Latest Comments

  • WMATA’s train shortage could delay Silver Line expansion opening

    Kinda funny that apparently, no one has the energy anymore to get upset about this.

  • So long, and thanks for all the fish.
  • Only in a couple of places, like Manhattan and San Francisco. Upper class people won't ride public transit under any circumstances. Middle class people will ride rail. 
  • WMATA messed up the initial version of the file they uploaded, but it's since been fixed: www.wmata.com/about/news/New-Silver-L...

  • drumz on September 23, 2022 at 1:15 pm (Advocates have pushed for a subway in DC since FDR and WWII)

    A few years ago someone brandished a gun right by the Pentagon Metro entrance and even shot a security guard before being gunned down themselves. 

    There was talk about moving the entrance even further away until it was pointed out that the whole point of armed security is to shoot back at someone and the physical distance between the incident and the front doors of the pentagon doesn't really matter much. 

  • Regarding four lane capacity:  a highway planner once told me that he had done a road diet on a four-lane with about 21k vehicles per day-meaning that two lanes with a left turn in the middle (i.e. 3 lanes) had been enough to handle it.  i.e. two lanes plus two middle running transit lanes with associated left turn lanes for cars could handle the current traffic with a very slight reduction in cars.  If the BRT is convenient, fast, and safe, that reduction sounds probable.

    Note that four lanes of traffic backed up waiting to get through the Quaker Lane intersection is all stopped--FAR less throughput than two lanes actually moving.  Much four lane capacity around the metro area is used to store waiting cars, not to move them.

    A rich guy of my acquaintance told me once how nice one of his regular trips was on a Metrobus:  he waited in Starbucks sipping a beverage and kept an eye on the bus stop automatic display of arrival time, and sauntered out with a couple of minutes leeway to board the bus that dropped him near his destination.  IF you've got convenience and comfort, middle and upper class people WILL ride transit.

  • I hate service roads. They just add complexity to every intersection and not a lot of benefit you'd get just from a wider road (note, I'm not asking for a wider road). 

    I support them going away for the cynical part of me that knows the city and state wouldn't even pretend to consider bus lanes without keeping at least 4 general purpose lanes but if someone really wants to make the case to keep them they ought to do it while also not sacrificing the changes necessary to improve transit. 

  • Still seems like there's a relationship there that I'm not grasping. Unless things are way more drastic on either side of the intersection of Mass and SC Avenues than I realized. 

    I guess maybe the presence of the stuff around RFK influences that tract way more than the tract right underneath Lincoln Park. Is it actually "proportion of housing units to overall buildings"? It's just that there's a very stark contrast in that section of the map where I don't think you'd really notice if you're actually walking around the area. More information about the methodology might help but I can't find any. 

  • Yes, GGWash has a long history of writing about psychology and I hope it's brought back.
  • @spookiness

    There are many important topics, but let’s keep the scope focused.

    If you're referring to Chester's comment above, I'd say that GGW hasn't been focused on key issues facing urbanism for some time.  GGW is ostensibly dedicated to promoting urbanism, and mental health - and the mental health/addiction/crime/homelessness nexus - is absolutely critical to the success of the urbanist agenda.  There are many things that GGW has decided to chase ("equity," pit bull laws, abortion etc.) that have a much less significant impact on urbanism than those issues.

  • It's a pipe dream to think that public transit will have all the benefits listed in this essay. It doesn't run 24/7/365 like cars can, and it doesn't provide door to door service. You can't carry large amounts of goods on public transit, and you have to make many transfers to accomplish your day to day tasks. Trip-chaining is a pain on public transit. And one has to wait in the sun/snow/rain for the next bus. Over-reliance on public transit actually increases housing segregation because trips are not long if they're not painful. There is also de facto income separation because middle class and above people rarely ride buses. It does have advantages, such as accessibility for people with mobility impairments and for people who cannot afford cars. 
  • I live in 2A as well, and the service roads have struck me as mixed in terms of safety. They're definitely a great buffer from Duke, instead of having to walk directly next to fast traffic. They also function as de facto sidewalks right now, since the actual sidewalks are so narrow and frequently blocked by utility poles or parked cars. 

