View Larger Map This year's Independence Day fireworks are scheduled to begin at 9:10 p.m. (Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.) But do you know how you'll be getting to and from the District's most coveted viewing locations? Well, the District government (and the rest of us living here) would really prefer it if you used public transportation or walked, rather than driving - as one might suspect, there's going to be all sorts of stringent......

Did you get an email from Metro yesterday? If you did, you're now an important part of a new program that's attempting to find ways to improve the service of the S bus lines, which run between Silver Spring and downtown D.C. The first step in the The Metrobus 16th Street Line Study was surveys which were distributed to riders of any S line bus on June 18. The email contains details about a community......

Consider alternate routes around the Wilson Bridge this evening, as WTOP is reporting a serious motorcycle crash on the Inner Loop of the Beltway near the bridge. An AlertDC email at 2:33 p.m. said that the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is actually closed at this time. The Outer Loop remains open. WTOP says that emergency personnel and officials are asking all motorists to stay off the shoulders, even though all lanes are currently blocked. Photo by......

The Post makes the right call on today's rally planned for Sen. Barack Obama at Nissan Pavilion is Bristow, Va. It's going to be a traffic nightmare of epic proportions. You thought the Radiohead debacle was bad? Imagine a free 6 p.m. event open to all comers that will kickoff a historic national campaign for president by a candidate with huge support from young, enthusiastic, politically-minded, college-educated Democrats in a metro area that has one......

You might have missed it between the hot dogs and the pool parties and enjoying the warm weather, but Saturday's Post ran a front page story on the sad afterthoughts of Maryland's Intercounty Connector — a neighborhood that is literally being split, run over, and wiped from the land it sits on. The Connector, a massive multi-billion dollar project, has at last begun construction just a few miles away, and the Post does it's part......

It seems that we read a lot of stories like Jonathan Lieber's. Long story short: Mr. Lieber, who was being accosted at gunpoint, attempted to flee through the intersection at 13th and Euclid NW, collided with a car, and — after receiving his stitches — was presented with a $50 ticket for causing the accident. Additionally, the police report erroneously placed fault for his split lip on Lieber himself. But with some new technology, these......

Hopefully, you didn't miss us too much last week. But it seems that we weren't the only transit columnists that got stuck on Amtrak during last weekend's travel. WTOP's Adam Tuss writes a sadly typical tale about his Amtrak train to New York's Penn Station breaking down twice and eventually stopping permanently in Newark, New Jersey, due to multiple power failures. This happened on Amtrak's National Train Day promotion, no less. Cute. While Amtrak didn't......

Photo by cstein96 Just a few days after Metro's board gave preliminary approval to the restructuring of the 30s bus lines, the Examiner has a story reporting that Metro General Manager John Catoe is now shifting his attention toward improving Metrobus service after spending his first year focusing mainly on Metrorail. Among Catoe's priorities for Metrobus: hiring more bus supervisors and giving them dispatcher authority that would allow them to make alterations to bus......

Major roadwork is scheduled on the Outer Loop starting Friday night and lasting until Sunday afternoon, which will reduce traffic to one lane in preparation for next week's shift to moving traffic onto the second span of the Wilson Bridge. In addition to the lane closures, ramps at the Route 1 Interchange to and from the Outer Loop will be closed, and detours from the Telegraph Road Interchange and the Springfield Interchange will be in......

This is how Metrobus drivers are supposed to pull up to stops: flush with the sidewalk, and out of other lanes of traffic. But as anyone who either regularly rides city buses or drives in this city well knows, many, many times, Metrobus drivers instead just pull the front of the bus in to a stop, leaving the tail end blocking traffic from going forward behind them. WTOP reports on Metro General Manager John Catoe's......

Where have you gone, Louie Gohmert? Way back, you said that "Washington, D.C. is also the only city in the entire country that every senator and every member of Congress has a vested interest in seeing that it works properly, that water works, sewer works, and no other city in America has that." The only reason we ask is to see if you could kinda tap on Sen. Tom Coburn's office door and sorta ask......

Actually, last year Washingtonians were saved some driving chaos because the protest on the anniversary of the Iraq invasion was held on a Saturday. Not this year, as protesters from every possible anti-war faction will be gathering in D.C. tomorrow Wednesday on actual date of the invasion, March 19. Organized under United for Peace and Justice, we count at least ten different events planned around the city. We'll be greeted with folks blocking the IRS......

We haven't yet gotten the official press release from the Department of Public Works, but the agency's online public calendar shows that residential street sweeping is set to resume on Monday, March 24. As happens every winter, street sweeping and the parking restrictions that come along with it were suspended on Nov. 30. Here's how DPW describes its street sweeping regime:Mechanical street sweeping is a weekly service in heavily trafficked residential sections of Wards 1,......

The Cleveland Park listserv is teeming with arguments in favor of and against eliminating the reversible traffic lanes on Connecticut Avenue, which many people claim to be unsafe for drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists alike; of course, others (read: commuters) are crying bloody murder at the potential increase in traffic jams during the morning and evening rush hour on one of the cities main arterial roadways....

Good morning, Washington. The week surrounding the holidays is almost always a certifiably slow news period, so you can bet good money every local media outlet in the country is shamefacedly relieved to be able to find their own angle on the terrifying fatal San Francisco Zoo tiger attack. Sister site SFist has the roundup of Bay Area coverage, and the Examiner steps up to the plate with the D.C. version of the story --......

