July 2, 2008
DC2NY LOBBIES COUNCIL AGAINST DEPOT MOVE
If you thought that local bloggers could rally hard against the proposed bus depot at L'Enfant Plaza, well, you obviously underestimated the bus companies in question. According to City Desk, DC2NY has now started directly appealing to customers via email, asking them to contact the DC Council and oppose the move -- citing safety concerns, of all things. We're all for an open dialog, but as City Paper's Erik Wemple aptly points out in the post, DC2NY's safety argument might just be a little bit off. Doing some rudimentary homework through MPD's unbelievably handy and searchable crime database, DC2NY's two current stops at 20th and Massachusetts Avenue NW and 14th and I Streets NW had a combined total of 94 reported incidents of crime, given a 1000 foot radius, in the last 60 days - including one homicide. Under the same criteria, the potential bus depot at L'Enfant Promenade has had only one crime reported.
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The reason there's no crime at the proposed bus terminal is because there's aren't any people after dark at the location of the proposed bus terminal. There is no residential or night life there. It's like saying that Haines Point is safer in the middle of the night than Adams Morgan. I'm sure it has far less crime. But would you hang out at night down there?
While I am not speaking for or against the proposed terminal, if people started waiting for buses all the time in an otherwise deserted area, I bet you'd start getting opportunists taking advantage of the easy pickings. It's not a completely absurd argument.
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http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/06/18/peter_pan_is_a_bully/
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What about the crowding that a single bus location would cause? how many intercity buses are there anyway?
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Yeah, Jamie's right.
Wemple: By that logic, this L'Enfant Plaza I'm holding wards away criminals.
Aaron: But it's just an empty plaza at night.
Wemple: Right but it's an empty plaza at night without any crime.
Aaron: Eric, I would like to buy your L'Enfant Plaza.
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Yes there are no people, but remember there are a ton of Federal Offices there and a tons of security guards who may or may not be asleep. I also wonder what the NTSB has to say about this as the bus depot will be about a cinder block wall from their hearing room. And imagine the irony when the eventual bus accident hearing will be held just mere feet from the actual buses.
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Alright, so the real question is this:
Will the increase in crime at L'Enfant Promenade make it decidedly less safe than the current locations? Sure, crime would probably increase, just due to there being more chances for random opportunity crimes to occur. I'm not arguing that. But my purpose in bringing up the crime statistics is to not to say that crime definitely won't go up; it's to relate that currently, there's no crime in the area, and so painting it as some sort of "unsafe" area is just wrong - at least in comparison to the areas that the bus currently picks up from. So, do people honestly think that because of a bus depot, crime would just spiral out of control down there?
Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I just don't think it's sound reasoning on the part of DC2NY to lobby people to their cause based on the random assumption that crime might possibly become higher than where they currently operate.
And as long as they don't try to force some sort of bear patrol tax on us, it'll likely end up fine.
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Yes there are no people, but remember there are a ton of Federal Offices there and a tons of security guards who may or may not be asleep.
And by "tons" you mean one morbidly obese woman with nine-inch fingernails and her sixty-something partner with cataracts who farts dust.
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"so painting it as some sort of "unsafe" area is just wrong"
It is not wrong to point out that the lack of "eyes on the street" make a place inherently unsafe for people to be dropped-off at (normally carrying some amount of expensive property with them).
Federal workers are not there after 4:59:59 or any time over the weekend. That is a barren area during many of the hours when it would operate as a "depot". It doesn't take crime statistics to prove that a location is inherently unsafe for a particular activity.
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Wait, where was the homicide referred to above? 20th & Mass is basically the Indonesian embassy, and 14th & I is the park, no? Did I miss something? I wasn't aware of any murders in those locations over the past two months.
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Jason:
The homicide was back in May; two victims of stab wounds were found on the 1000 block of Vermont Avenue NW, which is about a block away from 14th and I.
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Leave it to the City Paper to pick a tangential issue and blow it out of proportion (and, uncharacteristically, seem to side with the DC government in the bargain).
So maybe the DC2NY people could have picked a better cloak for their "we don't like this" argument, but the fact is that the city is screwing with one real benefit to living in a dense urban environment: a critical mass of passengers and entrepreneurs to serve them. Make it so the busses are on the far side of town from the passenger population center (and an extra 15 min from the BW Parkway) and some sales will not occur.
Greyhound and the taxis are about the only ones who might-- MIGHT-- benefit from this change. Not passengers, not the cheap bus companies, and not city life.
Some City Hall bureaucrat ought to just go back to surfing for internet porn and leave these guys alone. And Wemple, well... maybe he's got another 3000 words about the Washington Post he'd like to share. Zzzzz.
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The real issue is that the bus companies don't obey any sort of regulation regarding stopping/loading/unloading. They don't care who's business or house they park in front of, or what the existing traffic conditions are in that location.
And then they cry to their customers when the city tries to mitigate the safety, economic, and congestion impacts they cause. They act like entitled, spoiled, children.
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I mean, seriously, can someone PLEASE start a real alternative weekly in this city? The City Paper is a fucking joke compared to what other cities have.
