our Village Centers
4) Extending Metro In a Way that Relieves Local Road Congestion
Howard County Blog is one of five blogs that cover goings on in Howard County. Each of the blogs has its own character. The other four blogs are:
The Hedgehog Report: A Republican blog that covers both Howard County stuff and national polling and election info. It is to my knowledge the oldest blog that covers Howard County
HayDuke: A blog run by a friend of mine who was one of the champions of the Save Merriweather effort.
HoCoMD Blog: A blog by one of the past presidents of the Howard County Republican Club and current candidate for Republican Central Committee.
Phil Marcus's Blog: A blog on Columbia Association issues by the CA Rep from King's Contrivance
Howard County Blog is the only one to have guest bloggers and I hope that brings a broader range to this blog. I am thrilled with the diversity of this site's guest bloggers that range in age from a retiree to a high school student and in geographic diversity with one guest blogger from Savage, one guest blogger from Elkridge, two guest bloggers from Ellicott City, and myself and one other guest blogger from Columbia. I hope you find their writing interesting and I hope they will post with more frequency and will provide interesting commentary, insight, and analysis particularly as we move into probably the most important set of elections in our counties history. With an open and likely very competitive county executive race, with a complete turnover in the county council since the last election, and with a majority of the school board up for election I don't think our county has ever seen so many competitive races.
Each of my guest bloggers choose what they want to cover for themselves. I mainly have been focusing on community planning issues as Howard County considers the biggest change to our community since Columbia was proposed by James Rouse. As someone who grew up in Columbia and has traveled all over the world observing community planning and its impact on quality of life issues I hope my insights and examination of the details help produce the best possible development plan as we continue to experience immense population growth pressures for the foreseeable future. As I have said many times I think the county's population will double in the next 30 to 40 years and I want to see that we preserve our quality of live, green space, and values as a diverse, welcoming community with housing available to all income levels.
So without further ado here are some past blog posts worth checking out if you are interested in the future of Howard County and how we address population pressures:
1) Why community planning matters
2) A Recap of the Redevelopment Plans for Downtown Columbia
3) The Next Evolution of Our Village Centers
4) Extending Metro In a Way that Relieves Local Road Congestion
posted by Evan | 12:37 AM
4 Comments:
I just looked over your ideas for the revitalization of Columbia and the extension of Metro to Howard County and I must say I am impressed (particularly because you included a stop in Calverton). I don't agree with all of your ideas - I created my own idea for extending light rail to Howard County a couple of years ago. Check it out.
Anyway - I've got a blog dealing with issues in East Montgomery County, just down the pike from y'all. It's called Just Up The Pike. If you'd be interested in linking to it or at least mentioning it I'd appreciate it. I will, of course, link to this blog.
Thanks and take care,
Dan =)
Dan,
Thanks! I will check it out and hopefully have a post up on it by early next week after I have thoroughly digested what looks like a very interesting and well thought out idea. If you want to meet up to discuss I would be interested. Have you gotten much reaction on your ideas from candidates for public office in your area?
Light rail is too slow, takes up too big a footprint, requires stations with parking, is too expensive to build, and requires people to wait for the next train. It won't replace the car. Personal Rapid Transportation will.
I seriously doubt the people in Clemens Crossing and Allview/Seneca want a light rail station and parking lot plopped in their front yard. And any transit system coming in to Columbia town center should avoid the floodplain/stream buffer on 29 and instead enter along Brokenland Parkway.
Great point about the footprint problem. That is why I think if you put mass transit in as densely populated an area as eastern Howard County it must be mostly underground. The DC metro is only 36 years old and if we are planning for the next 30 to 40 years we need to think about how the county population is likely to grow. The county population is currently 269,457 (from census data) and I think is likely to double in 40 years. DC's current population is 550,521. So if we think of the county's population in roughly 40 years being about the current the size of DC we could definitely sustain an extensive metro system. I think this population is coming if we want it or not and the trick will be can we plan for it and absorb it while maintaining our values, preserve greenspace, and without reducing our quality of life.
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