    On the other hand I've had many a near miss with cars turning onto and off of Duke. Cars turning onto duke have to pull up past the service road to be able to see oncoming traffic, but they often do this without checking for pedestrians crossing first. And once a car has pulled up passed the service road, they block visibility of pedestrians for anyone turning off of duke. 

    I hope they can be creative to keep the safety benefits on that stretch without sacrificing mobility for the broader community. 
  • Chester B. on September 23, 2022 at 11:17 am (No bloody slashes, dashes or unnecessary acronyms)
    I’m not sure I like those changes myself, but wanted to see what other people think. Anybody else have an opinion on them?

    I don't support changing the name of Forest Glen to Beltway North

  • I'm missing something, there's enough room for a lane of service road and bus lane. It means people with driveways will loose on street parking. And some trees, but it'll be net gain in reduced gridlock, and increased group mobilty
  • What's with the colors on the new metro map? I guess they're supposed to be more legible for people with poor color vision, but the green in particular looks pretty bad. Anyone have any insights into this?

  • There are many important topics, but let's keep the scope focused.
  • Lets be real, road rage is going to happen no matter the size of a public education campaign or how long it takes because drivers go ballistic over anything telling them no. Just rip off the band aid and put NROR at every intersection over six months, let drivers lose it for a few weeks, and then it will become the new normal. 
  • Frank IBC on September 23, 2022 at 9:47 am (Advocates have pushed for a subway in DC since FDR and WWII)
    Good point - it looks like the "White House" station would have been much farther from the actual building than the Pentagon station. And even the relocated bus terminal is closer to the building.
  • I hope GGWash will write more about mental health; it is a very important topic.
  • Chester B. on September 23, 2022 at 9:32 am (Advocates have pushed for a subway in DC since FDR and WWII)
    But can you imagine the expense of relocating it after 9/11?

    On the other hand, the Pentagon station still exists

  • Frank IBC on September 23, 2022 at 9:22 am (Advocates have pushed for a subway in DC since FDR and WWII)

    "White House Station" would have been awesome.

    But can you imagine the expense of relocating it after 9/11?

  • Drumz: Purple census tracts have the most total housing units...Green ones the fewest....Blue seems to be business zones.
  • This article says little about the impact of the City's preferred option which would eliminate service roads and possibly use eminent domain to acquire privately owned property from homeowners and businesses. I recommend an additional article by some of those home and business owners that paint a more accurate picture of this project.
  • Correction: "XX siblings" should be "two siblings".
  • Someday, I hope their dreams of a functioning subway in DC will be realized.
  • The segment 2A service roads are vital safety infrastructure. The curbs, mature trees and parked cars protect pedestrians, including my young children, from Duke St traffic.

  • Sand Box John on September 22, 2022 at 9:43 pm (Breakfast links: Metrorail wheel concerns may be linked to track problems)

    The problem I have with this story is the fact that WMATA ran cars from four difference manufactures riding on trucks with wheel sets from six difference manufactures on the same track for 30 years that never resulted in the same problem the 7k cars are suffering from.

  • @ Another Nick -

    This was my great-grandmother's experience, two to three decades earlier.

    -Immigrated with her parents and siblings in 1870-71 at age 4-7.

    -Returned to Ireland with her parents and XX siblings a few months later.

    -Immigrated a second time in 1880-82, age 14-18 with one brother, age 14 in 1882.

    I don't mean to disparage your family's experience and as you can see there are a lot of inconsistencies in the record.

  • Correct. The only restrictions on any country of origin before then had been China and Japan.

