Newsroom

Oct 30, 2013

As promised in an earlier Yardstick post here are the results from our September 27 th event Economy Forward: Help Shape the Future of the Region. America Speaks an organization which captures opinion data with live electronic polling helped facilitate the gathering and recorded these instant survey results.

Oct 10, 2013

Mary Hynes was first elected to the County Board in 2007. Prior to that she served for 12 years as an Arlington School Board member. Hynes is also an active leader at the regional level. She is the Chair of the Council of Governments’ Region Forward Coalition the public-private group leading the effort to implement COG’s vision for the region’s future. She is also a member of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) Board the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission’s Exe​

Oct 7, 2013

On September 27 many of metropolitan Washington’s elected officials business leaders and regional planners got together for a frank conversation about the future of the region’s economy. The full-day dialogue – called “Economy Forward: Shaping the Future of the Region” – was helped by the use of computers and voting key pads to guide the participants as they discussed transportation and land-use needs in localities from Frederick MD to Prince William VA.

Sep 17, 2013

The Anacostia Watershed has suffered hundreds of years of environmental neglect and lost forest and wetland habitat due to agriculture and development. The Watershed is highly urbanized and experiences water runoff from roads parking lots buildings and other paved-over surfaces. This runoff and debris in addition to polluting the river also warms the water and adversely affects the aquatic life in this freshwater system.

Aug 6, 2013

Council of Governments Executive Director Chuck Bean and staff took a tour of regional energy assets in Charles County Maryland in July which highlighted the integration of power sources that keep the lights on in Metropolitan Washington. From a recently installed solar farm to the wind turbine in Newburg the tour showed that energy production in Charles County is also increasingly sustainable. County Commissioner Ken Robinson was pleased to share that in Charles County “citizens can be extr​

Aug 1, 2013

Last month the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments approved an update to the Cooperative Forecast of employment households and population. The forecast is primarily used for transportation modeling where it determines how many people are likely to live in each part of the region and where they are likely to travel. This tool also lends insight to other infrastructure and service planning initiatives because it is a best guess of how much growth is likely to occur and where it is li​

Jul 30, 2013

On July 26 members of the Region Forward Coalition met in the Mosaic District where they discussed—and witnessed firsthand— the transformation of Merrifield-Dunn Loring into a vibrant Activity Center. Chairman of the Fairfax County Board Sharon Bulova told the Coalition “ In Fairfax County our future is in redevelopment. As we grow we look for opportunities to build mixed-use walkable transit-oriented development to give people options other than driving alone in their cars to get places.”​

Jul 11, 2013

Calling attention to the Council of Governments’ work to address regional transportation coordination Congresswoman Donna Edward (D-MD 4 th District) addressed the COG Board today highlighting the critical need to “have a lot of cooperation across jurisdictional lines.” Representative Edwards who lives in Prince George’s County captured the complex issues affecting the densely populated Washington Metro areas as “a region where people live one place work someplace else take their children to​

Jul 1, 2013

Today COG is releasing our climate change adaptation report for the Region. Spurred by a technical assistance grant from EPA in 2010 COG began meeting with member jurisdictions to discuss adaptation planning strategies. The report serves to not only identify the direct effects of climate change but also to advance a dialogue for local resiliency plans in the region.

Jun 21, 2013

Solar energy is growing in metropolitan Washington. With over 1600 systems already installed on residential commercial and government buildings the region is on track to meet its goal of encouraging 5000 new renewable energy systems to be installed by 2016. This target was set by the Climate Energy and Environment Committee (CEEPC) at the Council of Governments as part of our 2013-2016 Climate and Energy Action Plan . Local governments are leading by example with 18 of COG’s 22 member jurisd​