March 24, 2008
Morning Roundup: Everything's Ducky Edition
Good morning, Washington. We hope you had a swell Easter. Given that it was a holiday weekend, this morning there is the traditional dearth of local news headlines to choose from. Right now on the South Lawn of the White House, the president and first lady are hosting the annual Easter Egg Roll. If you're out looking for something to photograph in the city this morning, we suggest adorable children dressed up in their best outfits rolling eggs on Pennsylvania Ave. The real news this morning? The overall American death toll in Iraq reached 4,000 over the weekend.
Will Klingle Road Open Once Again?: The Examiner reports that Klingle Road, once a major link between Mount Pleasant and Woodley Park but which has been closed for 17 years due to flood damage, may finally once again reopen. Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed 2009 budget includes $2 million to get the road finally on its way back to being open. The D.C. Council voted in 2003 to reopen the road, but a delay in federal funding approval has meant the construction project has yet to get going. By allocating city funds, Mayor Fenty could ensure construction begins next year. Not everyone agrees that opening Klingle Road is such a good idea, however. This is an old fight between local environmental activists, nearby residents and commuters who would like to use the road as a shortcut. Ward 3 D.C. Council member Mary Cheh has come out against the project, while Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham supports it.
Gas Station Thieves Arrested: If you pay attention to crime news in the city, you'll know that there's been a rash of thefts from cars parked at gas stations over the last year. The Post reports that D.C. police arrested three suspects over the weekend after a service station stakeout. During the course of the arrest, the suspects took a purse from a parked car, fled in a getaway car, and crashed their car. A police officer also accidentally discharged his pistol into his foot during the incident.
Briefly Noted: Family escapes house fire in Northeast ... Woman arrested for stabbing her grandmother and boyfriend ... Man found shot and killed in Park View.
Photo by spectreman
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Oh, for those commenters who complained, I took down the This Week in -Ists. But you should all know, D.C. was the only city where anyone complained about that photo. That's right, I'm nerd-shaming you all! Major newspapers run ads of people in their underwear!
But, you know, I want you to be happy. So there you go.
Something about that police officer shooting himself in his foot sounds suspicious. If the foot was innocent, why was it trying to run away from the crime scene? Was it resisting arrest? Was it holding a wallet that looked like a gun? I mean, a cop points a gun at your feet, your feet are supposed to freeze. That shot foot has no one to blame but itself. And yet DC taxpayers will foot the bill for the inevitable police brutality lawsuit.
Wow. Two folks whine about pics of people smooching in underwear and the story gets yanked? And yet you continue to run that goddamned Rhee/Trump mashup pic that gives me night terrors so severe I wet my bed? No justice, no peace!
Well, in fairness, it wasn't a "story", it's the weekly compilation of other -Ist stories that we don't actually put together ourselves. And I'm looking for another photo and will put it back up shortly.
Who the hell complained about that? Oh no, your boss might see you looking at a pic of a guy and girl in their underwear!
You could've left the article up without the photo.
It didn't REALLY get yanked. And fwiw I thought the photo was awesome. The contributor had some other frightening and hilarious pictures from that "UCLA Undie Run", whatever that might be, but looked very drunk, very Old School.
http://dcist.com/2008/03/23/week_around_the_31.php
What, no coverage of the 1st game at Nationals Park?
It was a http://www.nowpublic.com/sports/dc-nats-stadium-1st-baseball-game-public-barred">Private Game between GW and St. Joseph's but it was not that private.
Attempt to correct link:
Private Game
Dammit, the picture got changed already on the original post!! Seattlefest looks like a complete bomb compared to undie run. Luckly, I snagged it in time.
http://farmfreshmeat.com/ucla/week_around_the_31.php.htm
Echoing the general love for semi-scandalous photos on DCist. I'm not even sure what that second photo is of.
Btw, I love your avatar pic Jamie. Great album.
Klingle Road ought to be re-opened. It is a travesty it has been closed this long.
Way to reinforce stodgy DC stereotypes, fellow readers.
First I thought that photo was an American Apparel ad. Then I bookmarked it. With sexy results.
I sort of like that Klingle Road is closed. It's amazing to go walking down there - it's so quiet, and it's incredible how fast nature has taken root in the concrete. Also, if you go down there, it's pretty obvious to anyone that the flood damage will occur again - the hillside is very unstable, and the road is absurdly close to the creek. If anything, I think opening up a narrower bike path would be better - less likely to fall in the water, and it would help encourage bike commuters!
The picture was taken down because we really don't need a picture of near-nude skinny and out of shape dorks and their beer-bellied girlfriends on the front page for the next 8 hours.
Let's see how long it takes for DCist to reinforce other local stereotypes by sending me a cease and desist email for mirroring that page.
mreford, you are the first person who's ever commented on that...
