April 28, 2008
Morning Roundup: Looking Over Your Shoulder Edition
Good morning, D.C. Last week we reminded you about the city's electronics recycling and household hazardous materials collection event that happened over the weekend, and a couple of you who went down to the Carter Barron Amphitheatre on Saturday have since left comments about how crowded and overwhelmed the event turned out to be. The Post even wrote a story about the traffic mess the event caused on 16th Street, thanks to the 3,000 to 4,000 people who reportedly showed up to do the right thing environmentally. Our commenters appear to agree that the solution is for the city to host these events more regularly, instead of just twice a year, so there's some good news: City Administrator Dan Tangherlini told the paper that the city will open its Benning Road trash transfer station in Northeast Washington next weekend for those of you gave up on Saturday before you were able to drop off your items.
MPD Triples Patrols After Weekend Violence: An alarming amount of violent crime over the weekend prompted Chief Cathy Lanier to nearly triple the amount of officers out on patrol in response. In total, four men were killed and at least 11 people wounded in a series of unrelated shootings. We expect to hear about the summer's first All Hands on Deck weekend in relatively short order.
Many Metro Delays Caused by Sick Passengers: The Examiner reports an interesting statistic: in the month of February, sick passengers accounted for 16 percent of all major service disruptions on Metro. That's roughly one out of six Metro delays having been caused by passengers instead of by the transit agency. The story says that Metro’s rules dictate that when a passenger becomes ill while on a train, the operator must stop the train at the nearest station, notify the operations control center, and investigate the situation. So if you think you might be sick during your journey across town, do the rest of us a favor and take a cab.
Briefly Noted: Truckers to rally around Capitol Hill this morning to protest gas prices ... Former D.C. worker says she was fired in retaliation for filing a sexual harassment complaint ... Development proposed for Nationals Park river gateway.
Photo by lovedc
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1000 block of Half Street, S.W.
8th and Yuma Street, S.E.
Clearly, this is more sloppy reporting on the Post's part. There couldn't have been shootings at those addresses. There are housing projects right around the corner! People don't get shot at housing projects. Residents are far too busy looking for gainful employment, studying for their GEDs, and planting flowering arbutuses. In fact, you're safer at a housing project than you are driving in the suburbs (so long as those suburbs don't include any housing projects).
We've tried storing poverty in boxes downtown for half a century and it still hasn't worked. Isolating and marginalizing ethnicities never works. Didn't work in the Warsaw ghettos, didnt' work in Dachau, didn't work in SoCal Japanese internment camps (thank you very much, Attourney General Earl Warren!), didn't work in Cabrini Green. And it sure as hell ain't working for Condon Terrace either.
For what taxpayers are paying for HOPE VI subsidized housing and to maintain crumbling infrastructure, you could cut every project resident a check for $60k and give them a plane ticket to Anywhere, U.S.A. This is in line with the grand American tradition of making your problem someone else's by shipping it to the suburbs. They'll either invest wisely (say, in a decent BBQ stand, of which this region sorely lacks) or they'll invest poorly (a truckload of menthols, diseased hookers, and Steel Reserve). Either way, the "problem" takes care of itself. Or DC could just buy out any number of forclosed McMansion cul-de-sacs in Prince William County and set up an express panhandler shuttle bus that can take them direct to Metro Center in 40 minutes. PW County stops losing population, DC gets rid of its projects, downtown commuters get the smug sense of self-satisfaction giving handouts to beggars, and they, in turn contribute to the PW County tax base. It's win-win(ce).
Remember: Vote Monkeyrotica - "Because you don't know any better."®
i was stuck behind a sick passenger train today between l'enfant and federal center sw!
Seriously, if i'm sick just roll me out the door and keep truckin'.
I don't know about y'all, but I spent my Saturday morning helping to clean up at that section of Rock Creek Park where Connecticut Ave meets the Beltway (up by the big LDS church). I was hoping to find a golden tablet or a pair of magical panties, but sadly no.
