My 2007 Wish List: An Intercounty Connector, a Purple Line . . .

With the year-end holidays upon us, it seems appropriate to make a wish list for 2007.

 Let years of debate in Maryland finally end so that construction of the intercounty connector can begin. By linking major highways crossing Montgomery and Prince George's counties, the connector promises to be a vital element in the region's overburdened road network. It should significantly reduce east-west Beltway traffic volume and, thanks to meticulous planning, minimize environmental problems.

It's also time to get serious about Metro's Purple Line serving Maryland suburbs inside the Beltway. Let's settle on a right-of-way and start building this much needed light rail line.

 Fairfax County has just selected consultants to generate a new plan in 2007 for reshaping Tysons Corner. Let's hope their plan will be at once visionary and practical, a map for transforming this huge but ugly and dysfunctional edge city into an attractive place with diverse uses, including affordable housing and appropriate urban density. The framework must embody a comprehensible pattern of streets, sidewalks, public plazas and parks.

Simultaneously, I hope the feasibility of placing the Dulles Metro rail extension through Tysons in a tunnel, now being designed through a citizen-sponsored initiative, is verified and financially competitive. Current plans call for an elevated rail line, a bad idea opposed by almost everyone except the elevated line's sponsors and engineers. Let 2007 be the year when Virginia state officials change their minds and finally make the right decision.

 Let's settle the central library dispute in the District while dealing intelligently with the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. Designed by esteemed architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the building is worth renovating for historic and practical reasons, whatever its ultimate use -- which probably should be as a library.

Mayor Anthony Williams's proposal to build a new, state-of-the-art, $275 million central library at the old convention center site is questionable. Is this an appropriate use of public funds, given the needs of the city's many branch libraries and the large number of other libraries -- the Library of Congress and university libraries -- already in the city? In today's networked world, a decentralized but digitally linked library system makes sense.

 If all goes well, 2007 may be the year when initial site work and construction begin for some of the planned revitalization projects envisioned by Washington's Anacostia Waterfront Initiative. Being implemented by the quasi-governmental Anacostia Waterfront Corp., along with private developers, the initiative seeks not only to clean up and beautify the polluted Anacostia River but also to catalyze well-designed, mixed-use, environmentally sensitive development in neighborhoods abutting or near the river.

 Local jurisdictions should resist the temptation to impose development moratoriums. Intended to temporarily placate vocal constituents, start-and-stop moratoriums do little more than make government officials, planners and developers look bad, and they never solve fundamental growth problems.

Instead of imposing no-growth or slow-growth moratoriums, local governments should commit to "smart growth" policies and plans. This entails three essential, parallel steps: thoroughly analyzing land resources, land uses and infrastructure; embracing environmental policies and plans to preserve, or restore, sensitive and endangered natural systems; and amending comprehensive plans and zoning ordinances to wisely deploy increasingly diverse land uses, higher densities and necessary public facilities on suitable sites.

 Local jurisdictions also need to adopt design guidelines and project design-review processes to judge aesthetic attributes -- related to site planning, architecture and landscape design -- that have clear public impact but are not explicitly addressed by laws and regulations. This has become critical in communities where older, relatively modest homes are routinely torn down to make way for enormous houses that crowd the lot, disrupt the streetscape and fit poorly in the neighborhood.

Perhaps you share some of these wishes. In any case, I offer one final wish: Have a joyous holiday season.

Roger K. Lewis is a practicing architect and a professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Maryland.