Photo by Bsivad

Photo by Bsivad

>> You know why the first three months of every year are the best? Because Virginia’s elected officials meet for their annual legislative session, where, as the Post reported this weekend, they propose and debate laws that are either comical or confounding—and sometimes both. Last year it was transvaginal ultrasounds that led the news, while this year it’s coinage for the commonwealth.

>> Could D.C. get a congestion charge like London has? Maybe, but not just yet. That’s what Mayor Vince Gray told WTOP after speaking at a conference on Saturday hosted by the D.C. Department of Transportation on the city’s long-range transit goals. Gray said that a number of options were being explored to control traffic in the city, and that if it were ever needed, the city could consider charging cars to come into certain parts of downtown D.C.

>> The Beltway Express lanes in Virginia—which charge drivers to use them, which prices fluctuating based on traffic—lost $11.3 million in their first six weeks of being used, writes the Examiner. The company that manages the lanes admits that fewer people than expected are using them so far, but says that usage will increase as drivers get more used to them.

Briefly Noted: Gray says that streetcars will roll in 2013 … D.C. may have to give back $28.5 million in federal money due to bad bookkeeping … D.C. charter schools forced to pay for repairs of old public school buildings … Police increasing security after a string of armed robberies at the University of Maryland.

This Day in DCist: On this day in 2012, CPAC came and went. In 2011, Ingmar Guandique was sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing Chandra Levy and some D.C. cops were accused of taking raids on massage parlors a little too seriously.