Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Morning Roundup: Goodbye, Abe Edition
Judge Throws Out WTU Suit Over Teacher Layoffs
Vegetate to Close at the End of the Month
Morning Roundup: Rain Won't Go Away Edition
Good morning, Washington. Usually, we get pretty excited about coming in to work only to discover that the big, unwieldy and potentially troublesome meeting that was scheduled has been canceled. That's often a gold star kind of day that deserves a special trip out for a fancy coffee, and maybe doing a little jig behind the closed door of your office, right? But we have to express some serious disappointment that this meeting appears to have been put off. In clichéd interweb parlance, it would have been the Best. Meeting. Ever. Here's to hoping it's rescheduled soon.
Metro Proposes Fare Hike: Forget about increasing revenue by plastering rail cars with advertising or pinching pennies by no longer vacuuming the carpet: Metro General Manager John Catoe is now proposing a fare hike. We knew this was likely to happen at some point soon -- after all, fares haven't increased on Metro for more than three years, and despite bringing in a consultant to propose cost saving measures, Catoe warned us that the agency's budget wouldn't be sustainable in the long run without asking riders to pay their share. Fortunately, the new proposal looks nothing like the convoluted tiered fare system that was bandied about back in December. Instead, Catoe now says a system-wide increase that would be tied to inflation, which would go into effect in January, is necessary to make Metro solvent. Nobody likes paying more for transportation, but at least this is a concept we can get behind. No doubt DCist Colin will pipe up with more on this later.
Norton to Introduce Bill Preventing Felons from Running Security Firms: Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton plans to introduce a bill that would ban felons from running companies with government security contracts. The move comes after one company, the Springfield company, which was run by a man who served five years in federal prison in the 1990s for bank fraud and money-laundering, failed to pay its guards at federal buildings in D.C. for several weeks.
Briefly Noted: Walter Reed shooting result of name-calling ... Residents in Southeast dealing with power surges ... Two teens arrested in barber shop shooting ... Beltway chase cops didn't follow procedure ... Top District real estate official tied to real estate company.
This Day in DCist: In 2006 we sympathized with former D.C. Council candidate A. Scott Bolden on his struggles with comment spam and in 2005 we offered up a recipe for you to bake those controversial Cake Love cupcakes at home.
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That bill by Ms. Norton is going to be killed slowly and silently by the GOP, with help from the DLC.
The advertising on the outside of the metro cars is sort of stunning and looks very graffitti-like when the train is buzzing past. I am not used to it yet.
I just wish that idiots would quit eating and drinking in the cars and staining the carpets and causing the need for additional clean-up all the time. That in itself would save metro money.
It would also save Metro to remove the carpets, which is something I think Catoe said he wants to do. They spend quite a bit on carpet cleaning.
You know, Metro wouldn't need more money to sustain its budget if it would just stop tinkering with station names.
I mean, it's nice to know that you can walk from the Woodley Park station to Adams Morgan...does that mean that the station name has to change?! Did Mt. Vernon Square have to be changed to include the new Convention Center? And Penn Quarter? Did that really need to be appended to Navy Memorial/Archives?
And it's not like this was done after one review of the system...instead, it's done on an ad hoc basis, resulting in seemingly constant updates of all of the maps (and signs) throughout the system.
DE --
Somewhat related, although not really at all -- if anyone is ever in the coat check room of the Madison Building of the LoC, be sure to check out the Metro map they've got hanging up there. I haven't lived in DC long enough to really know the history of the system and its various expansions, but judging from all the stations the map is missing it has got to be at least ten years old.
You know, Metro wouldn't need more money to sustain its budget if it would just stop tinkering with station names.
I mean, it's nice to know that you can walk from the Woodley Park station to Adams Morgan...does that mean that the station name has to change?! Did Mt. Vernon Square have to be changed to include the new Convention Center? And Penn Quarter? Did that really need to be appended to Navy Memorial/Archives?
While the signage costs aren't a big deal when compared with the whole of Metro's budget, I'm inclined to agree that the expanded names are generally unnecessary and irritating. Adding "Convention Center" to Mt. Vernon Square was semi-defensible, since it's a destination a lot of out-of-towners will try to find, but the rest of the renamings generally reflect the grousings of politically connected outfits who want to see their interests or causes on Metro maps.
The worst offender here is probably "Ronald Reagan" Washington National Airport. Ordinarily, a portion of the costs of sign and map replacements can be justified because of the need to replace existing signs or maps that may be worn out. However, Congress renamed the airport just after Metro printed a complete map and sign replacement and update, and then demanded that Metro replace all the just-installed maps and signs so that Reagan's name would appear on the system as soon as possible.
All that said, if I were flacking for a Metro station renaming, I'd rename MacPherson Square to include "White House." Tourists are always asking which station goes to the White House, so it's about as justified as Mt. Vernon Square/Convention Center. (Yes, there's a graphic of the White House on the Metro map, but the map's not to scale, and, as "Overheard in DC" keeps reminding us, a lot of tourists don't know what the White House looks like.)
Huh, something went screwy with the italics there. The second paragraph was also quoting DE, in case you have really bad short-term memory.
As for the renaming. It's Metro policy to require groups requesting the renaming of a station to pony up the $$$ to update the maps, etc. This is why Metro resisted with National Airport. Congress wasn't paying. It costs $400,000 to update all the signs and maps.