That $2 mil is just initial feasibility studies, environmental impact statements, and design planning. To get Klingle up to SUV-driving standards is going to take A LOT more than a lousy $11 mil, and that's not counting the inevitable Cleveland Plark nimby lawsuits, courtesy the Save Klingle Road Association of Concerned Citizens for Puppies, Apple Pie and Motherhood.
jeebus h. christos, people, you sure know how to jump down someone's throat.
i could give two shits about the picture, and i don't find it offensive WHATSOEVER. read what i said:
i think that all of us here on dcist have no problem with that. it's our bosses and reactionary I.T. people who would give us hell for having that on our screens.
don't blame the messenger...
We should do an Undie Run down Klingle Road, so there.
And uh, just to bring up a different topic: why did the Family Guy 100th episode show last night suck so much ass?? Wtf were they trying to do with that?
it's funny, the klingle road situation was one of the first hyper-local nerd things that i learned about when i moved here, and i've gone back and forth over what i felt should happen with it. i think i'm currently in the "bike path" group, but since i don't live that close to the park anymore, it has kind of slipped from my interest.
They originally aired that episode back in November and it was just as dumb then as it was last night.
Bike path? Really? I think even Lance Armstrong would have to stop and walk while biking up Klingle Road. That thing is steep!
I'm fully in the road camp. I run in Rock Creek Park all the time. Even on weekends, I hardly ever see anyone once you get about 500 feet from a parking lot. It's the must underutilized asset in this city. The argument that Klingle Road is more needed as an extra acre of parkland is absurd since people hardly use the other 1,750 acres. On the other hand, crosstown traffic SUCKS.
Disco Stu: Family Guy reminded me of that Wonder Showzen episode where they ask people on the street about quality tv. Though Seth McFarlene is mildly amusing in front of the camera, the episode felt more like a dvd special feature.
jamie: i hear ya, it's steep, but i don't think any more so than 13th street next to cardozo. hey, if it's a road, i see the benefits there too. and i see the benefits to the watershed of having less impervious surfaces, so i guess there are positives in whatever situation wins out.
BTW - i like the atom heart mother album too. very underrated album.
The Klingle Road debate is totally warped to my simple mind. Road was open for a century. Road is heavily damaged in flooding 17 years ago. DC is incompetent and broke and can't afford to fix the road, thereby symbolizing just how much the city sucked.
It was a road. It still is a road. We now have money to fix it. What's the issue? It's not like there's suddenly a dearth of public land in Rock Creek Park or nature trails. I can understand the people on the ritzy side of Klingle Road enjoying their private cul-de-sac and not wanting a return of pesky commuters using their road. But a much larger number of people would greatly benefit from that road being repaired and re-opened. Instead, that road being closed continues to be a shining example of District government incompetence and financial mismanagement.
I was looking at the map and trying to figure it out, but couldn't.. where exactly did Klingle Rd run to? It appears to go under Connecticut, but there didn't seem to be anywhere on the west side of Conn. for it to go.
While it is certainly understandable that most people need to abide by the "NSFW" mantra, is it really the responsibility of DCist and its staff to make sure their posts' content does the same?
Afterall, this is a blog which, as many commenters on here have established in the past, must not heed any sort of journalistic rules. Also, the picture in question was from LAist and the decision to have it atop the "This week around the -ists" was a decision made by Gothamist at large.
If you're not comfortable viewing such a picture at work, you probally shouldn't be reading this site - or any other - while at work.
(no blame IMGoph)
Also, if its DCist's responsibility to make sure the site is "SFW" then maybe they should just not post ANY material during working hours despite the fact its their job to.
ah, west, there's the rub.
i shouldn't be surfing the web at work. but i am. so, i want to keep the risk of that causing problems to a minimum.
you're right though, dcist shoudln't have to conform to anyone's standards other than their own.
Klingle road was awesome because it is like some kind of relativistic wormhole through Rock Creek Park. It starts in Mt. Pleasant, and about 3/4 of a mile later, spits you out way west of Connecticut Avenue near Woodley and Cathedral. Getting across that stretch any other for miles north or south involves crossing Connecticut Avenue at a heavily congested intersection. It's awesome. Was. Awesome.
Politburo, if you Google Map Klingle Road, it breaks where the road is currently closed under Connecticut Ave and then starts up again to intersect with Woodley Road.
While it is environmentally sound because you have a great path through the park, underneath Connecticut, its closure only increases traffic on Porter as people cut across to Wisconsin Ave. So much to the point that they had to put in traffic calming measures on Porter to slow it down.
This city is so inefficient when trying to go east-west.
Gotcha, and understand. I'm not trying to come across as anti-office man or anti-establishment. I'm just saying, "Its not DCist's problem, C'MON (a la GOB).
Ah, I see now. Thanks.
I swear, when I lived in Mt. Pleasant, Klingle was all people could talk about, and half of the folks who wanted the road to remain closed seemed to base their entire argument on the theory that Laurie Collins wanted it reopened so it must be a bad thing.
