Photo by mediaslave.

Now here’s an interesting story from the Post — a group of residents in Temple Hills, Md. have started a campaign to inject some vibrancy into their business scene, and, as part of that effort, they’d like to open up a weekend farmers’ market in the parking lot of the Naylor Road Metro station. Good idea, right? Well, Metro isn’t too thrilled about it.

Proponents want to hold the market in the Metro station’s parking lot from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays. They made the request to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority last month but were rebuffed. Angela Gates, a Metro spokeswoman, said it is against WMATA rules to allow the sale of food and drink on its property.

Toles and others behind the effort say they don’t understand Metro’s reasoning.

“It’s a farmers market. We’re talking eggs and tomatoes. What are people going to do? Make an omelet [on the train]?” said Glenna Cush, director of training and marketing for the Maryland Small Business Development Center Network at the University of Maryland.

Can’t have those people littering the Metro with their nettle, after all.

Seriously, though, it’s an baffling decision — after all, this editor can’t remember similar reasoning from Metro regarding supermarkets outside Metro stations, yet there are still plenty of people who buy a fountain soda and a bag of chips only to head right into stations at Waterfront and Columbia Heights and Van Ness. (Put another way: would Metro’s response should Giant or Safeway want to build on their property be the same?) Not only that, but not allowing a group of local merchants to sell fresh produce to a grocery-deprived area that’s one of the County’s numerous food deserts — at the expense of still-to-be-developed large transit-oriented development that actually might actually prefer a built-in group of people who go to the location for food — just seems incredibly silly.