Newsroom

Aug 16, 2011

AAA Mid-Atlantic recently warned that August is the most deadly month on U.S. roadways . As WTOP noted last week “Five of the deadliest days of the year on U.S. roads are in August. An average of 123 people die each year on August 3.” Unfortunately this fatal August trend proved correct in our area this past weekend when eight people were killed in auto accidents in metropolitan Washington .

Aug 15, 2011

COG is working with state and local governments, universities, and scientists from around the region to monitor and provide up-to-date information on the algae blooms that have developed in the river near Mattawoman Creek in Maryland and Aquia Creek in Virginia.

Aug 9, 2011

If you were to ask most Americans what a ‘Healthy Community’ means to them some responses would be: a safe place filled with whole fresh food plenty of exercise and free of disease. Unfortunately many communities across the nation—including some in our metro Washington region—lack these important healthy attributes.

Aug 8, 2011

We’d be remiss if we didn’t mention a couple of notable references over the past few weeks to our work. Last week Region Forward was referenced in the release of a report by the District of Columbia Office of Planning and the Center for Neighborhood Technology which studied the combined costs of housing and transportation. It found that in many places where single family homes are affordable transportation costs are much higher which often costs people more money than living in the region’s

Aug 8, 2011

Some regions are known as centers of finance. Others are associated with manufacturing. In metro Washington government has long been our special industry. The news of the past week however makes you wonder if that will (or should) change in the future. The region’s unemployment rate ticked upward half a point to 6.2 percent. And while past federal spending helped create area government and contracting jobs the recent debt deal is exclusively focused on cuts.

Aug 2, 2011

Congress has approved and the President has signed a new budget agreement that will raise the nation’s debt ceiling and reduce government spending. Now that the deal is done there’s a lot of discussion about how it will impact the U.S. economy and people. As the home of the federal government and with Uncle Sam as our primary employer it’s a pretty safe bet that metro Washington will be among the areas most affected. And it begs the question: What can we do to position ourselves to adapt and ​

Jul 22, 2011

Often times these Global Fridays post can sound a bit cynical. We know how it may come across: “Look at all the cool things Europe and Asia are doing! Come on America get your act together!” The point is to push to make things better here not to be a negative Nancy.

Jul 20, 2011

National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board (TPB) members discussed and supported a plan to apply for funding under the third round of the federal Transportation Investments Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program this October.

Jul 20, 2011

The updated long-range plan reflects changes requested by the Commonwealth of Virginia to remove the I-95/395 High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) and High Occupancy/Toll (HOT) lanes project that had been proposed for inside the Capital Beltway and to add an I-66 project outside the Beltway.

Jul 18, 2011

The latest unemployment figures were not at all positive – job creation was far below the level necessary to start getting a significant number of Americans back to work and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent its highest level this year.