Good morning Washington. Normally DCist won’t use our platform to ask you for help in a personal matter. But we must turn to you and say: “Help, our keg was stolen last night!” To celebrate good weather, 10+ DCists, surrogates and friends gathered at the Columbia Heights home of one of our contributors to eat, drink and plot how to introduce blogging to Loudoun County. And when we were all inside (we let our guard…

The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has been in the news lately for a couple initiatives. First, they have announced recently the creation of a panel of experts to examine alternate sources of dedicated funding for Metro. The Post describes it as a move to prevent the “financial meltdown” of the system. WMATA is the fourth largest public transit agency in the U.S., and operates the next busiest subway in the country after New York….

The newly-formed Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Riders Union has earned some publicity recently. An article in this week’s Washington Business Journal and an accompanying editorial laud the group, and report they have already formed links with the Sierra Club, and the Washington Regional Network (who will be jointly sponsoring an event called “making Metro Work” tonight):It’s an effort that deserves even more support, or at least consideration, from the business community, which was a major…

This summer hasn’t gone well for public transit in the District. Increased fares, (thankfully) short-lived tiny trains, and persistent problems on the Red Line have Metro riders talking about a union, and letter writers in the Post on Sunday griping about lax security. (See DCist: Commuting for all the fun) After all this, now seems like a good time to go stick it to the man, or at least ask some tough questions. You’re in…