Adams Morgan residents on the streets surrounding the new Harris Teeter received official notice at the end of last week that the District Department of Transportation is changing the flow of traffic to accommodate the anticipated increase in cars on the surrounding residential streets. As it stands right now, all three streets that bound the block containing the store are two-way thoroughfares. As of January 21, they'll all become one-way. As detailed in the letter:......

Last week's comment section was full of goodness (and a technical glitch, sorry). From schools to traffic to illegal second timeouts, there was plenty to go around. The comment of the week comes from G Lover Park (who also narrowly missed the coveted best username of the week award). G Lover had a brilliant theory: Yet more evidence of vast Supermarket Industrial Complex, more casually referred to as the Perishable Triangle. The major brands get......

Though it is District law that cars must stop for pedestrians in every crosswalk, let's be honest -- very few actually do so. When I choose to walk to work, I'm often left to navigate the harrowing crosswalk at Connecticut Avenue and Wyoming Avenue NW, where even a sign reminding drivers of their responsibility to stop is regularly (and at high-speed) ignored. Council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) is hoping to change that. Cheh's office......

We've reached another Friday, D.C., but if those light flurries that accompanied you on your way into work this morning gave you visions of a leisurely Saturday snowball fight, you'll likely end up disappointed. Very little accumulation is expected from these flakes, and the weekend will see temperatures back in the upper 40s, with a possibility of some light rain on Saturday morning, according to CapitalWeather.com. If this update doesn't satisfy your weather nerd urges,......

The White House Christmas Tree lighting ceremony is scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday Nov. Dec. 6, at 5 p.m., which means without a doubt, if you can avoid driving your car in the city, you really should. The annual ceremony always screws up downtown traffic in an extreme way. Add the leftover snow and ice on the ground into the mix, and we can promise you a traffic clusterf*** of epic proportions tomorrow evening. If you'd......

Good morning, Washington. The pernicious effects of this year's drought could continue to haunt the region during next year's holiday season, according to WTOP. Turns out that young Christmas trees and seedlings being grown in Maryland and Virginia were especially affected by the lack of rainfall, meaning that thousands of area children could suffer the indignity of having to make due with a sub-par decorative plant with which to entice entice Santa to leave them......

I actually saw this photo last night on Intangible Arts' blog, as he described walking home after his bus became stuck in traffic due to the shooting we mentioned earlier at 13th Street and Columbia Road last night. The short series of images he accumulated as he strolled through the neighborhood after a short rain, wondering about the police activity but noting the continuing, leftover holiday silence, is a classic entry in the book......

>> Both the White House Christmas Tree and the Capitol Christmas Tree arrived in Washington today. >> D.C. fire officials are warning people not to overload electrical circuits in their homes this holiday season in the wake of a fatal garage fire over the weekend. [WTOP] >> Vice President Dick Cheney experienced an irregular heartbeat Monday and will be heading to George Washington University Hospital to have it checked out -- in case you......

Happy Thanksgiving, Washington. The streets are quiet this morning in the capital; one cab driver remarked to this writer that it was his favorite day to drive in the city -- no traffic, no tourists, and everyone he picks up tends to be cheery and a big tipper. The forecast in D.C. today is calling for an unseasonably warm high of 72 degrees, with a solid chance of afternoon showers and gastrointestinal distress. What's the......

America by Air, the newest permanent gallery opened by The National Air and Space Museum, encompasses the entire history of flight and air travel in the United States, starting in 1914 and leading up to today. We know what you're thinking, "Isn't that what the whole museum is about?" And yes...it is. So Air and Space has managed to create an exhibit that is, in fact, a microcosm of itself, which is so damn postmodern......

>> D.C. Council members have rejected a plan to give a developer city-owned land worth $6 million on which to build a new Radio One headquarters. [WJLA] >> Five new restaurants are coming to Columbia Heights. [Prince of Petworth] >> Traffic was temporarily halted at Union Station this afternoon as Amtrak Police investigated a report of a suspicious package near Gate A in Union Station. Regular service had resumed by 4 p.m. [WaPo] >>......

>> The Senate might have to work all weekend, in advance of a possible vote on Sunday on whether to take up a $50 billion war funding bill that calls for a troop withdrawal from Iraq in 12 months, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) warned. Be prepared to hear all your Senate staffer friends complain about this at happy hour tonight. [The Hill] >> Foxhall Road will be closed to traffic between MacArthur Boulevard......

Fox5 reported on Sunday that a member of their staff, Gwen Tolbart, was injured in a collision between her car and a Metrobus on Saturday night on her way home. Tolbart was thankfully not seriously hurt, but the bus driver, Harvey Carey of Lanham, has now been charged with failing to stay in the proper lane, which resulted in the accident. Fishbowl DC has posted an email from Tolbart in which she describes the experience,......

>> Pope Benedict XVI will make his first visit to the United States as pontiff in April next year, with his first mass to be held at the new Nationals stadium here in D.C. [AP via WTOP] >> Four people who were stabbed Sunday afternoon during a soccer game near RFK are expected to be OK. [AP via WJLA] >> The Maryland House of Delegates this week will take up Gov. Martin O'Malley's plan......

The United States Park Police, DDOT and MPD have released the following road closure advisories for Saturday's Veterans Day Parade. All closures should be re-opened by 5 p.m. Saturday. Roads closed at 6 a.m.: * Jefferson Drive from 14th Street to 4th Street, SW * Madison Drive from 4th Street to 15th Street, NW * Seventh Street from Independence Avenue to Constitution Avenue, NW Roads closed at 10:30 a.m.: * Lincoln Memorial Circle to Henry......