Just a quick update on SmartBike DC: the city’s shared bicycle program resumed normal service as of 6 a.m. this morning, according to a message sent to subscribers. SmartBike service had been suspended since the snow storm, but it looks like they’ve finally since managed to clear all the ice and snow away from the rental stations….

Photo by elocke It’s not hard to imagine that regular SmartBike DC customers have been having a hard time accessing the service for the last couple weeks. Many of the shared bicycle stations are still buried under snow banks, and besides, riding a bicycle with this much ice and snow still on the roads is not for the faint-hearted. In any event, in case you hadn’t guessed, SmartBike service is not up and running…

A set of three billboards that have been the source of complaints for decades are no more. A crew from Clear Channel was out at the site, at the intersection of 4th and P streets and New Jersey Ave. NW, this morning take down the large signs. Neighbors have long complained that the billboards allowed the perfect cover for illegal activity, and local activists launched a campaign to get them removed. The city eventually found…

It looks like I.M.P., the Montgomery County-based company that runs the 9:30 Club and Merriweather Post Pavilion, hasn’t given up on opening a Silver Spring music hall. In September, we wrote that concert producer and venue owner Live Nation had signed a non-binding letter of intent to put a Fillmore music hall in the old J.C. Penney store at Georgia Avenue and Colesville Road in Silver Spring, across from the AFI Silver Theater. Both the…

We told you long ago, in 2005 that is, that the District planned to roll out 788 new bus shelters as part of a $150 million deal with Clear Channel Outdoor. The shelters are finally starting to slowly creep across the city. On 8th Street between Capitol Hill proper and H Street NE, at least four shelters have been ripped out and are in the process of being replaced with the fancy new digs….

We noted awhile ago that the owners of the Birchmere had been in talks to open another venue in Silver Spring — while that has fallen by the wayside, it looks like Live Nation will be moving in instead. The Clear Channel spinoff, which produces concerts and owns music venues around the country, including Nissan Pavilion, various Fillmores, and the House of Blues chain, signed a letter of intent to build in an old J.C….

Just a little over a month ago, DCist Jeff updated our very occasional series, What We’re Missing, with a plea for the introduction of municipal bicycles available for rent all over the city, a la the same deal that Paris, France is about to get. Here’s what he said: At first, we cringe at the thought of hundreds of street-clogging lost tourists and a cottage industry of bike thefts. With more examination, though, there’s a…

Driving down I-81 in central Virginia earlier this year, we heard something we haven’t heard in awhile: a radio station playing good music. This, and the announcement of “eco-station” 94.7 the Globe got us thinking: why doesn’t D.C. have a good independent music station? Other big cities have great listener-supported music stations, like KEXP in Seattle and WFMU in New York, and many other cities have decent student-run college stations. But D.C. has neither. About…

MONDAY No, he didn’t make An Inconvenient Truth, but climate change policy wonks will probably turn out to throw Joseph Romm a bone as he signs Hell and High Water: Global Warming—the Solution and the Politics—and What We Should Do. At Politics and Prose, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW., at 7 p.m. WEDNESDAY When the men of a remote mountain village in Colombia are abducted by guerrillas, the women left behind learn how to get by…

The Washington Post reported today that concert venue chain House of Blues may be opening an outpost in Penn Quarter in the not-too-distant future. The National Capital Revitalization Corp. inked a non-binding deal with HOB’s owner, Clear Channel Communications, to develop the property at 5th and I, NW. What does this bode for rock venues like the 9:30 Club and the Black Cat?. Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham put in his two cents, calling…