    There was then no requirement to obtain permission to immigrate before you embarked in Southampton, Liverpool, Queenstown (now Cobh), Hamburg, Le Havre or St. Petersburg. You just showed up at Ellis Island (or Castle Clinton before 1890, and were quickly admitted following a medical test, then eligible for citizenship 7 years later.

    And there were no national quotas for the countries of the Americas until 1965.

    I laugh at these attempts to compare immigration in 2022 to immigration in 1920.

  • Another Nick on September 22, 2022 at 6:15 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    Nothing “limited” about it. 

    My mom's paternal grandfather was returned to Austria-Hungary as an unaccompanied minor in 1902 and made a second attempt four years later, when he was old enough to arrive on his own.  There were limits before and outside the scope of the 1921 regulations.

  • Done, x 6. :)
  • The US had no immigration quotas until 1921. There were explicitly racist bans against immigration from China and others were kept out on arguably flimsy or subjective pretexts, but before 1921 unlimited numbers of immigrants from most countries could just show up. Nothing "limited" about it. 
  • And half a dozen more screennames today

    I hope people report commenters who switch handles to the comment moderator 

  • Federal traffic control standards require a sign at any intersection where No Turn on Red is in effect. NYC managed to negotiate a waiver for the signing requirement from the Feds, but the Feds are not giving out any new waivers. 
  • The USA was built on orderly and limited legal immigration.

    Lol. The US was built on such a messy system that it had to include birthright citizenship to determine who were Americans in the first place. And to figure out what citizenship the children were of the people that were here whatever way they ended up here - remember a good portion of the people here did not come here voluntarily.

    Immigration policy through the centuries has been explicitly racist. Chinese were banned, Irish and Italians were blamed for spreading diseases just like  current immigrants are being accused of.

    Orderly and limited. Lol.

  • It would be nice to be able to help everyone who shows up at your doorstep but the reality is the US can’t solve the world’s problems…

    That's a nice political debate to have, but most of the people that get sent here are in a legal process to get asylum. So, they are here, through the front door, and in the legal system. Whether you like it or not.

    The question then becomes: What circumstances do you want for those people as they await the verdict of their process, which can take years? The obvious answer is to give them a temporary work permit, ending when their process ends, so they can work and provide for themselves. I did the same thing when I applied for my green card. It would also help if you help them get to a community where they can get support: family, friends, church, work, etc. All kinds of support systems exist, but people need to be able to get to them.

    Meanwhile, what is not handy is shipping them randomly across the country and often away from the office where they have to report for their next in-person appointment. That is inefficient and unnecessarily expensive.

    Most asylum seekers enter the process in good faith. They are trying to navigate a very maddeningly complicated system. If they make a mistake, they get kicked out. If the system makes a mistake, nothing happens. Helping them through the process (whatever the decision is) and to a (temporary) job is the best thing you can do, because the longer the process takes, the more costly it is. And remember, they did not design the immigration system. Congress did.

    When people talk about what should be happening in immigration, they are often overlooking simple realities and projecting what they want the system to be. But alas, Congress does not seem able to change the current system, so here we remain. With all of its maddeningly stupid outcomes.

  • And half a dozen more screennames today, all with the same fixations and insults.
  • I can believe it will take DDOT over 2 years to effect this change.  A more efficient organization would be 3 months. 
  • A 2025 date seems reasonable. This gives them two years to develop a strategy, get funding, launch public education campaigns, and deal with signage and signals, and fit in the demands of this new requirement with all the other projects DDOT has on its plate. Or we can do it really, really fast and let road rage and gunfire educate the population. 
  • Fiscal Moderate on September 22, 2022 at 3:21 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)
    Yeah, I know you don’t.  

    Probably just bias.

  • Live Your Values on September 22, 2022 at 3:05 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    @fiscal moderate

    I don’t understand

    Yeah, I know you don't.  

    Carry on playing whatever mental gymnastics you need to keep that dissonance at bay - you'll never, ever think critically, even as the ship sinks around you. 

