Kirby, 69, was the executive director of the Washington Metro Council of Governments Transportation Planning Board.
Was found dead with multiple gun shot wounds, in his house on Elm Street, in Alexandria, Virginia.
Might this be the result of Kirby recently speaking directly about, or alluding to the need for the Washington D.C. area for addressing the
UNjustified gaps in the local-urban freeway grid? I did have the honor of being able to talk to him personally about the logical freeway project of the inside the Capital Beltway I-95 via the PEPCO-New Hampshire Avenue-B&O Route -
which was deliberately scuttled - to which he told me did make sense but had been so opposed by so many leading to its cancellation by Maryland in July 1973.
Note- I myself used to be involved with COG's TPB's Citizen's Advisory Board (CAB) during the latter 1990s, where I was able to speak in favor of more comprehensive transportation planning - aka urban freeways and rail. That is until they made it into a closed event, meaning that the members were now appointed- hence closing the door to participation by the general public, in favor of stacking it with anti highway ideologues- as if meant to sustain a dogmatic-doctrinaire
that they KNEW they could not otherwise sustain.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/dc-council-of-governments-official-slain-in-home/2013/11/12/c08d1590-4bb8-11e3-be6b-d3d28122e6d4_story_1.html
A man who helped shape the region’s transportation policy for a
quarter-century was fatally shot inside his Alexandria home Monday in a
stunning incident that has police — and his many friends in politics and
the media — searching for an explanation.
Officials said Tuesday that Ronald Kirby, 69, director of
transportation planning at the Metropolitan Washington Council of
Governments, died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso and that the
medical examiner had deemed the case a homicide.
Alexandria Police Chief Earl L. Cook said the slaying should not be
taken as “cause for tremendous alarm” among residents of Kirby’s
neighborhood, but he would not say whether Kirby might have been
specifically targeted.
“We don’t know that at this point,” Cook said. “It’s too early to eliminate any possibility.”
News
of Kirby’s death sent shock waves through political and media circles,
in which Kirby was known as a personable policy wonk who could
translate impenetrable transportation jargon into plain English — with a
trademark Aussie accent.
“He was really a brilliant man,” said
Lon Anderson of AAA Mid-Atlantic. “He brought a very informed voice of
reason to some very contentious regional transportation debates. He was
just a prince of a guy.”
Kirby had worked for the Council of
Governments for more than 25 years and was director of transportation
planning for COG’s National Capital Region Transportation Planning
Board. He was often quoted in news reports,
and he was known among transportation experts and public officials as
someone who could bring a regional viewpoint to transportation debates.
A Telling Indifference
http://wwwtripwithinthebeltway.blogspot.com/2010/05/telling-indifference.html
