Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
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Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
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Good morning, Washington. We hope you enjoyed plenty of the sunshine and breezes the city offered up this weekend, and that you were neither pecked to death by your urban chickens nor stung into submission by your urban beehive. What's next exactly for our tiny D.C. rowhouse backyards? Urban llamas?
Metro Operators Still Opening Doors Too Soon: Despite assurances from General Manager John Catoe that new safety measures had been put in place to prevent Metro operators from opening train doors too soon, the dangerous mistake is definitely still happening, the Post reports. "From March to May, there were 17 such door incidents, all but three involving eight-car trains that were not properly berthed." The end of the story indicates much of the problem could be solved by having operators stop every train at the end of the platform every time, like they do in San Francisco. That would of course involve passengers needing to move to one end of the platform when trains with fewer than eight cars were in use.
Permanent Gun Regulations in Place, For Now: The District's revised, post-Heller gun registration laws went into permanent effect on Friday, the Examiner reports, but of course how long they'll stay is an open question. Dick Heller is suing the city again over the laws, and the D.C. House Voting Rights Act, with its amendment to repeal the laws, is still pending.
Briefly Noted: Man shot and killed in Northeast ... Bike trail opens on Wilson Bridge ... Fire destroys Rockville landmark ... Woman dies in overnight crash on Suitland Parkway.
This Day in DCist: In 2007, Fenty and Lanier introduced their All Hands on Deck crime fighting initiative for the very first time, and in 2006, we recommended a few rooftop drinking options.
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Because the car was pinned between two trees, it took Prince George's County fire crews two hours to pull the female driver out of the wreckage whose legs were pinned under the dashboard.
Again, we see the blame for accidents being steered away from the driver of the vehicle. The title incorrectly stated that a passenger died "in an overnight crash," as if random crashes were wandering around after dark killing people. The real killers here are THE CAR, its dashboard, and the two trees. Local media outlets need to place the blame clearly where it belongs: bloodthirsty vehicles, killer dashboards, the laws of physics, and the Ents.
Also, WMATA needs a new slogan:
Metro Opens Doors...WHILE THE GODDAMNED TRAIN IS STILL MOVING!®
we already have urban llamas on Connecticut Ave: http://www.flickr.com/photos/providerguardian/567076017/
Sure it's not a vicuna or alpaca?
I tried to raise urban lacuna in my backyard, but they all disappeared through a gap in the fence.
"Tina! You lard, come get dinner!"
So all these groups are opposed to the DC gun laws, yet no one submits any comments to the proposed regulations?
WTF?
That struck me as strange. I didn't even know about the comments period. Seeing how Mendo pushed these through with NO public debate, I bet they were not too big on advertising it.
Yeah. That is weird. I had the same reaction when the DC Government suspended the writ of habeas corpus and the First Amendment last week. But then I discovered that they announced it months ago in an ad in the Pennysaver.
Easy answer... such groups are mostly interested in using DC to make a national statement. They don't actually care about the nitty-gritty of what goes on here.
Generally I agree that DC's gun laws are being used as props by national organizations. But still....it surprises me that none of those organizations even bothered to submit any comments just so they could say in their fundraising brochures how they helped fight the evil, socialist DC gun laws. Plus, no local peeps who want to register their handguns offered any comments?
I just don't get it. Either MPD didn't do a good job of letting people know about the proposed regulations, or people are just lazy and would prefer bitching and moaning on websites rather than submitting any useful comments.
I would have submitted, but seriously, I didn't know they were being accepted. Of course, all Mendo had to do was forward my many comments to him.
Opponents of DC's handgun laws are also opposed to DC home rule, so they rely on federal judicial activism and the will of the District's nonresident dictators in Congress.
Careful with that broad brush of yours. There are more than a few pro-2A rights and pro-home rule folks here.
The Metro door problem seems like it could be fairly easily solved by stopping all trains (or at least all rush hour trains) at the end of the platform. Yeah, riders might bitch about it, but they'll get used to it eventually.
Another idea: put a big fat sign in the operator's room with a 6 or 8 on it.
Why are 8-car trains operated manually, anyway?
They started opening the doors manually to help correct the problem of them opening and the train not completely at the platform. Metro figured that if it was manually operated, they would have more control. They kind of forgot that it wasn't the doors fault, but the person driving the trains for not going to the end of the platform.
I think the BART has the right idea. They also have indicators where the doors will open and people will wait in line by those sections. They are good about getting it lined up each and every time. At least the many times I took the BART.
I think it was Barcelona where we saw this too. The doors will open at certain marked places. And sure enough, the drivers stop the trains right where they're supposed to be. Amazing, isn't it?
Barcelona, BART, most of Europe, Disneyworld, and hell even those airport terminal trains use different ATO systems than Metro which allow them to stop on a dime.
Then why doesn't WMATA replace what we have with a system that is proven to work? Can't or won't?
There ARE several signs in the operator cabs of 8 car trains reminding them of the length of their train. I usually see no less than 3 signs.
The 8 car trains are operated manually since the automatic train operation precision stopping isn't precise enough to stop the full 8 on the platform where they should. This is largely the same ATO put in when the system was built, when the computer technology wasn't what it is today, and 8 car trains were a long way away. ATO is still used for 6 car trains though.
In the process of upgrading the ATO system Metro found that the new technology was interfering with the automatic door opening on the trains. This is why the operators must manually push the open/closed button.
Metro doors still opening too soon? Are you kidding? You can read an entire book between when the train stops and the doors open.
Metro needs to check their trains to ensure that accidental door openings do not occur either. The other day I was on a train and a woman was leaning against a door; which we all know is a big 'no-no' but she looked especially stupid; and as the train was pulling into the station she lost her balance and put her hand on the door which pushed one of the door panels open about 4-6". It closed once she removed her hand but if a bit of pressure is all it takes to open up one of the doors than I'd say that's a serious problem! People do lose balance and on a packed train there's lots of people standing by those doors. I've never been on one where the doors opened too soon though... I shouldn't be surprised by an operator being so careless as to open them prematurely, but somehow I am anyway... perhaps more surprised by the fact that there isn't a working safeguard that would prevent that. Something like a motion sensor which would simply deactivate the function of the button until the train has reached a complete stop. It's scary to know it's so easy to open the doors at any time.
What's next, you ask - urban goats. No more lawn mowers, goats will keep your postage-stamp sized lawn shorter than the greens at Augusta. No noise, no emissions, and no severed fingers, either - everybody wins!