Good morning, Washington. Did you get down to see Sunday’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade? From the looks of the DCist Flickr pool, many of you did. D.C. doesn’t have a traditionally Irish neighborhood the way some other cities like Boston or New York do, but the Examiner reports on a new Brookings study that shows our metro area has become a major center for immigrants from so many other places all over the world in the last two decades. More than 1 million immigrants from countries like El Salvador, Korea and Pakistan now call the D.C. area home, although the vast majority of these communities have settled in the suburbs, particularly in Fairfax and Montgomery Counties. Could we one day soon see Washington hosting a full-scale El Salvadoran Day Parade or Korean Day Parade, the same way New York plays host to the Puerto Rican Day Parade? We think that would be pretty great.
For Whom the Tolls Toll: The Post has the early word on a report to be released Wednesday from regional transportation planners and officials that recommends adding tolls, and lots of them, to the metro area’s major roads and bridges as a way to curb traffic congestion. The planners say creating an extensive network of tolls on the bridges into the District, the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, George Washington Memorial Parkway and major District thoroughfares like New York Avenue, is the only option to improve the flow of traffic and generate the revenue needed for new roads and transit improvements. The report suggests the tolls should be deducted through an E-ZPass-like system that would allow vehicles to travel at normal speed.
Mt. Pleasant Fire Victims Struggle to Pick Up the Pieces: The Post follows up on how the victims of the five-alarm fire in Mt. Pleasant late last week are holding up. Congregants of the Meridian Hill Baptist Church have found a temporary home in Prince George’s County. Residents of the Mt. Pleasant Street apartment building are having a much more difficult time finding a new place to live.
Briefly Noted: Pedestrian struck on Connecticut Ave. … Police raid suspected brothel in Northeast … Violence at Wilson High ‘significant’ issue to Schools Chancellor Rhee … Drive-by shooting at 10th and F Streets NW … Prominent cardiologist and teenage son killed in plane crash.
Photo by dbking