Isn't Metro's definition of "sick" awfully broad? Heart attack="sick", accidental beheading="sick", so drunk you pass out on the train="sick."
I know it would make my delays more entertaining at least if they announced something like "we've got a frat boy on the floor on the Red Line." The more you know.
Metro is only taking the necessary precautions to prevent people from passing out and dying in the tunnels. The last thing they need is ghosts haunting the system. They have enough problems as it is with the doors malfunctioning, the brakes malfunctioning and miscellaneous (whatever that means).
I like Monkey's platform.
And I also want more info on the sick passenger designations. Because I want to know whether I should make snarky comments about some passenger who pukes on the train after reading the Express, or feel bad for a passenger who suffers a heart attack, or feel bad for fellow passengers if a passenger ate too much food basted in Olestra and is now having explosive and uncontrollable diarrhea.
@Old Poster Known as Cranky:
Snark's a bitch ain't it?
@boondoggle: I assume you forgot to wear your special spectacles.
@boondoggle:
I heard Rock Creek is a good place to find peeping stones.
Bethesdaist: Nice Brazil avatar
i'm with the truckers. diesel is expensive!!! i drive a jetta tdi and it cost me over 50 bucks to fill up the other day. homey don't play dat.
Thanks, Stockard Channing - I thought it was a good cultural representation of my 'hood.
msto: supply and demand sucks. i hope prices come down for your sake, but i wouldn't bank on it.
All Hands on Deck Weekend? Pshaw. Every mayor knows that what we really need is a good Day-of-Prayer-in-Sackcloth-and-Ashes-Because-of-Ninevehification. http://bhamweekly.com/blog/2008/04/22/leapin-larrys-prayer-proclamation/
And just in case you're wondering how to make your sackcloth into a truly pulled-together ensemble, apparently, Rolexes are the perfect accessory : http://bhamweekly.com/blog/2008/04/25/langford-sports-sackcloth-ashes-rolex/
(Sorry - don't know how to embed!)
Oh, my poor hometown....
Seriously, if i'm sick just roll me out the door and keep truckin'.
There needs to be a Metro equivalent of MedicAlert bracelets that tell train operators and passengers this sort of info. "In case of emergency on Metro, roll out door, continue train on schedule"
Speaking of Metro's definitions, I'd like to know what they mean by "door malfunctions," which the article says are the cause of 28 percent of delays. This seems to be about the same level I recall a Post article a year or two back attributing to passengers blocking doors.
Msto - I drive a TDI, too. If this keeps up, I'm going to start raiding the Chinese restaurants for waster fryer grease and start making my own biodiesel.
That, or harvest the lard from those fatties loitering in McDonalds.
i'm with you there, Monkey.
these truckers are protesting outside of my building right now and it's really annoying. For anyone unaware, they are driving up and down constitution ave honking their horns nonstop.
How about instead of wasting your fuel to protest your rising fuel costs, you do it a little more quietly?
cest12 - Silent protests are rarely effective. Witness my protest against the rising cost of high-def porn by sitting in a sealed room in my basement and barely moving.
Metro is only taking the necessary precautions to prevent people from passing out and dying in the tunnels. The last thing they need is ghosts haunting the system.
I would welcome ghosts in the Metro system, because how awsome would it be to have ectoplasmic residue and telekinetic activity as excuses for being late to work?
Monkey:
You have a valid point, whether intentional or not.
DC warehouses the considerable majority of the nonworking and working poor for the entire region. Yet so many of the jobs they'd actually qualify for are in the burbs. And the more affordable apartments in reasonably safe neighborhoods are in the suburbs. As are the decent schools.
So why is it we insist on continuing to let the burbs dump all the social problems accompanying very poor on us? And then why do we insist on having such a terrible way of dealing with it, pretty much guaranteeing no 'fix' in sight?
Oh,yes, that's right. It's because that's the way we've always done it.