A happy Friday to you, Washington. Hopefully you all made it in to work on time despite Metro having reduced the speed of their rail cars in several areas this morning. Speed restrictions were in place until 8:10 a.m. along portions of the Orange line in Maryland and Virginia, the Red line from Union Station to Silver Spring and from Shady Grove to Grosvenor, and the Green line from Branch Avenue to Congress Heights…

It was only with intense patience and a deep well of courage that Samer Farha was finally capable of trapping the long sought after Land Shark in his wide-jawed f/4 aperture shutter. Though the creature has become more elusive these days, now that it has seized a fleet of Segways for its nefarious purposes, it finally emerged once prey ran low in the back alleys of Pennsylvania Avenue and Union Station’s gift shops…. considered…

The rush to get out of D.C. to family Thanksgiving celebrations has already begun, but if you’re still reading DCist, you’re probably still at work and planning on leaving within the next 72 hours. Whether opening up that military airspace will really make a difference at Washington area airports remains to be seen, but WMATA has announced a special Thanksgiving weekend schedule that could stand to help out many of you trying to take public…

>> D.C. Council members have rejected a plan to give a developer city-owned land worth $6 million on which to build a new Radio One headquarters. [WJLA] >> Five new restaurants are coming to Columbia Heights. [Prince of Petworth] >> Traffic was temporarily halted at Union Station this afternoon as Amtrak Police investigated a report of a suspicious package near Gate A in Union Station. Regular service had resumed by 4 p.m. [WaPo] >>…

FRIDAY: >> Local comic book store Fantom Comics is celebrating the grand opening of their new Union Station store tonight with a party from 6 to 10:30 p.m. They’ll be serving up free pizza on the early side and the comedy stylings of the Geek Comedy Tour during the second half of the night. There will also be a trivia contest with $500 gift certificates up for grabs. The party is inside the Union…

The folks over at Dulles Metro extension are breaking out the construction tools … and the credit cards. $900 million of the $2.83 billion price tag of the initial 11.6-mile leg is in that Transportation Department spending bill tied up in Congress and under threat of veto by President Bush. But with or without the money, officials plan to start work, reports The Examiner. Is it just us, or does this violate everything you ever…

We knew it was just a matter of time, but sure enough, there in our inbox this morning was the first announcement of an online petition begging D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty to change his mind about the $4 taxicab flag drop fee. A group calling themselves D.C. Residents for Reasonable Taxi Fares claim that the fares proposed by Mayor Fenty will mean that taxi fares in D.C. will be the highest in the country–higher than…

Good morning, Washington. It’s Friday, and the city is still reacting to yesterday afternoon’s announcement about how our new taxi meters are going to work. We already told you about the $4 flag drop, which many people are already saying is too high, and the fact that taxi roof lights will go on and off automatically to indicate whether a cab has a passenger, which everyone seems to agree is long overdue. One more thing…

Ten hours in to the 24-hour D.C. taxi strike, it’s looking like a large percentage of drivers in fact stayed home. As people make their way out of offices to head home and tend to children anxious to begin trick or treating, what will they find? Based on streets we’ve seen around town virtually devoid of D.C. cabs, we’d say that if you have your own car, your drive will most likely be a lot…

>> It’s Halloween! Spooky, Scary! Despite the taxi strike, SoberRide is still offering free taxi rides for people who have had too much to drink celebrating the holiday: If you need a ride home between 8 p.m. tonight and 4 a.m. tomorrow morning, call 1-800-200-TAXI and you should be able to get a free ride home of up to $50. How long you’ll have to wait for that ride is an open question, but…