Line for the burrito cart. Photo by kenyaoa on Flickr.

Wanted: more downtown burrito options: Matthew Yglesias writes about the scarce options for good burritos in downtown DC. The only good places are on food carts or in alleys, which means that either retail rents on streets are too high, or we need more food carts and alley eateries. (DC is working on new cart vending regulations, to mixed reviews thus far.)

Inaugural bike boulevard? WashCycle suggests closing a few low-traffic streets from outer DC neighborhoods to the Mall on January 20th to create some bicycle boulevards. That would give people unfamiliar with cycling in DC safe, well-defined routes to the Inauguration and the valet bike stations WABA recently announced. Failing that, suggests WashCycle, how about some organized bike caravans?

Free holiday parking doesn’t work: A business owner in Port Washington, New York writes that “free holiday parking… is adversely affecting the local businesses” because spaces all fill up and the town can’t effectively enforce time limits. Tip: Michael Perkins.

Now it’s other toll revenue, too: Once upon a time, Maryland highway officials insisted that the ICC would pay for itself with the tolls collected on the road. The state bought federally-backed bonds against this revenue. Now, the FHWA is giving the state yet another loan to build the road. This one totals $516 million, which Maryland will repay from “revenue from a number of toll facilities throughout Maryland, in addition to revenue generated by the ICC.”