Good morning, Washington. The weather today is supposed to be frigidly chilly this morning with temperatures later rising into the 40s, according to Capital Weather. Drew McDermott’s recent photo of the Virginia Square metrorail station entrance seems timely considering this morning’s first item …
A Transit Surplus and a Rate Hike?: Thanks to a 4 percent increase in subway ridership and a 10 percent increase in bus ridership, WMATA officials have gleefully announced they will end the year with a $8-9 million surplus.
With that, the region’s transit agency may feel emboldened to push a new fare hike. Now standing at a $1.35 base fare for metrorail and $1.25 for metrobus, some transit officials believe that they could impose another increase without risking ridership and to aid in cutting annual government subsidies from the District, Maryland and Virginia, the AP, via WJLA reports.
The Maryland Blogging Scandal, Ctd.: Joseph Steffan, the longtime aide to Gov. Robert Ehrlich and self-described “hatchet man” may be in more trouble than he bargained for. Whether he resigned or was fired for spreading anonymous rumors about Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s alleged marital infidelities is no longer the question for Maryland Democrats, but rather what role he may have played in purging the state bureaucracy of Democrats.
According to the Post, the state has already been taken to court six times over the last two years for firings that were deemed politically motivated — a number that may now soon rise. In related news, the scandal, which began with Steffan’s postings on freerepublic.com, has once again brought attention to the world of blogging. Matthew Felling from the Center of Media and Public Affairs likened blogs to “the international waters of the Internet age — a lawless area where anything goes.”
Parking Enforcement in District Falls Behind: District parking authorities seem to be doing their job … badly. Beyond the scorn reaped upon them by the legions of the city’s double-parkers and handicapped-for-an-hour, news has it that the District only collected fines on 53.5 percent of the $99 million worth of parking tickets issued last year, lagging behind Boston (90 percent) and the industry standard of 60-80 percent, the W.Times reports. While parking enforcement is handled by the Dallas-based Affiliated Computer Services, the District said it would investigate the problem itself.
One place perhaps to start: the D.C. Council. Members of the council exempted themselves from the city’s parking regulations in 2002 in a 10-3 vote. Three of those councilmembers that voted yes were voted out of office last November.
Committee Gives Thumbs-Down to Underwear Regulations: A Virginia Senate committee decided that a proposed law mandating a $50 fine for underwear exposed in a “lewd and indecent” manner was a little too much, even for a state that recently endorsed license plates declaring support for “Traditional Marriage.” The Courts of Justice Committee voted to dismiss the proposal in a chambermpacked with spectators, among those 75 high school students standing up for their — is “rights” the word we’re looking for?
Briefly Noted: The Metropolitan Police says that two boys shot on a G Street SE playground may have been targeted … DCSOB turns $5 and a scream into a Howard Dean bobblehead doll and in an unrelated move, changes the blog’s signature quote — now it’s: “The Potomac: The Maginot Line of the culture wars.” … Developers eye Westbard Avenue in Bethesda for massive redevelopment.
(DCist’s Martin Austermuhle contributed to this report.)
