Results tagged “rushhour”

Drivers may be suffering from Terrible Traffic Tuesday, but Metrorail riders don't look to be having an easy night of it, either. The Blue and Orange Lines are delayed (we're hearing some trains are just completely stopped right now) as of about 6:30 p.m. in both directions due to a train experiencing mechanical difficulties outside Farragut West. Add that to the expected delays on the Red Line due to ongoing track circuit repairs at Fort Totten, plus track maintenance-related delays at the Braddock Road station on the Blue and Yellow Lines, and it makes for a not so comforting graphic on WMATA's web site right now. Good luck out there.

A lot of you have been asking us when the Red Line will start running its normal number of trains and at regular speeds during rush hour, and today Metro offered an answer of sorts: it's going to be another 10 days, at a minimum. WMATA says Red Line riders should expect the same packed trains through July 19, thanks to ongoing reduced rush hour service during the NTSB investigation of the June 22 crash. Between now and July 19, Red Line trains will continue to move one at a time at a reduced speed between Takoma and Fort Totten, which is the source of most of the current Red Line troubles -- fewer trains can move along the line due to the change, and trains can more easily become backed up. The Takoma station will also continue to close at 10 p.m. for at least the next 10 nights as investigators continue their work. There's no guarantee in this Metro announcement that July 19 will be the last of it, either. Merely, word is that July 19 is the best case scenario.

Morning rush hour has seemed more tedious lately on 14th Street NW: we've noticed and have gotten emails about gridlock on 14th going south from about Columbia Heights all the way to Thomas Circle, apparently without explanation. It seems to be worst from between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m., and we haven't been able to figure out a reason for it—DDOT's website doesn't have anything, we haven't gotten any AlertDC notices about it, and we haven't noticed police, wrecks, or other usual suspects like water main breaks along the corridor. A reader today emailed tips(at)dcist(dot)com saying she tried taking 13th Street instead of 14th today, but it was backed up as well. So we thought we'd ask you: any idea what's going on here? Is this just the new reality of an increasingly densely populated Columbia Heights? Photo by Brian Knight Photography

It seems amazing to me that the District government doesn't impose an additional fee when it tows cars illegally parked in rush hour lanes. Whenever possible the city just moves cars to another nearby street, gives the driver a $100 ticket, and that's it, no additional towing fee. Considering the inconvenience drivers who leave their cars in rush hour lanes cause to everyone, the practice seems a little too fair. Well now the D.C. Council looks poised to do something about it. The Examiner reports that they have tentatively approved an additional $100 "vehicle relocation fee" that drivers would be charged on top of the parking ticket fine. The fee is designed to allow DPW to hire more independent tow trucks to help move more vehicles out of the way. Seems like a pretty reasonable solution.

A typical weekday morning for yours truly involves catching the next train out of Van Ness-UDC to Dupont Circle. And more often than not, there's a train waiting for me at the station when I get there. No problems, right?

Not since 7' 7" Gheorghe Muresan guarded the paint for the Bullets from 1993 to 1997 has an enormous dude played basketball regularly for a D.C. area team - sorry Roy Hibbert, 7' 2" doesn't cut it. For those fans looking for another behemoth to cheer on, the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association have announced that they've signed 7' 8 3/4" Sun Ming Ming, supposedly the tallest person to ever play professional basketball....

Hey D.C., watch where you step. It's still icy out there, but today's temps should reach the 40's, melting the remaining ice for at least a while. Some kids are still in luck with a few school delays this morning, mostly in the Virginia suburbs. Here's hoping the warmer conditions mean drivers can stop acting like it's locusts, not snow, crunching under the tires. Chief Inspector Also Convict: Clearly D.C. doesn't have any problem with...