Does Vienna Really Look Like That?
It’s one thing when out-of-town producers come into the area and screw up backdrops. We were almost willing to forgive the producers of Fox’s “Bones,” whose ignorance of the area’s geography led them to place the U.S. Capitol within eyesight of Dulles International Airport. But it’s a whole other thing when the mistake is made by locals.

In an online ad for The Four Winds at Oakton, an upscale development near the intersection of Route 123 and I-66 in Fairfax County, a smiling woman is pictured standing on a station platform waiting for an oncoming train, with the ad proudly announcing, “Vienna Metro Just 5 Minutes Away!” The problem is that the station platform she is standing on doesn’t even remotely come close to the predictable and well-known Metrorail architecture, much less does the oncoming train look anything like WMATA’s stock rail-cars. That’s definitely not Vienna, nor is it Metro. Hell, we can’t even tell if the picture was taken anywhere within the continental United States.

We can sympathize with the use of stock photography to cut costs in ads, but the least they could do is find stock photography from the area.

Hybrid Cars for the District Taxi Fleet?
Gas prices aren’t what they were, but they’re still high enough. And given the volatility of global oil markets, it doesn’t look like they will be coming down significantly anytime soon. These prices affect even the non-drivers among us — in early September, the D.C. Taxicab Commission endorsed a $1.50 surcharge on every fare to cover rising gas costs. The surcharge expires in January, but without a healthy drop in prices, it may remain on the books.

Beyond turning every District cab into a foot-powered vehicle a la Flintstones, the District should start considering some long-term alternatives. For example, New York recently implemented a program the District should really take after — hybrid taxicabs. Yesterday our neighbor to the north introduced six Ford Escape gas-electric hybrid cabs into the fleet of 13,000, a test that could eventually lead to a full conversion within five years. The Escape gets 36 miles per gallon and can go close to 500 miles on one tank of gas.

Honestly, why the heck not?