Couple of Carbeques — Vehicle fires shut down several lanes of northbound I-395 and both lanes of N. Glebe Road near Chain Bridge during yesterday’s evening rush hour. [Twitter, Twitter]
Today: Left Turn No More — “Barring unforeseen circumstances (which we’ve seen before), this left turn from Washington Boulevard to Wilson Boulevard in Clarendon becomes history tomorrow, Wednesday, April 24.” [Twitter]
Virginia Tech’s Evening MBA program moved up three places to No. 14 in U.S. News & World Report’s 2019 rankings of the best part-time MBA programs.
The Northern Virginia-based program now ranks as the top public university part-time MBA in the Washington, D.C. metro area. The report assessed more than 300 part-time MBA programs across the country on factors such as student quality, peer reputation and the ratio of part-time to full-time students.
These days, there isn’t just one way to get an education, says Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business Dean Robert Sumichrast.
Popular program options for working professionals include MOOCs, coding bootcamps, technical certifications and master’s degrees. The question is which one to choose.
Virginia Tech’s Master of Information Technology program has been ranked the No. 1 online graduate degree for cybersecurity in the 2019 rankings list from CyberDegrees.org, a Washington, D.C.-based company.
In addition, the program was named one of the three best online graduate information technology programs nationwide for the seventh consecutive year in the annual rankings from U.S. News & World Report.
Since 1969, Virginia Tech has served local residents, government and industry in the National Capital Region. It now boasts more than 45 graduate degree and certificate programs, as well as many laboratories and research centers, spread across the region from Alexandria to Leesburg.
Among those degree offerings, the Pamplin College of Business offers two different MBA program options that serve working professionals looking to advance their careers without leaving the workforce.
Crystal City Business Owners Ready for Facelift — “[Crystal City’s] reputation is sufficiently anemic that Amazon announced it is rebranding the area where it will build its hub ‘National Landing,’ a change that aroused next to no protests from most local proprietors. ‘Whatever Jeff Bezos wants is fine with me,’ said Billy Bayne, owner of the Crystal City Restaurant Gentlemen’s Club, referring to Amazon founder and chief executive Jeffrey P. Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. ‘I’m just happy he’s here.'” [Washington Post, Greater Greater Washington]
Calls for More Housing — The arrival of Amazon has prompted some urbanists to start calling for upzoning and the creation of more housing density, including in wealthier neighborhoods. [Twitter, Twitter]
No matter what industry you work in, technology is constantly changing. Companies are searching for candidates with new skill sets and experience with emerging technologies.
At Virginia Tech’s Northern Virginia Center, adjacent to the West Falls Church Metro station, an administrative team manages more than 600 online graduate students looking to develop new skills and fill gaps on their resume.
Motorcycle riders represent just a small portion of traffic on the roads, but they’re consistently involved in more fatal accidents than anyone else — some researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute are looking to change that.
VTTI is teaming up with Transurban, the company building and operating toll lanes on Northern Virginia’s busiest highways, to try and spur the development of new technology to make the roads safer for motorcyclists.
Ballston May Be Next ‘Hot’ Neighborhood — Thanks to new development, the renovation of Ballston Common Mall, and the efforts of the Ballston Business Improvement District and others, Ballston is being mentioned as the region’s “next hottest neighborhood.” [Washington Post]
Wegmans Coming to Alexandria — A Wegmans grocery store is finally set to open within a reasonably short drive of at least some parts of Arlington. Per WBJ, the Rochester, NY-based chain will open an 84,000-square-foot store at Hoffman Town Center in Alexandria, not far from where the National Science Foundation recently moved. [Washington Business Journal]
Arlington County should begin planning soon for the long-term growth in the use of driverless cars on its streets, says a local transportation expert.
The county has been on the forefront of research into autonomous vehicles. In August, a car that appeared to be driverless was spotted on the streets of Courthouse and Clarendon.
Its sightings last month left many baffled, and now, car company Ford has explained why and how it sent a “driverless” car through the streets of Courthouse and Clarendon.
In a Medium post today (Wednesday), John Shutko, Ford’s Human Factors Technical Specialist for Self-Driving Vehicles, said the company was working with Virginia Tech to test ways for driverless cars to more effectively show its intentions to pedestrians and other road users.
