Everyone knows that JFK once described the District as a city of Northern charm and Southern efficiency, but the same could be said about our winter weather contrasted with the complete incompetence of those who try to drive in its result or clear it from the roads. Beet juice or not, there’s ice on the roads and sidewalks. Walk and drive with caution. Torture Doesn’t Work: Guess what? Punishing Virginians with large fees – between…

If you’re a regular reader of Transit on Thursday, you’ll have noted week after week of Green line delays over the past few months caused by the testing of new rail cars. Good news – those delays could soon cease. Metro is getting ready to stop testing and starting using, reports WTOP. The new rail cars, featuring two different designs, will be brought into service by Christmas. The first design is carpetless, with lots of…

As we are still recovering from the gluttony that was Thanksgiving, and since it was pretty slow news week in, well, everything, we are light on the transit news, too. But first, which D.C. Council Member likes to ignore laws? You get one guess and the answer is after the jump. Photo by AlbinoFlea…

The folks over at Dulles Metro extension are breaking out the construction tools … and the credit cards. $900 million of the $2.83 billion price tag of the initial 11.6-mile leg is in that Transportation Department spending bill tied up in Congress and under threat of veto by President Bush. But with or without the money, officials plan to start work, reports The Examiner. Is it just us, or does this violate everything you ever…

It’s not like you go to the D.C. DMV to chat up the happy employees as it is. Now, reports the Examiner, when it comes to getting rid of parking tickets, you might not have the choice. The DMV is proposing moving all ticket adjudication services to postal mail or the Internet as a means of streamlining the process. The motivation? The number of tickets is expected to skyrocket next year as the city…

We’d like to waste about $800 sitting in traffic this year, please. That, at least, is the average annual cost for Marylanders who choose to drive during peak periods, (yet another) new Texas Transportation Institute tells us via Capitol News Service and WTOP. The total congestion cost, the study says, is $3.1 billion annually. We can think of some pretty good things to do with an extra $800. And they have nothing to do with…

We told you long ago, in 2005 that is, that the District planned to roll out 788 new bus shelters as part of a $150 million deal with Clear Channel Outdoor. The shelters are finally starting to slowly creep across the city. On 8th Street between Capitol Hill proper and H Street NE, at least four shelters have been ripped out and are in the process of being replaced with the fancy new digs….

If you don’t want to pay a toll, just don’t leave the city. Information is sketchy at best, but the federal government may soon propose a toll on cars entering the city via the 14th Street bridge, reports The Examiner. According to the story, the proposal seems to be nothing more than another one of those fabulous pipe dreams feds float from time to time for improving our city. Like Sen. Sam Brownback’s “flat tax”…

According to D.C. officials, about 700 pedestrians a year are hit by cars in the District, which factors out to about two a day. Wikipedia says there are currently about 580,000 of us living here, so that means the next time you step outside your door you have about a 1 in 83,000 chance of getting hit by that idiot who always runs the red light down the block. Given those rather grim odds,…

While we sit here tap-tapping our fingers, eagerly awaiting the Metro Board’s next move on our collective fare fate, we will distract ourselves with other traffic and metro related tidbits: metro savings, the ICC goes on and weekend delays. Photo by philliefan_99…