  • Fiscal Moderate on September 22, 2022 at 2:56 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)
    Diversity is our strength

    I don't understand why you continue to mock this very obvious fact. It undermines everything else you say. The US is the most diverse country in history and it's no coincidence it's also the strongest. Homogenous and provincial cultures have not typically fared well. Going back to ancient times, diversity was a strength of empires such as Rome. In fact, Rome's genetic diversity peaked at the same time as the size and strength of their empire.

    Just speaking scientifically, a diverse gene pool is stronger than a homogenous one.

  • Fiscal Moderate on September 22, 2022 at 2:49 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)
    There would be no USA without migrants.

    The USA was built on orderly and limited legal immigration.

    There would be no USA without borders. 
  • Live Your Values on September 22, 2022 at 2:27 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    @alurin

    There would be no USA without migrants.

    Exactly!  Hear that, Fiscal Moderate?  What are you, some sort of Trump-loving hater?  You should do what Alurin is obviously willing to do - open their home to any migrant that needs a place to crash, then cut a big, fat check to DC to make sure they have everything they need.  If you don't, you're a racist and probably a Putin supporter. 

  • The solution is for migrants to not cross the border to begin with.

    There would be no USA without migrants.

  • That cannot be the reason. Sheridan Station sits a few feet, literally, from the main subject of this article. I should know, I have lived there for 8 years. Perhaps she doesn’t address it because it is mixed income residential community and doesn’t include commercial or office space. That maybe the case.  If we go by the definition I see on the internet, the Bridge District development at the foot of Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge that includes the west entrance of the Anacostia Metro as a part of its footprint is a far more appropriate example: it includes plans for office, retail and apartments- including the first market apts over here in a long time. 

    But The Bridge Apt building just includes commercial space. On a side note: The Chapman, about a quarter of a mile down MLK also has a a large commercial space that has only now been leased after about 4 years standing empty. Getting retail over has been a very long struggle.

  • Live Your Values on September 22, 2022 at 2:14 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    @fiscal moderate

    The solution is for migrants to not cross the border to begin with.

    Well, one way to dissuade illegals from crossing the border is to stop telling them that the city is a sanctuary where the laws of the country don't apply to them.  But DC is a sanctuary city (Bowser - following her constituents' wishes - has proudly and loudly declared this on many occasions), so DC needs to live its values and provide "wrap-around services" to every illegal who shows up.  

    Fret not!  Diversity is our strength, so the dividends of sanctuary policy will outweigh the cost.  After all, given that the truth of that slogan is axiomatic, how could the outcome be anything but net positive?  

  • Fiscal Moderate on September 22, 2022 at 1:54 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)
     migrants will not be allowed to access DC’s homeless services system. Some DC officials, including Mayor Muriel Bowser, argue that the existing system is not equipped to meet the needs of the influx of migrants

    How long before people realize this will never work? Many migrants won't be able to become productive members of society without costly wraparound services. But providing those services diverts resources from legal residents. It would be nice to be able to help everyone who shows up at your doorstep but the reality is the US can't solve the world's problems...we have plenty of our own. The solution is for migrants to not cross the border to begin with.

  • Editorialized Headings on September 22, 2022 at 1:48 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    Metro will take new measures to increase passengers’ sense of safety

    "Sense" of safety?  So GGW is suggesting that Metro has become no more unsafe recently than say, five years ago? 

    Laughable - what is it with this blog - and most leftists - simply refusing to acknowledge that public safety has declined?  If one really cared about urbanism, one would support safer cities, but since this new-breed neo-ubanism has very little to do with improving cities and much more to do with pushing a constellation of weird, regressive politics, its proponents find it critical to downplay crime. 

  • Meaningless Signaling on September 22, 2022 at 1:40 pm (Breakfast links: DC Council votes unanimously to ban right turns on red)

    @cpterp

    Surprised this didn’t happen earlier. And why 2025?

    They could make it tomorrow, but without enforcement (of which there is none in the District) it accomplishes absolutely nothing. 

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