I'm in complete agreement with no-longer-Cranky, it's a road, and a symbol of the District's incompetence at administering its budget and infrastructure. Reopen it.
Since when does DC have money to fix Klingle? Isn't Gandhi projecting a $96 mil budget gap? I mean, that's assuming the Tax Office managed to halt any more employees walking out the front door with garbage bags of money with big dollar signs on the side.
I agree Moose. The estimation is that 3,200 cars use this road daily or something like that? We're not talking about the 14th Street Bridge type of traffic.
When it is in the interest of the greater good, fix the road. Lord knows that Rock Creek Park is large enough that people can enjoy it on foot elsewhere.
No longer cranky???!?!?! How dare you sir/madam? I will have you know that I still remain cranky, whether about the Klingle Road mess, the lack of trebuchets in DC, or the dearth of panda-shaving activities for families.
can we get a dcist poll up in here to see what people think about this?
- open road
- leave as is
- make bike path
- remove pavement and return to natural state
seems like a good debate for us nerdy, white people to sink our teeth further into.
Monkey: The $2M startup money is in the mayor's budget submission. I look forward to seeing if Graham can keep that $2M allocation in the budget (and win kudos from his constituents), or if Cheh can try to stop it (and win kudos from some of her constituents and anti-kudos from others).
Where the remaining $9M will come from doesn't need to be dealt with now since it will likely take a year for all the environmental studying for the project.
i agree with IMGoph. i was one of the ones mentioning the NSFW of the original photo, and it wasn't because it offended me - on the contrary, i found it hilarious. but my office is an open-plan office, and a passerby may not have thought it as funny.
not everyone has the luxury (or punishment?) of a closed-door office in this town.
btw, loved the "accidentially shot himself in the foot" anecdote. oh, MPD, how we love hearing your moron-moment stories. :)
Erincarly, I can understand and relate. But if you change your view on dcist to "Summary View" (see top right of the page), it condenses each post and shrinks the picture to the point that most people wouldn't know what it was of unless they were reading over your shoulder.
I guess the editors of this site can only be progressive up to a point before being reminded that we live and work and read in up-tight Washington.
Klingle Road has been A White Man's Paradise for years. Cleveland Park/Woodley Park has more lawyers and money per square mile so it's only natural that they get what they want.
I sure do hope that Mayor Fenty snubs his nose at this NIMBY crusade and gives DC back its road.
Now I'm going to stick my tongue out ...
Thanks boondoggle, flapjack. (Where else but DCist do I get to write that?!)
My 2 cents on Klingle? put up a toll to pay for the difference, that way users can fund it
I don't know... if Klingle has been closed for 17 years and the city hasn't gone to pot in that time, I don't see the dire need to reopen it now, even if it was incompetence that led to its long closure. As WHAZZUP pointed out, the soil erosion problems in that area could make any repair a headache. I've never noticed traffic on Porter and I take it to work.
That's a non argument. It's like saying, Woodie's closed down 20 years ago, and the city hasn't gone to pot since then, so do we really need a Target in DC? Human beings existed without plumbing for millions of years, why do we need it now? Of course we could survive without it. The point is, things would be better with it.
There are very few east-west crossings of Conn. Ave, and only one other that is under a bridge (rather than at a traffic light) is Piney Branch Parkway, not an especially useful one for most people since it doesn't go all the way across the park.
The population of the city has gone up something like 30% in the last 20 years. Your personal experience on Porter notwithstanding, there are long delays crossing the park at many times of the day and there is a existing road that crosses under (e.g. with no traffic light) that is unused. It seems a no brainer to me. $11 million is chicken feed in the DC budget, especially for such a significant project.
If Porter really has congestion then I could support reopening Klingle, but the bus always zooms through the valley whenever I take it (perhaps my commute is earlier than peak rush hour, but I never noticed it to be that bad). I agree, Porter's closing or staying open would not in itself wreak havoc on DC, but I also don't see things as being significantly worse off as it is now.
There is no valley--that's a myth. It's a road, and always has been a road. What's there now is a urinal filled with garbage.
San Francisco's Embarcadero Freeway had always been a road, too, until an earthquake made it fall down. Then, the city realized it would be better off with a nice waterfront than a major freeway. Yeah, some people's commutes got longer, but the city got better.
What many commenters are forgetting in this discussion is "induced demand." When you build a new freeway, people drive more and make decisions about where to live based on the expectation that they have this fast route. Then, traffic increases and the road gets jammed up anyway. If we reopen Klingle, most likely it'll get as bad as Porter in short order.
Since the city has gotten by fine for 17 years without this road, let's turn it into a nicer park. I don't think there are so many places in Rock Creek to enjoy nature without going way north, not with the main expressway already running through most of it. And it's not analogous to "we never had a Target so we don't need one" - a road helps some people but at a big cost of open space, air quality, and more driving which means fewer transit riders and therefore WMATA has a harder time covering its costs.
More here on Greater Greater Washington.