December 29, 2005
Morning Roundup: Drunk Text Message Edition
Good morning, Washington. As we approach the new year and the amount of colleagues in your office thins out even more, here's a run-down on the happenings today in and around the District. And to get you ready for those new year's eve drunk text messages, today the Post features an article about bringing on the brevity. Call us critical, but it just sounds goofy when the Post tries so hard to sound hip.
Stadium Vote Delayed Until Mid January: The vote on the stadium lease has been delayed until mid-January 2006 at the earliest, as District officials continue working on all options, notes WJLA. Also, money from Metro's joint-development fund may be used to renovate the Navy Yard station on the Green Line, which would be patronized by stadium-goers and is currently one of the stadium costs no one has offered to pay for, notes the Post. Council-member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), a stadium opponent and critical vote, was quoted as saying, "There's been no decision yet. I'm not at peace with this issue yet." Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein stated that the District has $16.8 million in its joint-development fund, but similarly recognized that $12.7 million of that total has already been set aside for other uses.
Rise in Pedestrian Deaths in District: In news that should make you think twice before crossing the street, the District has seen a rise in pedestrian deaths this year. The Post cites the National Capital Region Transportation Planning Board in saying that around 3,000 pedestrians a year are hit in the District, of which 16 resulted in deaths this year as compared to an average of 12 from the past three years. In what seems to be a nearly 50-50 split in regards to the pedestrian or the driver being at fault, the District continues to try and make D.C. streets more friendly for the walking. Writes the Post: "The District has hired a full-time pedestrian-safety coordinator, made improvements to 20 of the most dangerous intersections and installed 1,200 countdown pedestrian signals since 2003, the most of any city, according to District officials. The District has also been running radio commercials this month about pedestrian safety and is paying police officers overtime to watch for traffic violations." Well, at least that's more than just the big orange flags...
District Housing Market Cools: Pointing to the fact that more newly-built homes are staying on the market longer, WTOP reports that the District housing market seems to be slowing, a post Christmas development for buyers in the area. Similarly, the District's housing finance agency is trying to give a boost to first-time and repeat buyers in the area with grants covering up to four percent of the cost of a new home, part of D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams' effort to attract 100,000 new residents to the city by the end of 2010.
Briefly Noted: Virginia to spend $800 million on traffic improvement ... Small plane forced to land in Maryland ... Suspect arrested in kidnapping of McLean woman.
Picture snapped by epmd.
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that text message article is lame. I always thought only 14 year old girls typed "h8" and stuff like that.
"Call us critical, but it just sounds goofy when the Post tries so hard to sound hip."
I said pretty much the same thing this morning when I read the article. Don't they have Slate.com to push these kinds of articles?
The Post should stick to bashing Bush and leave the hipster stuff to a publication that understands it.
TC
And has the author not heard of predictive text? Three taps to make a C is for novices. I can type on my phone faster than I can type on a keyboard sometimes.
Can we agree that the Post generally has style coverage so cheesy that it's almost endearing? The difference in this areas between the WP and NYT, which has a younger readership, is astonishing. WP is consistently uninterested in trends until they affect soccer moms. Very cute.
I'm disgusted that using Metro money for a special project is even an option. The system needs so many upgrades: more trains, better trains, more/better/any security, operations and crowd control improvements and training ... improving the train and bus system would do more for the city than any amount of indirect business from the stadium.
Plus, if the stadium is built there will be a huge impact, throughout the Metro system, on rider volume and availability of trains on game days. Given all these public transit burdens, renovating Navy Yard is the one burden most logically assumed by those who want the stadium to succeed.
Well, there's already a big impact on the system on game days, it's just in a different spot, at the Stadium-Armory stop.
What someone needs to point out is that this isn't just an issue of that money for that station. Metro is facing a system wide capacity crunch that's going to take a lot of money to fix.
I wonder, though, given Metro's ability to use variable fares, if any consideration has been given to upping the exit fare at the Navy Yard station on game days. This would shift some attendees to other transport options, and it would raise extra money that could be used for the station expansion.
You propose *discouraging* people from using public transport? That's sound urban planning. You would have them in their cars? Or, if we're anti-car, perhaps they could bike in from Herdon? Brilliant!
Anyway, arguing that the money is better spent on infrastructure improvements is just a weaker version of the "stadium v. schools" argument. The amount of bread needed to upgrade one subway stop pales in comparison to the financial and human investments needed to keep a major urban transit system like Metro up to date and running well. You're not going to be able to blame baseball for your damn bus being late. For that, try looking to, say, the DC council and other entities who fund metro. You can then move on to a bureacracy which, like most bureacracies, serves its employees and administrators better than its customers. You might also look to the actual administrators and employees, too many of whom, so far as I can tell, are rude and incompetent, and do little more than eat up salary and benefits that would be better spent on captial improvements like new buses and more competent employees. But none of that is baseball's fault.
(Overall, btw, Metro does a pretty damn good job. Like the US post office, it's just easy to blame them for not perfectly pulling off a very difficult task every single day of the year. And the vast majority of its employees are, I think, very good and polite.)
Shift some people to other transport options. Like getting off at the Waterfront station instead of the Navy Yard station.
Ryan - better options would be to rename both the Waterfront and Navy Yard stations to include the stadium's name, or put up signs that say "Exit at Navy Yard or Waterfront for _______ Stadium." With the good road links to 395/295 via South Capitol, it's not going to take much to dissuade people from taking public transit, and a surcharge for exiting the station on game days would probably do it.