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Personally I can't stand such supposedly good alt-weeklies like The Village Voice. They frequently have the politically sophisticated approach of a 13-year-old who just read half the wikipedia entry on Noam Chomsky.
For all it's faults, I think the Citypaper has at least a relatively grown-up approach to the city.
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hce: why don't you get right on that? i'm waiting for the washington hce paper to land on my doorstep next week.
seriously, why is it so damn fashionable to bash the shit out of the city paper? i'm neither in their corner or a hater, i just like having another option to read. but christ, if all you people hate it, just ignore it, and maybe it will go away. it's like you're being trolled, and you take the bait every damn time.
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I've always had a hard time getting past City Paper's hipper-than-thou writing style. It's the kind of writing that's in love with itself, and not in the good gym-sock-and-Wesson-oil kinda way, but in the not-wisely-but-too-well kinda way.
Really, if I want to stay informed with capsules of bitchy snark, I come here.
Or I go visit yo momma. Because she been around, knowwhutImsayin? And when she sit around the house she sit around the house.
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These buses park in PUBLIC SPACE, which they have no right or authority to do. They block traffic, increase pollution, and generally piss off many downtown business owners. The new location is serviced by train and bus. Why all the griping? These companies will continue to profit - people still will want easy and cheap ways to get to NYC.
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Make it so the busses are on the far side of town from the passenger population center (and an extra 15 min from the BW Parkway)
First of all, by moving the buses to L'Enfant, they're hardly moving to the far side of town -- it's the same side of town, what with the plaza being less than a mile from the Chinatown arch. It's also only two Metro stops away from Gallery Place, and is served by more Metro lines to boot.
Second, Mapquest estimates that it's a quick 43 minute jaunt to BWI from Gallery Place via the BW Parkway. The fastest route from L'Enfant, on the other hand, goes via the BW Parkway, and takes a whopping... 44 minutes. I'd say Mapquest's figures are actually off slightly in favor of Gallery Place, since the route from L'Enfant avoids the traffic hell that is New York Avenue, but even if the route from L'Enfant isn't any faster, it sure isn't fifteen minutes slower.
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These buses park in PUBLIC SPACE, which they have no right or authority to do.
Actually, everyone has the right to park in public space. That's why it's public.
If they're breaking the law in HOW they park there, then give them parking tickets and citations. If they're not, then leave them be since they're providing an amenity for residents.
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Incorrect, Mel. You can utilize public space if you PAY for it. No one has the right unless its given to them.
I agree on the enforcement issue - definitely needs to be stepped up.
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"seriously, why is it so damn fashionable to bash the shit out of the city paper?"
Consider, for a moment, that perhaps the City Paper is getting bashed not because it's fashionable, but because it really does suck? Maybe some people have different expectations of what an alt-weekly should be, but the current incarnation of the City Paper does little more than bitch about stupid neighborhood shit, and the color and consistency of Fenty's latest bowel movement. Isn't that what bloggers are for?
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maybe they're just the print version of a blog.
i'm still waiting for your paper to arrive weekly in boxes around the city. can't wait!
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"These buses park in PUBLIC SPACE, which they have no right or authority to do. They block traffic, increase pollution, and generally piss off many downtown business owners. The new location is serviced by train and bus. Why all the griping? These companies will continue to profit - people still will want easy and cheap ways to get to NYC."
Ahh, so one set of business owners is pissing off another? Interesting. (Is Greyhound one of the business owners?) And I guess the pollution will magically disappear at L'Enfant Plaza.
DC2NY probably does block some traffic at its Mass Ave/Dupont pickup, and at morning rush to boot. But centralizing EVERYONE at L'Enfant isn't the way to fix that.
Apex has its own lot, blocking no one. Eastern has stopped blocking H street (probably after many tickets). And Bolt and Mega use a City bus stop-- a BUS stop, get it?-- outside of Metro Center (for which they get ticketed).
(I stand corrected by... Mapquest? It's not gonna be a 1-minute difference in real traffic. Who here has actually ridden a Chinatown bus lately? I have-- has Wemple?-- and L'Enfant will be a drag, esp. at midnight, when I arrived monday night and easily caught a cab at 7/H)
Lots of folks have started altweeklies-- they're called blogs. City Paper is manifest evidence of becoming what they hated-- smug corporate publishers. And they keep their ad rates low so that no one else can compete in newsprint by undercutting. Internet ad rates can do that. (Also, been a loooong time since the Voice was a decent altweekly.)
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As it stands, there aren't regulations specifically governing commercial bus stops like these; any $1 fly-by-night company that manages to get a license can and does set up shop anywhere, irregardless of existing uses/demands/safety issues. And what's the city gonna do? Revoke their license? Tow a bus while there's a line of people and baggage wrapping around the sidewalk?
Nothing about the current situation really works. It needs to change.
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An irritating post for someone who cares about this issue and who wants to see the debate turn on pertinent facts.
The crime-statistics angle displays a lack of knowledge about how they're collected, or even how germane they are in this situation. Ask any cop or city planner whether putting the depot at L'Enfant Plaza is a good idea and see what they say.
The "Peter Pan Is A Bully" story linked in post No. 2 also bears mentioning again.
The DC2NY buses shouldn't be punished for the actions of their sketchy competitors.